Insurgency Reviewed

Insurgency Reviewed

By Nathaniel Liles

[divider] [dropcap]G[/dropcap]amers love to complain about “brown military shooters”, right? “They’re ruining gaming!” I hear you say, “They just make the same game over and over again and people give them all the money!!!” Well, be that as it may, we live in a day and age where Call of Duty has damn aliens and Battlefield is about cops and robbers (and it sucks a lot). Hell has frozen completely over, and the brown military shooter may actually be on its way out. As with all genres of video game, however, it’ll never truly die, and I think we’ve found the first instance of a brown military shooter actually being a find. That game is Insurgency, and it is the definition of a brown military shooter. It actually plays around with a couple cool ideas, but it’s nothing to write home about, and there are a few things about it that really don’t rub me the right way.

This title doesn’t look bad at all. It would’ve been right at home on the Xbox 360, and it’s fine to look at on PC. There’s no music in-game, which is perfect for a competitive online shooter like this, and aside from the entire color palette being brown, white, and light brown, there’s nothing to complain about aside from a few low-res plants.

The matchmaking is also fine, keeping teams balanced most of the time. One thing that just blew my mind about all this was the fact that there’s no deathmatch mode whatsoever. I don’t know about you guys, but the main thing I do when I play an online game is deathmatch unless the game is built entirely around something else. In shooters, I like to shoot people. Instead, I had to fumble around trying to do objectives when I just wanted to shoot some people. It just seems like the game mode that defined the online shooter is missing, and I want it back. The community was very helpful when I had no idea what I was doing, and we had a good time, but I just wanted to shoot stuff.

Another downside to this title is the fact that there’s no progression whatsoever. You find a server, pick the role you want to play in your team (which was really useful and prevented entire teams of snipers), pick the attachments for your gun out (which was, again, really cool), and complete your objectives. After the round is over, you do it again. That’s all there is to it. The maps are also massive, and if you don’t know where the action is and how to approach it, you’ll have an extremely difficult time getting into this one. I’ve played my fair share of online shooters, but I only got a few kills in the entire 4 hours I spent playing. After that match is over… Nothing. You don’t get experience, you don’t unlock new attachments or camos, and you don’t rank up.

This isn’t a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. Control is tight and customizable, the community is generally really nice, and the graphics are appealing and polished. Insurgency is a good game, but unfortunately, it’s not the best version of Brown Military Shooter 2 that’s out there, so it really has no purpose. This doesn’t need to exist. We have entire franchises of this exact same formula, but any one of those series’ provides more features, tighter gameplay, and decent progression. Comparing this to any modern shooter makes it look like an awful ripoff, but if it wasn’t swimming in the same pond as Battlefield and Call of Duty, it would really stand out. Unfortunately, any shooter made within the last 5 years is better than Insurgency, and I genuinely don’t think it’s worth a look for the simple fact that it’s been done before. It’s been done before, and it’s been done better than this for years. It’s a shame, really, because this isn’t a bad game at all. I’d recommend it if we didn’t already have better versions of this, many of which are completely free to play. For $14.99, I just can’t recommend this to anyone who already owns a shooter, and for your money, I’d look somewhere else.

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[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/nathaniel.jpg”]Nathaniel Liles is a freelance writer, writing major, and indie musician based in Southern Indiana. While procrastinating or avoiding real-world responsibility, Nathaniel enjoys playing rhythm games, action RPGs, and very colorful games with many bright, flashing lights. You can listen to Nathaniel sing songs or download his music for free on his BandCamp page. You can watch him play games on his Twitch channel. You can also follow him on twitter at @NathanielLiles. And finally, you can read more of his writing over at EliteGamingComputers.com. He’s a pretty connected guy.[/author]