Insurgency: Sandstorm is a hardcore FPS that places you in the Middle East in a conflict between terrorists insurgents and The United States of America and its NATO allies an unnamed security force. It is a very punishing game that does not work like your average Call of Duty or Battlefield. No, this game is a lot more akin to the likes of Day of Infamy as well as the Red Orchestra and Rising Storm series.

Now, unlike Day of Infamy (Which New World Interactive also developed) this game has a fairly large playerbase. The best part is that it retains all of Day of Infamy's hardcore aspects. This makes for a very intense gameplay experience that will test the player in their ability to keep calm in a combat enviroment. I find no issues when looking for a match at any time of day, whether it is 3 AM or the middle of the afternoon. This applies for ALL gamemodes. Speaking of which...



Currently there are 5 gamemodes in Insurgency.

1. Co-op
   
2. Hardcore Co-op
   
3. Versus
   
4. Competitive
   
5. Frenzy

The Co-op gamemodes are essentially laid out so you and your team sweep through a map point by point clearing out enemies and objectives from the insurgents. Then once you reach the last objective there is always a MASSIVE battle between you and the insurgents trying to storm your position.

Versus and Competitive are relatively the same with the exception that Competitive will give you a rank after 10 rounds. The ranking system in similar to Rainbow 6: Siege to my knowledge. However, I don't really play that mode so I am by no means an expert.

Frenzy is a super fun mode that is very similar to Left 4 Dead/Insurgency Co-op hybrid. I say this because the insurgents only have knives and molotovs and come at you in swarms. However there are also special types of insurgents that have abilities like teleporting and being able to soak up tons of damage.

On the up side, you have more than enough variety of weapons to take on the insurgents.



Every weapon in the game has unique aspects based on its real life counterpart. And the best part is that damage and penetration characteristics are based on the round the weapon fires and length of the barrel, not some arbitrary number assigned to that specific gun.

These are the weapons currently available

SMGs

• AKS-74u
  
• MP5A2
  
• MP5A5
  
• MP7
  
• Uzi

Shotguns

• M870
  
• TOZ-194

Assault Rifles

• AK-74
  
• AKM
  
• Alpha AK
  
• G36K
  
• Mk 18 CQBR
  
• M4A1
  
• M16A2
  
• M16A4
  
• L85A2
  
• G3A3
  
• QBZ-03
  
• VHS-2

Battle Rifles

• SKS
  
• MK 14 EBR
  
• Dragunov SVD
  
• FN FAL
  
• M24
  
• Mk 17 Mod 0 SCAR-H
  
• M91/30 Mosin-Nagant

LMGs

• M249 SAW
  
• PKM
  
• MG3
  
• M240B

Anti-Material Rifles

• M82A1 CQ
  
• M99

Handguns

• Makarov PM
  
• M1911
  
• M45A1
  
• L106A1
  
• M9
  
• Tariq
  
• Browning Hi-Power
  
• Glock 17 PF940

Rocket Launchers

• AT4
  
• RPG-7
  
• Panzerfaust 3
  
• M3 MAAWS

Throwables

• M83 Smoke Grenade
  
• M67 Fragmentation Grenade
  
• F1 Fragmentation Grenade
  
• AN-M14 Incendiary Grenade
  
• M84 Flash Grenade
  
• TM-62 Anti-Vehicle Mine
  
• C4 Plastic Explosives
  
• IED
  
• Molotov Cocktail

As you can see there is quite the selection of weapons here. AND THEY ARE GOING TO ADD MORE!!! I have shot a few of these weapons before in real life and I honestly think this is as realistic as it gets sound wise without actually being there. The sound design is just beautifully done.


The last thing that I will touch on is player customization. There are two degrees of this, your actual character and his/her loadout. Before I lay that aspect out I would like to point out that the insurgents do not have any females on their team to simulate the reality that most terrorist combatants are male.

Loadout Customization

The game splits each team up into classes that are designed for specific roles. Each class will have its own weapons and gear representative of its intended purpose.

Class Types and Purpose

• Commander-Call in support (A-10, AH-64 Apache, Artillery, Chemical Weapons, etc.)
  
• Observer-Provide the Commander with a radio to call in support
  
• Rifleman-Run of the mill grunt, nothing special here
  
• Breacher-Uses Shotguns and SMGs for CQC
  
• Gunner-Uses LMGs to provide fire support
  
• Demolitions-Uses Rocket Launchers, Grenade Launchers, and High Explosive Ordinance
  
• Advisor-Uses Weapons that are uncommon on the battlefield in real life (Alpha AK, MK 14 EBR, SKS, etc.)
  
• Marksman-Utilizes battle rifles that now have the ability to mount a 7x scope and bipod as well as the anti-materal rifles

Everyone also has the ability to get different sized ammo carriers (increasing the amount of magazines you can carry) as well as different armor to protect you from enemy fire and limited explosive resistance.

Character Customization

When it comes to your character, well, you actually have 2. One for the security forces, and one for insurgents. You can customize everything about your characters gear. The security customization is a little more fun because of the presence of real life camouflages implemented by real world militaries. The insurgents pretty much just get different kinds of shirts and pants to make up for the lack of camouflage. However, you can make your insurgent wear a black track suit with white stripes and become a Cheeki Breeki Boi, so props to the dev team for making that a thing.



Overall, Insurgency: Sandstorm takes everything that the last game did and improves upon it. There are issues that presented themselves at launch such as being relatively unoptimized. However, those issues have for the most part been remedied. As long as you have a medium end PC you will be able to run the game no problem. NWI also continuously updates the game and are VERY attentive to the community. They actually listen to us and are constantly coming out with new patches to fix issues that the community has found.

With all of that said, stop scrolling through the reviews and keep telling yourself that you're "thinking about it". JUST BUY THE F*CKING GAME ALREADY!!!