By Julian "Orchestra" Bell

My first feeling of a Mod'd game is always a negative one regardless of the original. When someone spends years making a compelling balanced game and then a mod comes out...there are usually things that completely deter me. When it comes to Darkest Hour, a mod for the Red Orchestra game developed by Destineer Studios; the opposite is in effect. The mod is brand new in regards to the gaming community and should be looked at as a completely different game from the Red Orchestra Series. Darklight Games and Tripwire Interactive are to thank and my hat is off to them. But why is this game so genius? A compelling feeling that you actually have an impact in the game play and that no single person can truly do it alone. When you are behind enemy lines and the bullets are whizzing by your head, friendly and foe, you just don't have any other choice but to buck up and shoot your way out.

If you've played any of the Battlefield II mod's you may be familiar with the massive scale fps genre. Battlefield did it right early on by making it an objective capture and hold style game. Darkest hour has this but the objectives feel far more strategic than most battlefield maps whose locations are easy to overcome by bombers and moving spawn points.

In DH "darkest hour," the combat feels more fluid than your typical fps because the spawn points continually move with the combat throughout city streets of France, wooded forests of Austria, and rolling hillsides of Italy and central Europe. The communication between the upwards of 100 player servers is also creative. You can speak through a "team" channel that only your teammates can hear, a "public" channel, in case you need to contact administrators from the other team, and a "local" channel. The local channel is a proximity channel and only allows those close enough to hear your voice in a realism environment to actually hear you. Many times i've been caught in a fire fight yelling to my squad mates to lay down suppressing fire only to find no one is answering...because they are dead. Local chat seems to be common only in hardcore realism servers and for league reality matches.

*Suppression System*

"Working in combination with the previously mentioned bullet snap effects, we have a new suppression system in place which has proven to be highly effective and yet at the same time, very simple. In addition to the psychological effects of loud snap sounds of passing bullets, louder impact sounds of bullets hitting the ground and the sound of players taking hits, there are now physical effects that are immediately obvious."

The suppression is incredibly accurate and useful. Strategy of mg covering fire and even M1 Garand cover fire is one of the most useful ways of keeping your enemy pinned while your boys push to the next trench line.

"While a bolt action rifle is ineffective at suppression, an MG on the other hand can effectively pin down a whole squad for a long period of time all on its own, which can drastically change the flow of a battle and the tactics used."

In combination with Suppression fire, tracers from Machine guns and mounted guns on vehicles, smoke grenades, anti infantry Heat rounds, and canister rounds, all play their important role in strategy for a winning team.

Vehicles in this game raise the bar for all fps combat. Multiple player vehicles allows for up to 3 man tank teams each with their own positioning within their seat to take cover, hide behind the armor, or expose themselves to use binoculars and get a better view of the field. The range of classes to chose from allows a specific class to operate tank vehicles and though some vehicles can allow GI's to ride on back as seen in this image, there are half tracks, light jeeps, and trucks to transport troops across a long distance. Some of these have mounted machine guns.

As for class selection the classes denote what type of weapon you would use and sometimes what rank on the field you are for leadership. Most servers play with mature players and those in Officer class position usually call out commands and move their NC-O's (non-commissioned officers) around accordingly. For the larger maps its impossible to gain ground without some sort of order. One of my favorite classes in the game is actually the Radio Man. This Class comes equip with a M1 Carbine and a Radio. The responsibility of following your officer so he can spot a target and use your radio to call in artillery is a big job and staying on your officers heals can be tricky during a fire fight.

On a downside for players who are used to a fast paced game like Counter Strike or Day of Defeat:Source, the learning curve of DH can be about a week for some players. Its a much slower paced game and aiming through iron sites is foreign to many twitchy fps players. Personally i found the Iron sites to be completely impossible at first, but after some time i wouldn't want to play without them. The only cross hair's you'll find in this game are from a site and firing long distances means leading your shot.

Overall If you can handle a challenge and weather the difficult first few days then you won't be disappointed in this game. I would highly recommend finding a regular group to play with because it is a team strategy game.

For more information visit Darkest Hour's main site.

E-mail: reviews@apocgamers.com