When comparing Ratz Instagib vs Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, the Slant community recommends Half-Life 2: Deathmatch for most people. In the question“What are the best PC arena shooters?” Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is ranked 22nd while Ratz Instagib is ranked 30th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Very chill and a good game to just vibe in with friends
Way less competitive and more simple than other arena shooters and a great game to just turn your brain off and shoot some rats.
Pro Low system requirements
A machine with a 2GHz i3 CPU and 2GB of RAM can run the game.
Pro Fun, very unrestricted movement
The movement is very fast, kind of floaty, and very fun. it's way more free/ less tied to standard bunny hopping and more ground-based movement.
Cons
Con Doesn't represent the arena shooter genre properly
It's as much arena shooter as "catch-ball" is baseball. In catch ball your only focus is to throw and catch the ball, similarly in RatZ instagib your only focus is in one weapon, aim and dodging. That is to summarize the complexity of the game excluding additional gameplay elements included in game modes like capture the flag and freeze tag.
Con Doesn't deliver anything new
It's like a poor clone of Xonotic's Instagib. Instagib in any shape and form exists in almost every arena shooter already, it's also done better in most of them. Some of them (Xonotic) are free and has 100x times the content.
Con It's a ghost town
According to SteamDB data the game since Feb 2016 hasn't once reached a 100 concurrent player threshold.
Con Aim heavy gameplay
The game rewards accuracy a lot more than map control and item timing. Item timing isn't really a thing either, there's armor panels that charge up over time, where you have to stand for a while to get it. However, half of the weapons can take all of your armor away with a well landed shot. Some of them, like the gravgun (a spawn weapon) can deal a lot of damage in a quick succession using explosive props and other non-solid objects. This could be either a pro or con depending on which kind of game you're into, but if you're looking for a traditional arena shooter then it's a con.