CS-Nation

Covering the future of Counter-Strike
insurgency mod
Likes
Free Aim and Iron Sights - I love this. My honest, first taste with free aim was in Red Orchestra, and while it took some getting used to, I found it to be quite enjoyable. Naturally, a feature like this should only be implemented in games that are striving for some semblance of realism. While the free aim isn't as "free" as it is is in Red Orchestra, it is still a very welcome addition.

To those who do not know what I'm talking about, I'll give a quick overview. Instead of having a crosshair pasted on the middle of your screen, your character will aim where the weapon is pointed. If you move your mouse to the right slightly, your view may not move much, but your weapon will and you will shoot more towards the right with respect to your view. To have true aim, you'll want to raise the weapon up to look down the sights of the gun. This should be the only time you will come across a "centered" shot where the middle of your screen should correspond to the view in the iron sights and the final location of your fired bullet.

Graphics and Detail - A lot of detail has gone into the maps we've seen so far. It looks like a dry, arid locale, just as you would expect for some locations in the middle east. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing the same attention to detail ported over to CS: Source maps Dust and Dust2. However, there are some graphical glitches as well. You'll often see shrubbery clipping through the corners of walls, which can take away from the immersion factor.

The weapon models look great as do most of the animations. Little details like the sniper opening up the cover to his sniper scope when he switches to the weapon is a neat touch. The Source engine looks quite beautiful in this mod to the point where you may forget you are playing a Source engine modification.

The effect that occurs when a blast goes off near your person is quite nice. We've all seen the disorienting effects of a flashbang in CS: Source or a grenade explosion in DoD: Source. This effect gives you a three way split of your view with the two outer "ghost" views slowly coming back together to give you a perfect view sight again as the effect wears off.

Who Killed Me - The whole "unknown" factor is quite nice. Danger can, and will, lurk around every corner so you constantly have to be aware of your surroundings. One or two shots is all it takes to kill or be killed.

Random - I do enjoy the squad based aspect of the game. You are sometimes forced into a role or class that you may not want to play as, or one that you are not familiar with. This really almost forces you to become a well-rounded player, more-so than in some other games.

The fact that the game takes place in a modern setting is also a big plus. I really don't know about you guys, but there's only so much of the constant WWII rehashes I can take before I need to move on to something else.

There's bullet ricochet in the game! You can see this in one of the below screenshots. I'm aiming at the side of the tank and the bullet bounces off and impacts the dirt at the appropriate exit angle.




Conclusions
The mod needs a lot of work to reach its full potential, and the potential is there. Also, from what I've seen some members of the development team need a few pointers in how to address members of the community. From a brief stint in the chat, I've noticed team members swearing at members of the community when announcing that the mod was ready for download, to others making some rather bold claims (more popular than CS), or outright slamming other games that have so far been proven to be better games than this mod (Red Orchestra). I really think the high anticipation for this mod got to a few of them, and I know that a few members do not speak for everyone.

These have just been some points of the mod that I have noticed and found a problem with or that I liked. I have also included points that the community has made in IRC chat rooms, and various message boards.

I must also mention that a patch is already in the works that should address a few of the previous issues.

To those that celebrate it, I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July!

    

  

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