Day of Infamy (PC) Review

Insurgency's main charm comes from the fact that it hits gamers with a nice dose of the cold reality of war. Its firefights are the closest one can get to infantry combat (and at a decent price), with swift death lurking in every corner, since it only takes two bullets, tops, to go down. Furthermore, the team is in many ways the HP of the player; in order for him/her to stay alive, they must be kept safe from harm. In other words, this is one of the very few titles that reward teamwork so well.

It does have some flaws, though. Some technical, like the subpar, dated visuals or bugs, and some gameplay-wise, like how it could all get quite boring after a while, no matter the game mode or map chosen - but the overall experience makes up for it. What Day of Infamy does is bring this pleasurably challenging realism of tactical shooters to the age of WWII.

Does this add anything of value, however, or is it just the base product with a 1944 skin? In some ways it is, but that's not really a bad thing since Insurgency has always been some sort of war simulator, with fans enjoying gawking at the extremely accurate weapon design as much as actually using them. Visually, while everything is nice and all, the quality hasn't really increased, then again the audio has always been the true triumph of the series' atmosphere, and this mod doesn't disappoint one bit.

Luckily, this isn't "just a re-skin" as it introduces a nice variety of weaponry that, once again, behaves and sounds quite realistically, a few classes, and a few game modes; modes that, while just variations of the few basic ones, are a joy to play. The best are probably Firefight and Invasion, with the first one forcing teams to capture control points with no chance to ever respawn, while the latter gives a number of reinforcement waves for all, but one must wait for a timer before going back to the fray to capture the required area… before moving to the next one.

This being a WWII conversion, weapon customisation isn't as robust as in the original, with the most notable ones being the bayonet attachment for close encounters, and slings that enable faster weapon switching. Note that, due to the nature of the boomsticks available, unlike Insurgency, this requires to go a bit more close and personal with the opposition, something that makes the already tense gameplay even more so.

The most obvious flaws are, once again, the ones carried over from the main game, like its many bugs, the low-quality textures and particle effects, and, especially bad for this mod, the lame distance draw limitation (due to the aged Source engine, maybe?) and the fog that it creates, making certain maps a bit annoying to play. Hopefully, things will change after some time, since the community is quite active, and this is by no means a 100% finished work.