Insurgency

Insurgency Review

It's a hit-or-miss for different people, but you must play Insurgency at least once

6.0Character Customization

As to be expected from most modern military shooters (MMS) these days, the stock customization of characters is quite limited, but here, it is bolstered constantly by the modding community in the Steam Workshop. Skins for guns, characters, equipment and more are constantly pumped out giving plenty of cosmetic options, while they remain client-side only, meaning they are only seen by the person who has installed them, and do not affect another's screen.

HOWEVER, the negative aspects of client-side skins must be addressed. In an FPS clearly competitive in intention and nature, client-side skins are unacceptable (it is currently August 2014, and Insurgency is constantly changing, so keep that in mind). It would be quite easy for me to go into a competitive game, load up a skin for an enemy soldier that's bright pink or something similarly silly for realism combat, and boom, obvious, pink silhouettes all over the place.

That said, I believe it would be quite easy for them to implement a no-skin server or server setting, so the gripes will only remain for open public servers that allow client-side skins.

8.5Replay Value

When considering the replay value of a game, specifically an MMS, one must keep in mind that this "value" varies wildly from person to person, and consists of many factors that influence how much enjoyment one gets out of returning to a game after a short break: including preference of types of game mechanics, depth of those mechanics, preference of play-style, typical match length, pacing and many more.

For me, the most important factors to replay-ability are level-of-fun of an average game, brainpower required to play, accessibility, and how much time/effort you commit once you decide to play.

Insurgency shines in all of these areas - every single gunfight is threatening, loud, within 100 meters distance, and takes 1 bullet in the right place to end, while only requiring a maximum of 8 or 9 button presses to execute(counting all actions like leaning or shooting as one). Games last anywhere between five minutes and two hours depending on the game-type, and even if PvP makes you wanna throw up, there are several game-types of PvE against bots in highly modified versions of EVERY SINGLE in-game map

—Graphics

8.5Soundtrack

Wonderful sound design from beginning to end, even including the voice acting.

9.0Multiplayer

As a multiplayer FPS, Insurgency is a gem among similarly colored rocks. Objectively speaking, it is superior in many ways to AAA games of this generation - balance being the primary factor.

Considering the competitive nature of the game, the class system is set up in a clever way. Each team is assigned two squads of soldiers, and each soldier assigned a class. Each class is given a particular amount of points to allocate into their equipment, tailored to the team they joined (AKs for Insurgents, M4s for Security for example), this includes armor and extra ammo, a backup pistol, extra attachments or even a single-fire rocket launcher, each costing an appropriate amount of points.

Another interesting addition, not typically seen in FPS these days is an equipment-based weight system. No longer are these the days of "hold your knife for extra speed", now your weight as a character is affected by your load-out, and as a result: your run/movement speed is also affected.

Other pieces of this game stand out, but aren't necessarily integral to it being a great multiplayer game, one in particular (especially so in this case considering the extremely low-health damage model of players) is the simulated bullet penetration. Depending on the caliber of your equipped weapon, bullets will travel a proportionate distance through materials, appropriately losing damage and penetration through each (not the actual numbers but 1x pen through wood, 1/4x pen through concrete as an example), and even additional ammo types are available for those who want to more effectively damage certain materials.

If the mechanics themselves aren't enough to get you on-board then take THIS: dedicated servers, voting systems, anti-cheat, easy-to-use interface, less-than-toxic community, newly released ranking/stat tracking system...............we done here? :3

8.5Gameplay

One of the more exciting situations in Insurgency is when you've joined a random match online with thirty or so people and both teams have managed to rally on their squad leaders and follow orders. The intensity is never as high as it is when two squads of opposing fighters see one another at the same time and open up with their first waves of grenades, tracers and smoke, or when you walk up behind an unsuspecting Insurgent with a knife and pray the gunfire covers your footsteps. Insurgency is a simply constructed FPS that is enjoyable to the core, and provides the tools for both intense, hardcore squad battling and silly, quite out-of-the-ordinary shenanigans (for example, I've had some silly situations utilizing the in-game chat system, which emits your voice in a small area around you whenever you use the in-game voice chat, allowing enemy players to hear your communication)

—Perspective

—Mini Genres/Tags

9.5Bang For Your Buck

15 dollars (although it's currently on sale for 7ish) has gotten me THREE. HUNDRED. HOURS. Not much more else to say.

Conclusion

Overall, Insurgency is one of the better FPS that exists at the moment, and it's currently being patched with about 1-2gb per month of hotfixes/patches/free content. It has all the integral parts to a successful competitive game both in balance and features, and adds much more to make the experience intense and fun. If you have the inclination towards more realistic, action-based gameplay, and hardcore/tactical FPS, I'd highly recommend picking this one up ASAP [$14.99 retail, $7.69 on sale at the moment on Steam (August 2014)]

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