I find myself spectating the best players in each round when I die and engaging with what I'm watching more than usual, because I know what they're doing is what I could be doing. It's also brilliant to be given the keys to the kingdom right from the start of the game and select a weapon, scope, foregrip, attachment, secondary weapon, accessories and armour type without the need to open 10,000 boxes earned over 100,000 hours of play. I can also say that I spent one entire round as the gunner in a vehicle without dying, and somehow managed to win the round using a telepathic connection to the driver and a lot of holding down LMB, and I think that's brilliant. And that means there's always the possibility of a last-second rush from Insurgents, an Insurgency you might say, just as victory looks assured. What I can say is that I never feel truly safe in its expertly arranged control points, because unless I'm playing with a well-organised team there's always an entryway or window I can't keep an eye on. Because - and stop me if I've already said this - it has an uncanny knack for excitement.Īnd, look, if I knew exactly what made uncannily exciting shooters do you think I'd be sitting here writing this review? No sir, I'd be politely but firmly telling a journalist with a lanyard that my team's not ready to talk about multiplayer yet in a conference hall backroom. But honestly, in the heat of the moment none of that matters. It still has a bit of mechanical jankiness too, in vehicle behaviour and player animation, which recalls its origins as a plucky mod. Insurgency Sandstorm still has a bit of that Source Engine ruddiness baked deep into it, despite a change of engine and a plethora of visual effects that seem to tank my GTX 1070’s performance below 60fps at 1600p. What began as a Half-Life 2 mod grew into a full release in 2014, the Insurgency franchise making its name for realism and community feedback response. Insurgency's developer New World Interactive has muscled in on this space, usually reserved for long-running franchises with major publisher support, with sheer grit. I'm doing Insurgency: Sandstorm a huge disservice by describing it in such colourless terms though, because this is also a multiplayer shooter with an uncanny knack for excitement. This is a multiplayer shooter played in co-op or competitively, looking perhaps to occupy the space between CS:GO and Rainbow Six Siege in terms of the action-tactics tug of war, and offering several variants on control point capture mode. Reach COD cold turkey, though, and you gain a real appreciation for Insurgency's hardcore approach. At first that makes weapon feedback feel lacking - did you hit that guy peeking out from the sandbag or not? - because you're being weaned off an entirely unrealistic combat loop. Your crosshairs don't gain extra elements to indicate a hit, because there is no crosshair, only the gun's scope or sight. When you shoot an enemy player you don't hear that additional cartoonish thwack in your headset as you do in most other multiplayer shooters in 2018. That sound design tells you a lot about the game it wants to be, the game it ends up being, too. Insurgency: Sandstorm might not have Battlefield V's fearsome graphics options or the Hollywood production values of a COD, but in audio terms, it's peerless. It's the way all these sounds, together with nigh-constant voice acted lines from human and AI soldiers, build the scene. Not just the rattle of arguing assault rifles, either. Not just the roars of RPGs being propelled from their launchers or the menacing bleeps of IEDs. The thing that stays with you is the sound.
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