Insurgency is a lot of fun. Following Rich s great exploratory feature on the highly tactical game last year, I took a look at it for the first time this week and tried to find out more about it, where it s going and how a year s further development has shaped it.

At it s core, Insurgency is a tactical shooter, one that sits between the hardcore realistic works of Arma; the competitive, smart strategies borne of Counter-Strike; and the large-scale war efforts of Red Orchestra. It kind of feels a bit like Battlefield in parts, too.

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Darkness in multiplayer shooters is a tricky one. In theory, it demands new ways of moving, more attention and more caution, but opens up new tactics and opportunities. In practice, people bump their brightness high enough to make the darkness pointless so you do it too because they’re essentially playing a different, easier game and then it’s all just pointless and everyone’s looking at an ugly, ugly game. Few games manage fun, uncheatable darkness.

Military FPS Insurgency is having a crack at darkness in its next update, named Nightfall. Along with spooky night-time maps, it’ll bring a new co-op mode about sneaking around in the dark.

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A trio of free weekend trials on Steam mean that all and sundry can enjoy what are, as I understand, three figures and ideals important to PC gaming: soldiers, vampires, and jetplanes. They all, naturally, do fighting. Not each other, mind–others of their kind. None of these games will let you e.g. pilot a fighter jet battling winged vampires. More’s the pity, really.

Multiplayer futureplane game Strike Vector and realish FPS Insurgency have respectable sales to accompany their free weekend trials, and technically human vs. vamp arenakiller Nosgoth does too but that’ll be free-to-play at launch so it’s less special.

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Well, now-ish> anyway. Today is JanuMonth TwentyTwomeral (or however we’re designating dates in these lawless, calendar-bereft times), and tactical multiplayer shooter Insurgency should be out any second now. Originally an award-winning Half-Life 2 mod, a full version has crept forth from the massive camo-tattooed womb that births all military FPSes. After an attempted infiltration of Kickstarter didn’t end so well, developer New World Interactive took the game to Steam Early Access, but now it’s finally graduated to the non-Early-Access portion of Steam, which I believe is populated by something like four or five games these days. Footage and detailsy info below.

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The big question with any Insurgency – who’s it for? For ‘the people’, that nebulous concept underlying the promises of kings and tyrants? Against the foreign devil? Or is Insurgency for folk who find Counter-Strike too arcadey, ArmA too serious, and want something that’s a bit like Red Orchestra but is not Red Orchestra?

Eternal questions like this are addressed below.> (more…)