Jason: Currently there is a bug, the cause of which the developers haven’t really announced yet, and it’s probably my biggest complaint about the game. There seems to be a player height and or aiming issue. It seems your shots either A) suffer from bullet drop, B) come from the barrel and not the sights (in Day of Defeat your shots actually fire from the sights for accuracy purposes, while in Counter-Strike they come from your eyes), or C) a model height issue makes your positioning vs. your opponents inaccurate. There are various threads on the forums about this and I hope that eventually they will be answered or resolved. The simplest solution seems like dropping any kind of realistic bullet drop if there is any, and using Day of Defeat firing (from-your-sights) style. There are also times you may think you are behind cover when in actuality you are not. Fixing these two bugs is a necessity if this game is going to have any competitive league play potential. And speaking of league play, I could definitely see myself playing this in an 8v8 format when the kinks are fully worked out of this. 5v5 may work, though some maps may be too big for it. It should be noted that while we are being critical of this game, mainly because we enjoy it, this mod is much further advanced than Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat were at this point in their beta cycle. Simply put I have been having a blast playing it. What has been your favorite moment so far when playing this game Oscar?

Note the different views from the same enemy position

Oscar: Favorite moment? Literally disobeying orders and flanking an entire team as they come out of spawn. I know I'm a bastard for it, but the lack of spawn protection from enemy combatants and immature teammates can empty out a server pretty quick. This issue has been somewhat rectified by re-tooled admin mods for Insurgency that kick people after a certain number of team kills but it's an issue that's going to take some thought before tackling. On the flip side, some of these mods are also adding detailed who-killed-who notifications, which I personally think ruins the game. Sometimes you pull off shots and have no idea whether or not you've killed someone, but that's the mystery I love about this game. Quite possibly the most useless aspect of Insurgency is leaning. Picture a sniper prone about fifty yards away in a mosque waiting to blow your brains out and having to carefully re-adjust to line up and peek out. It's just too time consuming to properly lean and you may find yourself getting flanked just for taking so long. For being a beta you're totally right, it's much more advanced that Counter-Strike was and obviously a lot better looking. It's probably because the game hasn't been heavily optimized after its public release, but many people struggle at playing Insurgency with all eye-candy turned on. The weapon models and animations are as impressive as the environments which offer pretty balanced game play in my opinion. Overall I think that some of the more obscure points of the game, like where exactly objectives on the map are located, should remain obscure. This rewards individuals who've played the game longer and forces new players to cooperate and pay attention. If people don't realize the map loading screen has pictures of all the objective points they can capture after playing for a few maps they probably won't make it far into this game.


Jason: The game does have a slight learning curve that takes a bit to get used to. As of now I'd say about a third of the players join a server and just look to frag and shoot things up. That's one of the reasons I enjoy the commander role so much, as it gives a excellent viewpoint to give guidance and help show your team the way, but anyone on a team can be vocal and give the assist. So if you decided to check this out or you are playing it now, help a noob out; give some pointers and have some patience with with your fellow insurgents and marines. As Oscar mentioned, the graphics on this game are fantastic. They balance playability and frame rates with excellent graphics and HDR lighting. All in all, the positives far outweigh the negatives and that is what keeps me entertained. I would really like to see some of the major bugs worked out that I have mentioned so far. Maybe some sort of mini-map feature, which is rumored, and I guess I differ from Oscar in that regard. People are too used to having objectives spoon fed to them and I am sure some sort of map-type feature will be coming. As long as it generates more team play it is fine with me. I also want to see some sort of spawn protection introduced. Some maps have it just because of physical barriers, but some locations are fully open allowing mass spawn killing. One of my favorite moments playing this game happened while on the map Sinjar. At one point as marines, we pressed our advantage so quickly and captured the next objective that we actually spawned in the same room as the insurgents had five seconds earlier because their spawn point hadn't moved on to the next in the line. We had an intense firefight and nearly everyone was wiped out. Pretty sweet if I do say so myself. This game has the potential to be a hit on the casual gaming side and the competitive market. Here's to Insurgency, one of the many games we play.

Conclusion

As you can tell, the overall experience while playing Insurgency is a fun and intense one. You may find yourself going without breathing in firefights where you know the enemy is waiting for you around the corner. For a free mod this early in its existence to offer that type of excitement is astounding. Hearing the footsteps of insurgents as a marine laying prone behind a corner and ready to open fire may sound like camping to you, but understanding you can seldom run across an open field without getting 'domed' and other realistic factors is just one of countless instances in which this game enthralls us.

On a side note, the Games We Play series will be a recurring feature, pending community response, that we plan to cover on an as-of-yet undecided schedule. However, if some hot new game comes out and we feel adamant enough about it then so be it! We hope you enjoyed this peek into one of this summer's hottest new mods out and if you have any suggestions feel free to let us know! Also, please comment on whether or not you would like to see more from this series, we greatly appreciate and thrive from your input.

Extra Reading:
Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat Download
Wikipedia Encyclopedia Entry