This is a decent military shooter. I think the customizable aspect is pretty neat, but the maps suffer the CS and Battlefield syndrome in that you either get shot or rendered powerless if you go beyond a certain distance. I guess that's the price you pay for improved graphics, and a large color palette to support them.

Still, as I've mentioned in previous posts, Battlefield 2142 and Joint Operations were my favorite games, largely because they had a lot of what Insurgency is striving for, but you could drive armor, pilot gunships, and give your own fire support with mortars, auto-grenade launchers, orbital strikes, and so forth. And where the graphics weren't as sexy as Insurgency's, the gameplay was much better.

The M249, if I understand correctly, is meant to be used both in the prone position and in the standup position being held like a rifle. As such the recoil for the M249 is a little high, though the PKM feels about right.

The player models seem a bit muscular, the weapon detail is pretty impressive, the sound effects seem pretty good, It would be nice to carry a few more grenades. That, and the US Army grenadier usually carries a belt of ammo for his M203, though I guess you cut back on that for game balance.

I've played some gory shooters in my time, but this one feels particularly graphic. Not all kills result in dismemberment.

I mean all in all it's an impressive military shooter, but whether I've played too many of these things or whatever, I'm just personally kind of burnt out on military shooters. That, and I've got some service personnel looking out for me in a very unusual way. Thanks guys. The next time I'm over at your house for a barbque I'll be sure to utter every racist slur in the book.

I think armor needs to be improved somehow. I'm not sure what the solution is on that.

I would like a new military beret that's more in the style of the US Army with the exaggerated drape, as opposed to the almost French like one offered now.

When I switch back and forth between Insurgency and Sandstorm, I'm struck by the fact that you changed the key binding for grenades. In regular Insurgency it's 4, in Sandstorm it's 3. I can change it, but I'm not sure why the change was made, and it felt odd and confusing.

I'm not sure why when characters in both games go prone that the body is rigid like a piece of wood. Other games allow the character's body to drape and conform to the terrain. It just really odd to have a character lying prone on something thing, only to have their legs sticking straight out behind them, supported by nothing but air.

If a player has bought shades for his character, then shouldn't their monitor be effected by a shade of something as if they were wearing sunglasses?

For some reason it's hard to see some people more than others, and camouflage doesn't seem to be a factor, but lighting and shadows do, even when the target is in full daylight they can be hard to see for some reason. And in shadows nearly impossible.

I reported a player the other day for aimbotting, as he was firing into dark places where no one could see, and getting all kinds of kills. Cheating's been around forever in gaming, but it would be nice to hear some news about reported cheaters / hackers.

An improvement in this game is the addition of other skin colors to choose from. I guess it really doesn't matter, but there's a lot of gamers out there of all stripes and colors.

I know you're probably working on this, but being able to climb over all rocks is a must, otherwise there's no reason to have them in the game.

All in all a really decent game and gaming experience, but even so I'm not a big fan of the game. Still, I had a decent enough time playing it. I'm sure I've left out other observations I had, but anyway, those are my main ones. Good luck with it.

All in all a really decent game and gaming experience, but even so I'm not a big fan of the game. Still, I had a decent enough time playing it. (...) Good luck with it.

That pretty much sums up how I feel right now. Good analysis mate.

Oh yeah? Thanks.

It's an interesting game, and it feels like they're trying to make a Joint Operations' scale CS like game.

The two best shooters I ever played were Joint Operations and the various Delta force games, and Battlefield 2142.

I've done COD, America's Army, this one obviously and it's predecessor, all of the CS games, and several others, and truly the best time I ever had was on the huge 200 player servers back in the early 2000s before NOVALOGIC went out of business.

I'm still having fun with original Insurgency, especially now that all the hackers and TKers have now migrated to Sandstorm. And, noticeably, the player base for Sandstorm has dropped since. The patch and new map brought back the old players, but now that the game is so "good" (if you think so), it's attracted all the scum that I bought the game to get away from in the first place.

That, and a couple hours ago I got an Anti-Cheat kick three times in a row, when I've never so much as used a single hack in my entire life.

That, and there's some real world harassment coming from a combinatio0n of private parties and security following me around. It's been going on for thirteen years, but reared its ugly head as of five minutes before I logged off and started to post here.

So … I mean you can't take this thing too seriously, but for my situation … I don't know. I think there're going to be some very sorry people standing tall before a judge, and it won't be me that has to do any explaining.

@blue-ghost Hey pal,

If anyone in the community here is harassing you in this community, please let me know and I'll deal with it. I'm sorry you're going through that.

If it happens again I'll pass it on. I filed a Steam report on the guy and asked him to stop.

If a player has bought shades for his character, then shouldn't their monitor be effected by a shade of something as if they were wearing sunglasses?

lol.

@blue-ghost

Nice post, several points I agree on some not. Just wanted to comment on the aimbot incident:

It would make perfect sense to shoot into dark areas without using any cheat, as areas being too dark to have any visual is a reason for eliminating possible enemy positions by prefiring such spots. I think you agree if you understand the concept of many good players often trying to prefire probable enemy positions without being certain if enemy is there - I am not saying this person have to be clean, but that the example you are providing here has no relevance - If you can be in spectating mode and he is a typical cheater ( bad at shooters, trying to compensate) you can see that he only prefires the dark areas where there is also an enemy present - So you see the difference in using luck and probability as a conscious tactic on one hand and always hitting home runs without a visual on the other hand - This difference is what you would be looking for, and even then it could be hard to be certain if you did not spectate for a period of time long enough to eliminate the chance of luck - Or in other words if you throw a dice, you may get a six three times in a row even if it is not likely right.

EDIT: And if the cheater has brains (which is unlikely as people who cheat are [insert flowers]) it is impossible to find out for certain in many cases, so we need to be provided by NWI/EAC with better tools for handling cheaters, as explained in my thread "security issues".

Also you are correct cheating can not be eliminated completely with present technology, but we all hope the day will arrive sooner than later=)

EDIT2: Cheating can actually be eliminated completely with present technology, but it would demand streaming games, where there is not client side except keyboard mouse input, which is unlikely to happen in FPS games due to extremely high internet speed would be required (as far as I understand).