The first day of our coverage was wall-to-wall excitement as we spent time with some of the biggest names and best upcoming games for 2010 and beyond. The day was jam-packed with meetings 9am until 7pm and then a couple after-show parties including the Xbox 
Community party which gave us some hands on time with Kinect. But more on that later. The very first meeting of the day was two action-packed and exciting hours with 1C Company the Russian developer and publisher. You’re probably familiar with Star Wolves, Men of war and Death to Spies. While we didn’t have any Star Wolves, we had loads of the others and more.
First up to bat was John Gibson from Tripwire talking to us about Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. The game’s main focus is going to be on multiplayer, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to run through it alone. They took some maps from the previous game and reimagined them including Danzig which is now a bombed out apartment block. Having played the first one and now seeing what they’ve done with the second I have to say, WOW!
Snipers have got some game balancing solution that I’ve never seen before in a game. When moving the rifle around and looking through the scope, which is a full on 3D deal and not just an overlay (meaning you can see stuff going on around the sides of the scope), you get an ocular shadow effect that is quite realistic (try peering through a telescope and moving it about and you’ll see what we mean. On top of that, since we’re talking realism, with the sniper rifle you have to adjust for distance and bullet drop as it travels its trajectory etc. That can now be done by aiming for your target and dialing in the distance. They’ve also got standard steel sites on the rifles so you can switch between that and the scope for close/long distance shots. Very cool stuff there. Also a real benefit as the sniper can then still be effective up close.
