Game Review: IS Defense is the first game to fight ISIS

IS Defense is a first-person shooter PC game set in a hypothetical world in the year 2020, where the Islamic State (IS) controls the entire North African region. The outfit is now powerful enough to launch an offensive against European nations. The game allows you to don the role of NATO’s machine gun operator entrusted with the job of defending the multiple entry points into the continent and fight back the IS invaders.

# Limited missions but challenging

The game is divided into three long chapters, set in three different locations and possible entry points chosen by IS invaders. You can clear a chapter only by defeating the entire IS offensive on a particular front, that too by killing all their soldiers and destroying the weapon and transport vehicles.

The game allows a 180 degree view of the surroundings so you can gauge all the directions in the front and side from where the IS men can approach you. But there is a catch here—if anyone manages to sneak past and find a position to your extreme right you can’t aim at them at all and you will eventually get killed.

While the machine gun is the primary weapon with unlimited round of bullets, you have access to special ammunition that can inflict more damage, such as rocket launchers or air raids. They are limited and have to be used judiciously, till the time you can get more by progressing further in the game.

The game controls are simple. You can shoot by clicking the left mouse, zoom in for a closer view through right click. Special weapons like rocket launcher can be released by pressing the space bar, while air raid scan be called upon by pressing 3. There are multiple keyboard combinations that show up while you are playing.

As you progress, the game will automatically upgrade your gear and rank. As the rank improves, you are entitled to more features at your beck and call such as more air assistance.

# Is it worth downloading?

It is not a very long game as the number of missions are limited. The fact that you can’t really grab a rifle and nose dive into a hand-to-hand or a knife combat with the enemy does feel a little restrictive. But mind you, the game is certainly not boring. The missions are quite challenging and fun. More importantly, it is one of the first games on the rise of Islamic State.

The graphics are good and the look and feel of a war zone seems heavily inspired by some of the World War games such as Call of Duty and Battlefield. The game not just captures the ambience brilliantly but even the IS militants, their vehicles and flags look like their real world counterparts.

It is a PC game and takes up about 1.5GB of storage after installation, which is impressive considering the amount of space a modern shooting game requires these days. It will run on all notebooks with Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM and at least NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD5850 graphics card.

Available on PC

Developer: Destructive Creations