Oohrah! Rising Storm 2: Vietnam now in open beta

I played a lot of Rising Storm, the standalone multiplayer expansion to Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad and officially the 27th best FPS of all time. It got its gritty claws into me. So I'm pretty pumped for the sequel, Rising Storm 2: Vietnam [official site], which has now got a launch date of 30 May.

Yep, that's just 10 days away. Oohrah! If you fancy getting your hands on it even earlier you're in luck, because a free public beta is now live and will run until Monday evening.

That's plenty of time to get some practice in before launch day, so you can feel like a super-soldier when the servers flood. And if you're really serious about getting a head start, developers Tripwire Interactive have released a Youtube playlist of tutorials, ranging from the basics to advanced class guides.

The previous game was a slow-paced shooter focused on realism and teamwork, and you can expect more of the same here as teams of 32 players battle through Vietnam's jungles and cities. There's some pretty hectic helicopter action, too, as the trailer below shows:

Tripwire Interactive has also announced that owners of zombie headshot simulator Killing Floor 2 will get some extra weapon skins. Not really my bag, but hey-ho, it's free.

Head over to Steam to launch the public beta.

I haven't managed to play the beta yet, and may not get a chance to play it before release. So for those that have: is my enthusiasm justified? Is it as good as the original? I'm eager to hear.