First person shooters have taken over the AAA video game world. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, Far Cry; the list goes on and on. Many of these titles share a common vibe – fast, frantic, spastic battles. The focus is firmly on individual effort even in team based modes. As a result, tactical and teamwork focused titles are becoming rarer. Recently I’ve been playing the Alpha version of Insurgency – a teamwork based shooter in the vein of old school Rainbow Six. Originally a Half Life 2 mod, how is Insurgency looking to bring back the tactical shooter?
Even at this early stage, Insurgency packs 4 modes ranging from zone occupation modes Occupy and Firefight to the humans vs. bots Hunt mode. Player classes are simple with light, medium and heavy options that trade off speed and agility for armor upgrades. Map choices are limited at this point but diverse and well thought out, with branched paths that help ensure battles are unpredictable.
So how does it play? For the most part the game is very responsive, but gives a realistic sense of weight to actions. Cover plays a big part of most matches, and running out into the open without covering fire frequently results in a quick death. Teamwork is crucial to success as well. The map structure makes it easy for enemies to sneak up on you if a teammate doesn’t ‘cover your six’.
The team focus extends to weapon loadouts. Weapon choices are limited compared to games like Call of Duty, but the implementation is unique. Teams accumulate ‘supply points’ based on their performance. These points are shared among the team and allow members to upgrade their loadout with grenades, RPGs, etc. but must be used strategically to increase the chances of victory. In one case my team was on the losing end of things, and with a shortage of points we had to decide where best to spend them. In the end, giving a sniper rifle to our best player allowed us to even the odds.
From a technical perspective, Insurgency looks and sounds like one would expect. It runs smoothly (for an alpha) and finding a game is fairly painless. There aren’t a ton of people playing as of yet, but I’ve had excellent experiences with those I’ve played with – a friendly community seems to be on its way to forming.
Although things are still very early and can be unstable at times, Insurgency looks to hold promise. If New World Interactive can manage to expand on what they’ve built and continue to emphasize teamwork, they will have a very solid tactical FPS on their hands.
