So we all know about the Call of Duty’s and Battlefield’s of the gaming world, but for many that doesn’t satisfy their need for a more realistic tactical experience.
This is where Insurgency comes in.
Insurgency originally started out as a mod in 2007, but has been developed and worked on painstakingly by the developers, which now is a game in it’s own right from New World Interactive.
I have to say, there is a lot of effort and polish put into Insurgency that makes it an enjoyable and rewarding experience.
This starts from the menus, they are neatly laid out, easy to navigate and look gorgeous, housing all the functions you could hope a Steam game would.
You can see your friends list, any news and updates from the devs, your PVP Rank and Tier, along with a leaderboard and your latest achievement.
It is always nice to see a game do this right, it makes you wonder why so many AAA titles fall short in these UI regards, as this nails it.
Insurgency has various modes spread throughout with a variety of options capable of being adjusted server-side. This should be more than enough to quench your thirst for a specific style of combat that can be drawn out of the game.
Whether it is Coop against bots, competitive matches or just a more freeform sustained combat session. Insurgency has you covered.
There are 15 multiplayer and cooperative maps with 11 games modes, many of which are Coop capable against bots. A maximum player count of 32 people on some modes (although not all, as it would probably get too hectic!)
A small sample of the Modes:
Firefight — Three territorial objectives, one for each team, plus one neutral. Each team only respawns when they secure an objective.
Secure all objectives or eliminate all enemy to win. Every life counts, making this a very suspenseful experience dependent upon teamwork.
Skirmish — In addition to three territorial objectives, each team has a supply cache to protect. Teams gain extra reinforcement waves until their cache is destroyed.
When both teams have lost their caches and all reinforcement waves, it becomes a Firefight match.
Strike — Two supply caches are hidden in three possible locations. Attackers must locate and destroy each cache or eliminate all enemy to win.
Both teams send in reinforcements only when a cache is destroyed.
Occupy — King-of-the-Hill style gameplay, where both teams fight over one central objective.
The team that controls the objective will not lose reinforcement waves and must either hold the objective with more waves at the end, or eliminate the enemy team.
Ambush — One team must escort their VIP player to the extraction point. Both teams only have one life per round, so coordination is paramount.
The VIP is only armed with a silenced pistol, but can pick up a weapon from a fallen enemy or teammate.
Push — Three objectives must be captured by the attacking team in sequential order. For each objective captured, they gain more reinforcement and time to attack the next.
Defenders have a finite amount of reinforcements and must use each wisely.
Many of these are not anything new to gaming in general, but what they do, they do well. It gives a hefty amount of variety for those that have liked modes like this in faster paced games before, but wanted them in a slower paced first person shooter.
You should have no reason to be displeased with this amount of content, truly hours worth of entertainment in many of these.
The controls and setting all feel natural and familiar if you have played games like this before, you got jump, crouch, prone, ironsights, a great squad system along with 3D VOIP.
With the 3D VOIP both friendlies and enemies can hear you in a radius around you, bringing an extra element of realism to the table.
You also have a weapon customization panel available before you spawn, so you can pick your gun, ammo type, sights, underbarrel and side mounted accesories, along with armor type and grenades etc
Guns themselves feel fantastic in Insurgency, recoil, sounds and 3D sights really draw you in to the feeling of being in the battle.
Plus when you are pinned down with bullets whizzing over your head, there is a suppression system in place that blurs, desaturates the screen and gives you that heart pounding feeling of being under attack.
This makes covering fire hyper effective.
Particle effects are great, with grenades and rockets kicking up dust into the atmosphere, bullets dinging off surfaces and tracer rounds glowing through the sky.
One thing that is rewarding is actually using CQC techniques with short ranged weapons, in most games you see people running and gunning, auto shotgun in hand etc
In Insurgency, it pays off to take your time, quieten your steps (which is actually a neat feature), squad up and clear rooms as you would in real life.
Plus who doesn’t love the sound and kick of a good pump action shotgun, so satisfying!
The AI in Coop is actually pretty good too, they sometimes make the typical mistakes of just running in and getting mowed down, but they do flank, throw grenades, snipe and generally make it a pain in the ass for you to complete your objectives.
There is so much to the game, that it is quite hard to cover in one sitting, so I advise you all to go try it and check it out if this intrigued you even a little bit.
It is slick, exciting and most importantly FUN.
Insurgency is available on Steam for £10.99 or a four pack is only £29.99.
Great to get your own squad together and get in game at that low price.
Check out their site for more:
http://www.playinsurgency.com/
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Morph Magazine 