Team-mates AWOL
The slow-paced tactical gameplay is amplified by the many trips in between waypoints, usually on the back of a humvee or in a chopper. There’s some enjoyable banter to sit through on these journeys, and plenty of nice looking scenery to gawp at, but what with moving up the battlefield so slowly and these lengthy trips to endure, we spent a large part of our Red River experience desperate for things to speed up. Indeed, it feels like the developer has gone a little overboard in trying to create a realistic war game. While you could argue that we’ve just become so accustomed to shooter such as Black Ops, that grab us by the throat and lead us through an explosive world of set-pieces, we defy anyone not to be a little frustrated with the frequent long-ranged combat and bouts of travel.There are some beautifully-designed large scale environments in Red River, which definitely help encourage tactical play when you’re in the campaign with friends, but it also comes with its problems. Without keeping an eye on your radar, which flags up enemies, it’s often difficult to spot who’s firing a shot at you unless they’re in a group or relatively close. More often than not though, they’ll be standing a hundred miles away and appear as a hard-to-spot speck or silhouette. They don’t ever really do anything remotely clever either. You won’t see any swift flanking manoeuvres from your enemies, or anything that resembles a tactic, but you will see them pin-point your head with a sniper rifle the moment you decide to make a run in the open.
Your own squad doesn't fair much better. If you're playing alone, you get to command three other team-mates. The command system has all the options you'd expect, such as the ability to send your squad to a specific spot or to suppress the enemy, but largely it feels as if you're Rambo going it alone against the PLA masses. The problem is that your teammates are so inconsitent at following your commands and though sometimes they'll obey you perfectly, other times they'll do their own thing. In any squad-based game you should be made to feel like your team has your back, but here you'll be lucky if they come to your aid and heal you when you get shot. Who need friends like that?
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