Running With Rifles

A top-down, no-frills military shooter title from 2015 that's just fun

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Running With Rifles: A callback to simpler times

I recently picked up Running With Rifles on Steam during an 80 percent off sale for a grand total of $2.99. I’ve probably heard about and looked at RWR over two dozen times since it came out in 2015, so I figured it was as good a time as any to pick it up.

The main menu for the game also functions as a small sandbox area to get acquainted with the games controls and mechanics.

I’m glad I did. A top-down military shooter, RWR is deceptively simple at first glance. Little green, brown and grey army men run around the battlefield fighting for territory with all the armaments we’ve come to know and love from the modern military shooter genre.

The game has an undeniable charm. The old 3DO army men games were a favorite of mine as a kid, and I can’t help but see the game’s aestehtic as a spiritual successor to those games. While the jist of the game is quite simple, there are some surprisingly complex systems at work behind the scenes.

The game’s three factions — the Greenbelts, Greycollars and Brownpants — operate as charicatures of USA, Germany and Russia’s armed forces.

These systems reveal themselves as you run and shoot your way across the battlefield. More weapons become available to the player the more they play, with some powerful weapons like grenade launchers being dropped by skilled elite enemies.

Each weapon performs a little differently, just like in any shooter. But their attributes play out differently in the top-down space, providing a fresh experience. Snipers, for example, actually allow players to see further than they normally can. Light machine guns can only be deployed from behind cover or while prone.

Your CPU comrades are surprisingly tactically minded, moving in squads and with armored vehicles. Squad commands are simple to use and quite effective.

Positioning plays an important role too — controlling high ground and key chokepoints is even more important in the top-down space. There are several different modes, but most of them revolve around capturing various points on the map while draining enemy reinforcements, a la Battlefield’s “Conquest” mode.

TL;DR

Although it’s been released for a few years now, RWR remains a refreshing break from the year-after-year endless cycle of FPS sequels, reboots and remasters. The quick-play mode offers a fun sandbox experience that’s great to kill 15-30 minutes. The game feels great to play, with the humor and charm of Team Fortress 2 alongside the late ‘90s military aesthetic and action-movie vibe of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (R.I.P.).