53 people found this review helpful
2
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 23.9 hrs on record
Posted: 24 May, 2020 @ 7:46am
Updated: 17 Oct, 2020 @ 12:14pm

🎤Introduction
Running With Rifles is an isometric tactical shooter set in a world war environment, you’ll be battling in snow, deserts and islands to try and win victory for your team. The combat is satisfying and requires you to not just run in and shoot the opposing team without much consideration, but take cover and choose your moments to strike and attack. Surprisingly there’s still a handful of dedicated fans who play online so finding matches shouldn’t be too much trouble.

✔️Pros
• Loads of unique maps
• Lots of items to utilize (sandbags for cover, grenades, turrets etc.)
• Leveling up grants you access to new weapons and the ability to recruit soldiers in a squad to command
• Different game modes to try out
• Multiplayer still has its set of dedicated fans
• AI is decent and can be challenging
• Different difficulties and customization options to cater for the way you want to play
• Lots of replay value
• Cartoon-like graphics

❌Cons
• No sort of interactive tutorial
• Sometimes the battles can be long and drawn-out (up to 4 hours on some big maps)
• Sometimes I’d have no idea who I got shot by, would be nice to have some kinda indicator as to who shot you (Sometimes I’d even get shot off-screen by someone who was out of my vision)

❓Bugs
• On the rare occasion the pickup button wouldn’t wor
• Some of your teammates temporarily have the opposing teams colours for a few seconds and then switch back

🕹Gameplay
Combat
As with any world war type game you are expected to be careful and take cover as often as you can, running carelessly into the enemy territory isn’t wise. You’ll have to take advantage of the environment that you’re in to use as cover or to get a vantage point. There’s a lot of tactical gameplay involved which might no appeal to some but for me, I enjoyed this change of pace to think more tactically instead of rushing in to kill the enemy without much thought.

Ranking up is an important part of combat, with each rank you’ll be awarded with unlocking weapons / items to purchase in the armory or pickup in battle and the ability to command a small squad of soldiers. You’ll find your standard weapon types here, nothing out of the ordinary, pistols, assault rifles, snipers etc.. The majority of these weapons have an unlimited amount of ammo, but special and rare weapons like rocket launchers have limited ammo. There isn’t really a ‘best weapon’ as each have their pros and cons, whilst some are more situational than others.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2107570866

As well as weapons you’ll be able to control and call in different types of vehicles such as tanks and transport trucks. Each vehicle felt very unique and different to control, the tanks were slow as was the cannon, the jeeps were quick and an easy way to transport a small group of soldiers etc.

The single-player campaign was enjoyable up to a certain point, the problem arises when you’ve come to this sort of stalemate in the match where neither you or the enemy team can secure a capture point and you both keep taking it from each other. Some people might love these drawn-out battles where it takes hours to make any sort of progress but it did frustrate me. Even if you go stealthy and capture a different point by yourself, you’ll find the AI will spawn there to try and secure that point you’ve captured but consequently you’ll lose a different capture point. You can easily host your own server or join others in multiplayer, and thankfully there is still a small group of dedicated fans playing this game so finding a match with a few dozen people won’t be a problem.

Gamemodes
There are a handful of different game modes that are available to you that offer different types of playstyles. The main one is the campaign that sets you on a team and you go to different maps to help out and secure them. You’re also free to adjust various settings however you want, from the chance of surviving a bullet to the accuracy of your team / enemy team. Quickplay is the same as this but you can choose your maps and can adjust more settings for example how many bots on the map.

Man Vs Zombies is exactly what you think it is, you’ll be by yourself and will be fighting against zombies. For me this game mode didn’t really add much, there didn’t seem to be a variety of zombies but instead they’d be running / walking after you with different speeds.

Man Vs World is practically the same as the campaign only this time your on your own and need to be stealthy to capture control points. The AI doesn’t try to take them back though, you’ll only encounter other soldiers that are defending. I enjoyed this a lot as I didn’t really get much of a chance to try out the stealth mechanics in the main campaign.

Map design
Each map that you fight on is elegantly crafted with a lot of environments to take advantage of to use as cover. Some maps are bigger than others with more capture points to take control of with your team, whilst others are smaller and more compact. The problem with the bigger maps is that there are too many capture points to take control of with your team and the battles can last hours in a sort of stalemate situation.

There are a lot of different types of maps that you’ll be fighting in, from towns to construction sites to the more traditional world war maps with trenches and more open plain environments. The small town levels were my favorite as there was a lot of opportunity to take height advantage by climbing on top of buildings to scope out the surrounding areas.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2107570971

🎧Music & Sound
Whilst in battle there isn’t any music playing in the background, instead, there’s a lot of focus on the sounds of battle. Weapons shooting, explosions, soldiers grunting their final breath, vehicles, soldiers moving which definitely immerses the player more into the game, even more so if you wear headphones. When you’re sneaking around enemy territory you’ll be able to hear footsteps in different directions giving you a rough indicator of where it’s coming from.

🎨Graphics
The art style is very simplistic and has a kind of cartoon look to it despite how realistic you can make the game itself. Each map has its own distinctive look and feel making it easy to set apart from the various other maps that you’ll be fighting on, some of them are set in deserts, some is snowy areas and some on sunny islands. This helps the game feeling fresh and new every time that you progress either in the main campaign or when you select a new map in quickplay.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2107570923

💭Closing Thoughts
Running With Rifles is such a great tactical shooter, it manages to hold up the test of time and still has a handful of dedicated fans. With a variety of maps to fight on and an arsenal of weapons to unlock and try out, anyone who enjoys big tactical wars will be pleased with this title.
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5 Comments
Batsquatch 20 Jun, 2020 @ 5:07am 
Honestly (at least for me) its good to see the combat take up to hours. I mean like you said its not fast paced, and that's good.
SalzStange 30 May, 2020 @ 2:11pm 
Definitly worth. Played it some time
Metro 24 May, 2020 @ 1:21pm 
@FruitNDoggie The first map on the campaign we were in this sort of stalemate for a good hour or two unable to advance. There were times on other maps were it was the same length, sometimes longer depending on how big the map was. For me it was a bit too drawn-out, I like tactical games but that was a bit too much. In multiplayer matches however there seems to be less 'stalemate' since the majority of your team would be actual players instead of AI.
Tamaster 24 May, 2020 @ 10:51am 
Nice, i always wanted to give this game a shot. Might just do that soon.
FruitNDoggie 24 May, 2020 @ 10:47am 
How long did you get stuck on some of those matches where you and the AI went back and forth? Did it artificially inflate the play-time on the game, or did it feel appropriate, as it is a tactical kind of game?