I really love this game, its a great, fun game with good guns, good design and an amazing performance. There is, at least to me, little to critique here and a whole lot more to praise and enjoy - if you can't be bothered reading the rest of this review then I would give this game a solid 8/10.
I've had my eye on this game for some years, I wrote a note on my desktop when Easy Red 2 first released, telling myself to keep my eye on it because in a couple of years, I would sure it would be polished and a full experience. I'm happy to say that this game offers an incredible offline experience, which really feels a lot like a more fleshed out version of Battlefield 1942, especially in the pacific theatres, in the base game, you can go from everywhere from Italy, to the Pacific campaigns, to North Africa and Greece - some really unexplored fronts by most mainstream world war two games, which is very refreshing considering how oversaturated certain battles have become (cough cough D-DAY cough cough).
The sound design and animations are incredible, you can tell the developers put a lot of thought and care into the way these guns sound and work, every animation is beautifully well crafted and the guns sound punchy and feel responsive, aiming down the sights feels like it makes a major difference on your accuracy - its essentially all you could want from a shooter, seriously, sometimes I just reload the Garand over and over again to hear the sound and watch the ammo pop out, its very satisfying.
There is a lot of praise for this games performance as well, the PC I play on was a gift from my parents for my 11th birthday, and I turn 18 tomorrow. I have no stuttering or lag when I play this game at the maximum settings, and my small monitor can fully fit the UI - an extreme rarity for most modern games nowadays, the little tricks that the developers do to enhance the performance (such as dumbing down enemy animations, lowering textures, etc) are hardly noticeable unless playing as a sniper. I really cannot stress enough that this game runs so well on my outdated hardware, its so nice for developers to take these steps to optimize their game and if you have old hardware like I do, you shouldn't struggle running this game.
The shooting in this game feels great too (after all, what would it matter if it sounded and looked good but felt bad?) I find with a lot of modern shooters, many of the guns fail to feel distinct. Easy Red 2 has no such issue in feeling distinct in every firearm you pick up! For example, a BAR gun feels very distinct to a mounted 7.62 browning, the same way that browning feels entirely inferior to an MG42, this paired with the sound makes for a great experience. One of my favourite things to do is just hop in a tank as the gunner and just go absolutely crazy in the enemies flank, its a great time.
My final piece of praise is just the historical authenticity of the developers, appropriate uniforms. camo, weapon models and makes are present in the entirety of the base game. It feels respectful to the people who fought in it, in my opinion there is not really much more disrespectful than getting it all wrong, and I am very happy to say that this game gets most of it right, to give you an idea - its even down to the make and model of the helmets used, that is the attention to detail I'm talking about here.
Like any game, it isn't perfect. The aeroplanes in this game feel incredibly clunky, when you fly straight upwards for example you don't stall out, flying straight downwards doesn't increase your speed either. It can feel incredibly jarring in this otherwise immersive experience to see a Japanese plane flying straight upwards before strafing you, pointing straight downwards and then instantly turning back upwards - this issue is so bad that you can often see the enemy in the cockpit, and they sometimes get so close you can shoot them! Its a nit-pick from me though, I just really like planes.
Another small issue I found was that the AI in this game can be incredibly unpredictable, sometimes they can laser target you and hit you instantly without much effort (this happened to me a lot in the Pacific campaigns, the Japanese tanks often felt like they were going straight after me) or it can feel like the AI hardly notice you and when they do, consistently miss in a blind panic. Its worth noting however that the developers work incredibly diligently, and essentially every single update they make a change to the AI for the better - just today when I was playing I noticed a marked difference in the AI, so don't pay attention to this bit if you are buying this game in a year, because what I am describing here will likely be obsolete.
My final piece of critique is that the DLC can feel a little in your face sometimes, the base game is great and very expansive, but often on loading screens it will show items that are locked behind a DLC, and when you want to load into a campaign you have to see ALL of the DLC that you don't own. I don't really have the money to spend on this at the moment, so its a bit annoying.
Overall, I really love this game. Its really solid fun, and when I don't know what to play then I just load up Easy Red 2, hop in a campaign and 9 times out of 10, have a total blast. I would recommend this game to people who enjoy history, or just shooters in general (especially offline shooters, which we are in a severe drought of at the moment.) If the issues presented in this review sound like a bit too much to you, then I would still recommend putting it on your wish list - these developers have an incredible work ethic and a strong dedication to the fanbase, so I would be willing to bet most of the issues listed will be gone this time in a year.
I give this game an 8/10, there is small things which can be improved on, but its a great polished experience which doesn't require any DLC to still be a good time - the game even has a dedicated steam workshop and a loyal community to boot, ensuring its survival for years to come! I hope this review helped you come to a conclusion on if to buy it or not - thanks for reading!
