Zanda's Review : FPS - Insurgency Sandstorm

[Zanda]

First of all, a little bit of warning. I usually don't follow a patern when I write a review since I do it on steam.
I'll try to keep up with what you guys need/want to see and still give you my version of what I think about a game.
Second.
An important thing I believe that I will remind probably everytime : Do not follow the man of one book. It's a quote from a monk...talking about a famous book...ya know...the Bible.
Here to say : If you like my review, don't stick ONLY to this one. Go search either on steam or on the internet other reviews so that you can get your opinion from yourself more than from others.
Third.
Do not hesitate to tell me what you think of my review, or even just if I've made fault. I'm not a native english speaker and this is the first time I translate one of my reviews ! 

Now I can start !
First I did not play the previous Insurgency, I can only judge Insurgency Sandstorm compare to other game of it's genre : FPS.
I also only played against the A.I of the game (more than 1000 hours to play against them...that makes quite a few hours blowing up some A.I !)

As usual, I'm not known for being short in my reviews so if you're impatient, scroll down !


Insurgency Sandstorm : What's that ?
Many consider Insurgency Sandstorm as a simulation. Nope. Not in my book. A fps that is a simulation, it's ARMA for example : There you struggle, there the balistic is a nightmare, there the game wants you dead...
Sandstorm is more Hybrid to my taste, not to tought, not to soft ! To clarify that, I will deconstruct point by point.

The Balistic :
The balistic is not realist, it is comfortable I'd say. We have recoil and dispersion of a weapon, but not the loss of velocity if you shoot an enemy at more than 200m...the bullet will go straight to be clear. Not a curve or whatever.

The moves :
We keep going with the crossing, depending on the mode Normal or Hardcore there is some various thought !
But. The game allow us to go above obstacles, do slides, crouch and lay down. 
So a bit far from a simulation where usually : you forget the slides. (I think again of Arma)
After that...nope, no wall run (Hell'oo Titanfall ?). No power jump. (Hell'oo Doom ?) Oh and you don't kill anybody by jumping...because...you can't shoot while jumping. (Except when you jump above an obstacle but you just have one shot so you tend to forget about it.)

(Side note : I always laugh a lot thinking of someone trying to shoot mid air with a shootgun like I do in CS:GO with my Sawed Off...>.>")

The necessary tactics :
That's the point that allow me to say it's not a simulation.
Yes, you can deploy  all the advanced tactics to devastate the AI. It's even recommanded as in all FPS. BUT. It's not mandatory depending on wich server you play. Neither depending on how well you know the map.
In regular games be it Normal or Hardcore, the tactic, I do without it.
In a game with 50 to 60 bots, there...I think twice or even three times before thinking about, maybe, eventually, do a step to my left.

The A.I : 
The big positive point of the game, wich makes that I don't go in PvP see if the community is more or less toxic then in other games.
There we have a simulation AI, that has nothing to envy ARMA, and allow us to make the game an Hybrid as I said.
Depending on how you tune it, the AI will hear, see, feel and especilly HITS you, from more or less distance.
It will also be more or less intelligent : full front assault, flanking you, go in your back, all side assault...you get the point. A true pleasure and a true mess on the field !

Where we hit really in the simulation, it's in our health bar. We don't have one.
One to Three bullets to die. Yes that's low. Yes that's good.

What makes it a game as close as the simulation is then not how the game is made, but how people play it. Wich leads me to:
The community ! 

The community of this game is mature : salt, cancer, toxicity insults , it's rare, really rare !
And it breaks my heart everytime I see people wich enter in the above cases, because for me, it makes the stain of coffee on the CV you have to give to your potential futur boss the same day. I do not pass. At all.

Here, people are here to play either serious, or chilled out.
Pseudo Hardcore Gamer : Forget about them.
Pseudo Pro Gamer : Forget about them.
Cheaters ? You named it : Forget about them.

It's just a pleasure on 98% of the games. Community servers are in numbers, and various enough to do the job.

Gameplay In depth : 
The game is cut in 8 Classes wich I will go through so you can have an idea of what you can encounter in your games : 

Commander : You give orders with your binoculars to bombard, strafe, gaz or send helicopter on your ennemies. 
You are the messenger of hell on Earth. And you love it.

Observer : You relay the order of your commander. You follow him or lead him throught battle. You protect him. You protect YOURSELF when you relay the order because dying while not having finished your sentence is bad, and the standard is a bit too dumb to understand you when you're drowning in your blood.
You are the voice of hell on Earth. And you love it.

Rifleman : You are the basic soldier. The standard infantry. You have a good choice of riffle, but not of explosives. You're basically the canon flesh, the one that fills the hole, the one that didn't had the time to chose the class he love.
But you fill your role. And you love it.

Breacher : You are the destructor of objectives. You have a choice of Shootguns and PMs. You're made to move fast, move close, be lethal and quick.
You have access to C-4, you're one true love when you have to blow up  a cache of weapons.
And you love C-4.

Gunner : You are Armageddon. Bullets ? You make them rain on your ennemis like the flood. You have access to the Galils, and the LMG wich compensate their heavy recoil and low magazine capacity, by BIG magazines (Between 50 and 200 bullets depending on the weapon), a heavy rate of fire, battle cries like Rambo if you stay tense on your mouse.
And you love Rambo. Because it is not their war.

Demolition : You are also Armageddon but in a less sophisticated way. You have the same weapons as the Rifleman with a little more punch : the possibility to had a grenade launcher.
You have also access to rocket launcher and C-4.
You love blowing stuff up ? You will love being Demolition.

Advisor : You are the Arsenal. You have access to a large scale of guns, more or less exotics from M18 to Vector, so you deal in everything that shoot, and shoot everything that wants to deal with you.
And you love it.

Marksman : You're the Overwatch. You have access to precision rifle, with lever, semi auto, or...anti tank ?!
And you love it.

Now that being said : The game in COOP have three games modes.
Checkpoint : you have to move forward on a map capturing points from your ennemies, holding them sometimes.
Survival : You have to move forward on random points on a map, with only your gun at the begining, and a random weapon at each point captured.
Outpost : You have to defend a point from waves of ennemies.

The map are big and beautyfull ! And the sound design is a big success too !

Now I can sum it up : 
Insurgency Sandstorm is =>
A FPS. You aim, you shoot, you kill or you die.
+Sound
+Graphism
+The Community
+The choice of weapons
+The maps.

- The bugs that can be present sometimes. ( I only had a few wich were not game breaking, but still, I prefer put that warning.)

9/10 !

In conclusion

This game is a pearl, a diamond even.
I loved CS:GO once a time. I loved Titanfall. I loved Overwatch and Paladins. But all those games are either ruin by their community, or lack of community.

Here we have the best of two worlds : casual fps , and hardcore fps, and it works.

The game currently cost 30€ on steam but is frequently on promotion !