Killing Floor - $20 of Awesome

[The_Gamdol]

Killing Floor - $20 of Awesome

So I recently logged into World of Warcraft looking for something to do to pass a little time, when Kakushan says to me in guild chat, “Log off, download Killing Floor, get in vent.”  It’s not often I get explicitly told to get a game, most of the time it’s a Q&A session where I might decide I actually want to get the game, but not today.  If it hadn’t been Kaku I would have told them to fuck off, but since I <3 him I looked into it and ended up doing exactly what he said.  Killing Floor is a great game with huge potential for expansion, though it does include a grind.  OH NOES!

Killing Floor was originally a game mod for UT3, purchased by Tripwire Interactive, and turned into its own game for $20 on Steam.  Now, without further ado…

IT’S TIME TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT – BREAK IT DOWN!

The Game(play) – Amazing

Take Left 4 Dead.  Remove the extreme ease of victory on anything besides the highest difficulty.  Remove the lack of variety in enemies.  Remove the lack of variety of weapons.  Add awesomeness.  Instead of being a group of people trying to escape an area chased by zombies, you’re a military group dropped into a zombie infested area tasked with ridding the area of the zombies and their leader.  You’re given a pistol and 3 grenades.  Of course after every “wave” of zombies a trader “opens” and you can buy guns and armor.  Of course every wave new types of enemies are available to spawn, and more of them.  Enemy names and brief descriptions follow:

Clot – Shitter that grabs you.  And holds you still.  Until he dies.
Gorefast – Clot + sword arm + running.  Fast running.
Bloat – Fat.  Slow.  Pukes on you.  Explodes on death.
Crawler – Jumps.  Lots.
Stalker – Invisible chick…worst kind of chick possible….until….
Siren – Yells. Constantly.  Typical woman.
Skrake – Chainsaw arm.  Nuff said.
Flesh Pound – Slow.  Two maces for arms.  Shoot him.  Suddenly he is faster than you.  And hurts.
Patriarch – (Stream of consciousness description)  Minigun.  Rockets.  Healing.  Stealth.  Running.  Pain.  ONE IN THE PIPE.

Killing Floor - $20 of Awesome

The game also divides your character choices into classes instead of black guy/white guys/chick.  The classes basically grant you extra damage for certain weapon(s) and a discount to purchase said weapon.  You can also level up your class to further increase the damage/discount and add other “perks” as well.  Leveling up certain classes is extremely annoying, but I’ll get to that in the “grind” section.   Sharpshooter/Firebug/Berserker/Medic/Commander/Specialist translates into Snipers/Flamethrower/Melee/Healing/Assault Rifle/Shotguns, but each class is able to wield any weapon.  The classes are purely for the perks to the weapons, not for the ability to use said weapons.

Graphics – Mediocre

Now, I’m not really a big graphics whore like some people seem to be, but this game is definitely not at the pinnacle of the graphical spear.  Now, it’s not some horrendous  shit-show where you can’t distinguish friends/enemies, but there are times where it’s just too dark and grainy where it shouldn’t be, and occasionally you’ll kill an enemy only to see their body completely disappear.  This second issue largely seems to be a per-game issue, as the type of enemy that will disappear is largely consistent throughout a series of waves, and also may be affected by who is hosting the particular game.

Overall, the graphics do not detract from the gameplay, and it is still extremely enjoyable.

The Grind…… - Fine to Shit, depending

This section will be short.  Leveling the class is based on certain objectives that just require a larger number of things as you level up.  For all but 2 classes, the primary level up objective is “do damage, lots” with the typical level 5 goal being do 3.5million damage to get it.  This only doesn’t hold true for the Commander and the Sharpshooter.  To get level -3- of the Commander requires you to kill 600 Stalkers with the Bullpup weapon.  Yeah, the invisible ones.  Easy to assume over 2500 Stalkers killed to achieve level 5.  At most 100 stalkers per 7-wave normal mode.  Fuck.  The sharpshooter requires 750 Headshots to reach level 3.  Sure, sounds reasonable.  Oh, they have to be kill headshots.  And about 25% won’t count for no real reason.  Fuck.


Overall – VERY GOOD GAME.  With 6-player co-op scaling based on the number of players present, the Unreal editor making maps that already support 30+ players, and a community will to make tons of maps for a great game, the growth potential is amazing.  Sure, I wish the final boss wasn’t always the same, and I sometimes wish the final boss wasn’t godly compared to the rest of the level, but I’ll deal because the game is pretty damn awesome.

[radium88]

That sounds scary.  I usually don't play scary games by myself so it being a 6 person co-op is cool.  It sounds pretty hard too with the type of enemies you have.  So I can be a sniper and wield the healing gun or whatever?  Eh, I would have hoped they made it so each type is limited to certain guns (like maybe only able to wield 3 of the 6) because then there is less strategy involve, don't you think?  Also, does that mean you can hold all of the guns at once if you were to buy them all?  I wonder why they only had 2 classes level up based on their class "skill".  Oh!  Does each have a stats instead?  Like since everybody can wield any weapon would the Sharpshooter have a higher accuracy stat than the Berserker? 

I guess I could look this up but it sounds like a fun game to play with peoples.

[MetalMusicMan]

Seth was talking about this the other day, I figured I'd see a review of it from you at some point, Gam.  Nice work

[Mahony]

You have a maximum weight you can carry.  typically you can only carry a melee weapon, dual pistols, and a main weapon at a time.  As far as the skill level you are talking about I'll explain in a little more detail.  I play the specialist aka shotgun guy.  at level 2 iirc I get 20% increased damage with shotguns, 20% discount on buying shotguns from the shop,  can carry 15% more weight (so you can have both the pump and double barrel shotguns), and I think increased welding speed.  You can weld doors together to force the zombies to attack from a certain area.  however if they are determined enough they can break it down.

items like the healing injector and welding torch don't count against your weight and they are always with you no matter what class you play.  

the medic for instance has a more effective healing injector, takes less damage from bloat sprays and get discounts on body armor.  

So while you can use every weapon as a specialist I would be an idiot not too use shotguns considering they cost less money to get and do way more damage.  However you can find weapons laying around on the map as well so I will pick up a free smg and go to town with it in order to conserve shotgun ammo, then sell it at the shop for extra cash.

[Syphien]

This game is amazing! Enough said.