Killing Floor Review

First off, thanks Jim for giving me this game, greatly appreciated.

Now, Killing Floor is a FPS about zombies, which is pretty obvious through the title and is about as original as any other zombie game. I have played a bit of this game and found it fun, but missing something. It is a mix of counter strike (where there is a team of you trying to wipe out a team of zombies, as well as having to buy weapons), Left 4 Dead with the zombies, BF2 with the enemy tickets, and finally Oblivion and probably Fallout with the stupid weight system.

Here’s the deal, you and 5 other unlucky soldiers battle it out against a large amount of zombies, using teamwork until the end where you get your butt kick, swiftly moving your gonads towards your lungs by the final boss. That’s about all I can tell you about the game as that is pretty much it. I am making this my first review, but cannot really go on about the game as it has given me very little to go on about it.

So here are the positives, the teamwork works well. This is mainly because if you play the game by yourself you will be struggling to get past the first level. You have to work as a team to reach the last level anyway, other wise zombies will be eating you to the point where you will just a skeleton running around.

There is some variety in the guns, with weapons ranging from your standard counter strike standard pistol and knife, to rocket launches and chainsaws. This is where Killing Floor beats Left 4 Dead by a mile as you can choose any weapon to take on the horde, my personal favourite being the double barrel hunting shotgun, which fires two large shots which quickly reduces whole zombies into meat salads.

The level design is good and it is challenging, most things that you'd expect in this day and age of gaming. I have an issue with the lighting, as everything is so dark that you cannot see anything coming towards you. But, it wouldn’t be a zombie game without it, so I guess that is ok.

My final positive is the enemies. Yes, another +1 to Killing Floor over Left 4 Dead with the zombie designs. This is one thing I have to say I like about this game is the enemy design, even though not original in anyway (those who have played The Suffering will know what I mean), but I like the Variety, especially the Flesh Pound which has two mace’s for arms, and has lights all over his body (so he is the only one you can really see while on a dark level)

And now the negative points, I am not going to list them all as you'll find them in most games.

My first is the bloody final boss, where I haven't been able to defeat him on normal, and haven't tried on easy cause I refuse to be lowered to that level. This is not the only enemy I have a problem with. The Screamer is another where this zombie, yes you guessed it, screams and damages you. Not only does it take down half of your health, but also wobbles your screen so you can shoot her to shut her up. Further more, I do not like enemies which take thousands of bullets, as well as being lit on fire, to die. I swear even though the flesh pound is by far the best zombie design I have seen, it is also nearly impossible, let alone the final boss but I cannot be bothered to complain about that anymore so I’ll complain about the protagonist characters.

The characters stupid one liner’s which all the soldiers on the team are happy to yell out every time they perform an action are bloody annoying and turn this zombie survival game, into a pub with a really bad English comedian. Every soldier seems to be voiced by the same British bloke. I don't want to hear the same thing over and over again when I’m trying to heal someone, or reload, or pull out my knife and so on. When healing a group of people, expect to hear the same 2 lines over and over about 20+ times after a round.

Thirdly, it is very repetitive like counter strike, like L4D in the way it only has 4 campaigns, but unlike L4D where the AI Director mixes game play up a bit. Also, unlike L4D, the games only way to ramp up the difficulty is to introduce harder and harder enemies (hence why I hate the final boss), and changing the difficulty means you get less money to buy weapons.

Finally, and anyone who has played the game will probably agree with me here, is the stupid flashlight. Now you may think what a stupid thing to go on about in a game, but let me validate my point. This is one of those games where a flash light is needed most of the time. It is about as dark a Doom 3, minus the wet-your-pants atmosphere, and it is hard to see enemies in the dark. When you turn your flashlight on it makes it harder to see the enemy, as it lights up the entire right side of your screen so you can't see anything. When in the odd occasion it actually helps, it has the same problem as in HL one where it locks onto targets and highlights them like a spotlight. This is not something that I think is bad, just i though flashlights did not lock onto enemies like anti-air missile launchers.

Well its now 2:40am and I was writing this to make me tired, but here are my final thoughts.
Its repetitive, Its a good game, but not as fun as I found L4D, its repetitive, too much like Zombie Horde mod, it has a weird difficulty curve, its repetitive, but it is functional and fun as long as you do not play it to death.

So is it worth US$20? I would say if you like L4D, be ready for the B Grade version of it, but it is different and it's fun when you play with friends, but I have to say you might as well wait for a special on it... or get someone to buy it for you for your Bday XD