Monday, July 28, 2014

The Fortress 2 (Version 1.1)

Author: Vicente Pasquino (Vicpas)
# of levels: 6
Rating: 8.8/10
Difficulty: Easy to Medium

The Fortress 2 is an addon for Rtcw sp developed by Vicpas. Development for this project took a few years, but finally Vicpas finished the project as an "almost perfect" addon.

There are a total of 6 maps. One of them is just a cutscene. The difficulty is easy, but tough in some areas, giving it a "easy to medium" difficulty. You are dropped near a German occupied fortress via parachute, and there are a variety of enemies to fight.

The enemies are:
~ Lopers
~ Proto soldiers
~ Super soldiers
~ Normal infantry soldiers
~ Officers
~ A scientist
~ Mechanics
~ Marianna Blavatsky
~ Venom/Flamethrower soldiers
~ Eva (Half dressed woman)
~ Zombies
~ Flame Zombies
~ Warrior Zombies
~ Olaric
~ Femzombie (green zombie)
~ A elite guard
~ Black Guards

The enemy weapons include:
~ MP40
~ Mauser Rifle
~ Luger
~ MG42
~ Silenced Luger
~ Sten
~ FG42
~ MP44
~ Flamethrower
~ Venom
~ Panzerfaust
~ Tesla
~ Grenades

As you can see, most of the enemies from the original Rtcw maps are present in The Fortress 2.

There are also some civilians and Allies:
~ A Inge (Female Civilian)
~ (Russian?) Partisans

The partisan weapons include:
~ PPSH
~ MP40
~ Scoped Mauser
~ Mauser Rifle

I'm not sure if these partisans are Russian or not, because they have red colored uniforms, similar to those of a Russian partisan/soldier.

The partisans make their appearance in the map "level3", as they are attacking a German facility and need your help. The Inge also appears in this map. Don't kill her! :)

I like the variety that The Fortress 2 has to offer. The setting varies from military complexes to crypts. Each level in The Fortress 2 gives you a few objectives, or many objectives. The notebook (N key) works, and can be very helpful with keeping track of your objectives.

Each level contains a secret area or two, as well as treasure.

Each level also has a briefing screen, similar to the original Rtcw maps. There is a custom main menu as well as a new loading screen instead of the default black screen with the Wolf logo in the bottom right corner. Another treat from Vicpas is a wallpaper, which can be found inside the folder for this addon.

There are a few custom sounds, textures, models, and more. The Fortress 2 used to have many bugs and errors, but thanks to my private testings, The Fortress 2 was "almost perfect", as stated by Vicpas in an email to me. I was happy to help in any way I could.

You are given the choice to play with or without the new weapons from the "Additional Weapons Mod" by Alexandre, as well as new weapon sounds.

The opening cutscene to The Fortress 2 is really interesting. We see an American plane being attacked by anti-aircraft fire. BJ is then seen jumping out of the plane in a parachute. From there, he begins his mission!

I don't want to spoil too much, so that's all I will mention regarding what happens next. You may wonder why The Fortress 2 has a rating of 8.8/10, despite being free of many bugs and errors. This is simply because most of the maps are "too easy", at least in my opinion. At least there are some challenging segments to make up for the easiness.

While I enjoyed the use of the default music, it would have been nice to have at least one custom music used in The Fortress 2. Other than that and the "too easy" difficulty, I think The Fortress 2 is worth playing.

My playthrough of The Fortress 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeJcWier8ew&list=PLYWhrG56_-7pUvaR1ykuZIN4zz8n8xeOR&index=30

General Red's playthrough:  http://goo.gl/HJvHF3

Yo$hik's playthrough in "extreme quality": https://goo.gl/716u4j