2019-03-01_PC_Gamer

This unscripted moment from one of

Insurgency: Sandstorm’s eight-player

co-op matches against waves of AI

forces really does speak to its

qualities. Not just the eerily

convincing soundscapes it conjures,

full of dialogue and terrifying

reverberations, and not just the

inherent tension of its

control point-based

modes. It also

demonstrates an ability

to convey the ugliness

and horror of modern

military combat,

without the need for

overwrought scripted

sequences as with

Battlefield and Call Of Duty. Not bad

for a franchise that started life as a

Half-Life 2 mod.

Sandstorm is equally brilliant as a

co-op or competitive multiplayer

game, offering competent large-scale

16v16 fights featuring vehicles, but

really excelling at tighter encounters

on maps with fewer combatants. The

exact nature of the conflict you’re

fighting and dying for is nonspecific

but the reference points span Black

Hawk Down to Zero Dark Thirty via

The Hurt Locker, in other words a

patchwork of post-millennium war in

the Middle East. In among the men

in bomb vests sprinting at you and

the RPG fire, what stands out in

particular is that no one’s playing the

hero. Instead, every player-controlled

and AI soldier sounds terrified. They

shout out when they spot an enemy,

when they need to reload, or when

an objective state has changed, but

they never sound like

they’re relishing the

fight like Call Of Duty’s

psychopathic

operatives do. They’re

bricking it, like any

sane person would be.

I’d love to see

Sandstorm’s code to

understand how its

developer managed to trigger

appropriate canned dialogue at just

the right moment.

The game’s soldiers have plenty of

reason to sound terrified in a given

match, treated to very few lulls in the

action and bombarded by surprise

attacks. Co-op consists of a series of

checkpoint captures, in sequence,

while AI combatants attack each one

in waves. Competitive modes range

from Hardpoint-like power struggles

to traditional two-to-three point

control scenarios. There’s no attempt

to reinvent the wheel, nor any great

imperative to do so. Insurgency:

Sandstorm just gets on with doing the

fundamentals brilliantly.

Weapon behaviour takes a bit of

getting used to, mind you. There’s no

extra layer of visual or sonic feedback

for successfully shooting an

opponent, so you’re sometimes at a

loss as to whether your long-range

shots connected or not. It’s a

concession to realism that Insurgency:

Sandstorm absolutely convinces you

is worth making. Eventually the

absence of hit confirmations becomes

something you actively enjoy, just like

those moments you remember to

lean around a corner and hit your

mark. The active reload system is

another thing you can take

satisfaction in mastering. Here, more

than anywhere except arguably

Arma, you can take tremendous

pridein playing like a professional

soldier and forgetting about your

kill-death ratio.

DRIVE CRAZY

If nits must be picked, it’s the

vehicles that stick out for their rough

and ready implementation. I’ve had

some great moments in the gunner

seat of a converted pickup, true, but

the vehicle handling itself and the

extent to which map design actually

accommodates them just isn’t quite

there. There’s the lightest touch of

jankiness reminding you this isn’t a

triple-A shooter, but it’s only with

vehicles that you feel the experience

actually suffers for it.

Even with those creases, I haven’t

played a multiplayer shooter as

exciting as this for ages, and I’ll be

coaxing friends into its co-op mode

for months to come. I’ll also try – and

fail – to describe just how good it

sounds from moment to moment to

anyone who’ll listen. See you at

checkpoint C.

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

Multiplayer

manshooting with a

focusonrealism.

EXPECT TO PAY

£26

DEVELOPER

New World Interactive

PUBLISHER

Focus Home Interactive

REVIEWED ON

Core i5 6500,

GTX 1070, 16GB RAM

MULTIPLAYER

Up to 32 players

LINK

http://www.insurgency-

sandstorm.com

85

In this most well-travelled

of multiplayer FPS paths,

Insurgency: Sandstorm

feels fresh and exciting at

every turn.

VERDICT

You can take

pride in playing

like a

professional

soldier

I

’ll never forget the screaming. We’d just locked down checkpoint C,

a three-storey townhouse in a war-torn village, and the six of us

had taken up positions guarding all windows and entry points,

waiting for the counterattack. First a silence, then a racket of

assault rifle bullets and panicked shouts. We were repelling them.

The timer had almost expired. Then a squadmate threw a speculative

incendiary grenade at a doorway, and the screaming started. The area was

being contested, and the insurgent contesting it had just been set alight.

The round ended with six of us watching in mute horror as he crawled,

wailing, through the fire, into the hallway where he eventually expired.

DA RU DE AWA K ENING

INSURGENCY: SANDSTORM eclipses blockbuster military

shooters on a fraction of the budget. By Phil Iwaniuk

A TOUCH OF CLASSIntel onSandstorm’s combat roles

COMMANDER

Stick close by to

an observer and

you can call in artillery

strikes on the enemy.

OBSERVER

The Laurel to the

Commander’s

Hardy. Gets to radio in the

big guns.

BREACHER

Close-quarters

specialists who live

and breathe shotguns.

Scary folk.

Insurgency: Sandstorm

REVIEW