Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 Reviews

Defending the Motherland, shooting deserters and commiting war crimes against the German people. The best "patriotic" game.

I boot up my PC. It’s evening. The cold wind is howling behind my window, it’s minus 15 outside but I don’t care. I fetch an old dusty bottle of whiskey and pour it in a small shot glass, I grab a crumpled pack of Luckies unfiltered and light up one with my Zippo lighter. I click on Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 and… Suddenly I’m clad in Soviet winter uniform, all bundled up, I stiffly hold onto my PPSH-41, my both hands are a little shaky from cold wind but I don’t pay much attention to it. Our commissar with a morose countenance tells us that the German push attack is expected to start in approximately 30 minutes. His words are sharp, they make me excited and a bit scared. We’re inside of a steel factory called ‘Krasniy Oktyabr’, our mission is to defend it at all costs… At least what is left of it after weeks of heavy bombings. It’s raining again. Everyone is in position. Silence. I only hear the raindrops… They fall from gritty dark skies and bump against the damp ground. Red bricks of once a great thriving factory get soaked. Everyone is not daring to utter a single word. There’s no time for words now, everything was already said a long time ago. Now the guns will talk and we will hear their harrowing dialogues. It’ll happen soon… any minute now. I catch the loud yell of our commissar “The attack has started! No retreat! For our Motherland, stand your ground, comrades!”. Bullets are flying all at once, to and fro, ricocheting off soaked ruins of walls and ceilings, penetrating poor souls who happened to stand in their way, eagerly taking their lives with them. My comrades, they swear and curse “f**ing Nazi scum, you’ll pay for everything, pigs” while firing their rifles. Germans shout and fire back, I hear their incensed cries of anger and distant grumble. I aim my PPSH and fire in small bursts, I see them running around with their grey uniforms but I don’t care. I’m angry, hungry, cold… I will kill. I kill. Burst after burst, one down, another one down.. and another one gone. I grab a grenade, pull the pin and fling it with all my force… Screams. All these screams around me. I’m truly in Hell. I think to myself “What a dismal day to die… If only I gave a f**k”. They’re inside the factory, just across the workshop facility. They are shooting at us and we are shooting back. A bullet flies past me, ripping a little part of my ear off. It’s painful but I’ll make it. I have no permission to bleed out, I’ll fight and kill every f**ing Nazi that came here burning and destroying our lands. Blood is everywhere, explosions… Echoes of pain. It starts to seem like we’ve been fighting for hours. The attack fades away. They’re retreating… For now. Corpses of Germans and Soviets are all around the factory building and its outskirts. I’m tired, I feel dried sticky blood on my face, my hands and all my clothes are dirty as well. The air is filled with the aroma of petrichor mixed with the smell of gunpowder and freshly murdered human bodies, almost creating a fine line between life and death. I sit down on a damp stone floor. I reach for my cigarettes. Fumbling around a little I get them, then I get an old box of matches. The lit match creates a lot of bright sparkles and gives life to the flame. It flickers, licking at my crumpled cigarette, creating some kind of an almost peaceful atmosphere. I take a long puff of my lit cigarette. My lungs are filling with thick rich tobacco smoke… I don’t pay attention to my hurting ear anymore. I’m relaxed. I think to myself “well, it’s not so bad after all, there will be more attacks, I’ll probably be dead by the next week. But I’m here and I’ll fight” It’s twilight. it’s still raining. My hands are trembling from cold. I’m sitting against the cold wall, hugging my PPSH and slowly smoking, enjoying every puff I take. I think about my hometown… my parents… “How are they?” The past barely feels real anymore… It feels like a dream. Everything is gritty, nippy and wet and only the tip of my cigarette, smoldering in complete darkness, makes my poor rugged soul warm.