#REDDIT INSURGENCY FULL#

The sound of a weapon is different when someone is firing it indoors, right next to your face. Every bullet is the possibility of a life cut short and when mortars begin to thud and pound just beyond your line of sight, it can feel as if the roof of the world is about to fall in.

#REDDIT INSURGENCY FULL#

It's not a gory game, but it's full of the kind of shock and awe that breaks the spirit and either crushes or inspires resistance. I guess that's what a rocket-propelled grenade sounds like. My ears are humming and I'm sure there has never been a louder explosion in the whole history of the world. The building shakes, dust falling from the ceiling. Someone shouts “RPG” and, in all honesty, I can't remember if it's an in-game bark or one of the players. It might seem foolish at another time, in another game, but here it feels like part of the surreal brutality of the conflict. Each falls onto the bodies of the ones who came before. At one point, with my sniper rifle steady for once, I kill five men in quick succession as they run around a corner. The AI insurgents who we're fighting against might be clever, I'm not entirely sure, all I know is that they're dangerous. We're playing a cooperative mode in which we have to move from one objective to the next, seizing buildings and sometimes holding them as a counter-attack arrives. I'm genuinely alarmed, even though I'm playing a game with a bunch of friends, and we were laughing about a team-kill a minute ago. I can hear the hum of the engine but I don't know if this is a spotter, a hovering camera trying to figure out where we are, or an aerial hunter killer. Later, hunkered down inside a building, discussing our next move over voice comms, we're hushed by our commander. When your squad hit the deck though, that's a decision being made by their actual human operators. The vocal cues are automatic, the game using a wide variety of lines for allies and enemies alike to create the illusion of perfectly drilled tactical trickery at one moment, and panic and chaos at the next. The stuttering crackle of an assault rifle somewhere ahead causes friendly troops to shout warnings as they dive for cover. Or, at least, it always starts with the sound. It's one of the most harrowing and thrilling depictions of combat I've ever seen, and I think it's a goddamn work of art.

Insurgency: Sandstorm is more than a distraction. I've tried many multiplayer military shooters over the years but I've never thought of one as more than a passing distraction until now. Ethiopia has federal troops in Somalia, including as part of an African Union peacekeeping force.This is what it must feel like to enjoy Battlefield or Call of Duty. The president of Ethiopia's Somali region did not respond to a request for comment.Īl-Shabaab control large swathes of Somalia and have killed tens of thousands of people in bombings in their fight to overthrow Somalia's Western-backed central government and implement its interpretation of Islamic law.Īttacks by Al-Shabaab in areas near Ethiopia's border with Somalia are rare because of a strong Ethiopian security presence. The commander shared photographs that appeared to show half a dozen dead bodies wearing mostly military fatigues and an Ethiopian fighter displaying al Shabaab's black flag.Ī resident of Ferfer town over the border in Somalia said a group of al Shabaab fighters had been pushed back into Somalia during fighting in Ethiopia on Monday. He said his forces had killed 243 al Shabaab fighters in total since the Al-Qaeda-linked group raided two villages last Wednesday and that 22 of his own troops had died.

Reddit insurgency