Killing Floor Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 10th September 2009

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Time to clean the Killing Floor.

Killing Floor Details:

	First Person Shooter
	PC
	Tripwire Interactive
	Iceberg Interactive

15+

Out Now

1-6

Every once in a while a game comes along that you've heard very little about! These games tend to have a low development budget and more often than not are not very good. But, on the odd occasion in this crowd of unknowns there's a hidden gem. Co-op first person shooter, Killing Floor is one such title.

Killing Floor is a co-op survival horror game, set in a devastated England. Zombies are running amok after a series of cloning experiments for the military go completely and utterly wrong. You play as part of a team made up of the last remnants of the Police and military, you have the simple mission of surviving as long as you can in order to cleanse an area of the failed experiments.

Killing Floor is a pretty simple game, it doesn’t have the high production budget of other co-op survival games, such as Left 4 Dead but despite this it does offer a very playable first person shooter.

The games main serving comes in the form of its multiplayer campaign which sees you placed in the devastated cities of England and the overrun country side. Here you have to survive ten waves of a mutated zombie onslaught before facing a final battle with a boss. As you would expect with each wave the number of zombies you have to face significantly increases, new types also enter the fold with various different abilities and way to take you out. The game does allow you to counter this by visiting the trader who is open for business for a brief amount of time at the end of each wave. Here you can buy a range of different melee weapons, pistols, rifles and shotguns. This means action in the game can become quite frantic, especially on some the more closed in maps in which players and zombies are struggling for room. This adds a level of intensity to the action, as zombies close in from all directions this coupled with the non-stop action makes killing floor a pretty appealing first person shooter.

The game encourages team work throughout and even at the trader screen. If you struggled in the last wave and didn’t earn a lot other players are able help out, and the game does seem to have a good community growing around it. Most players I encountered were more then willing to help each other out! This teamwork becomes essential as you progress and lone players are more often killed in action and have to sit the rest of the wave out. Whilst this may seem harsh, it’s testament to how well the game has been planned out, to encourage co-operative play between you and your team mates.

Away from the games highly enjoyable multiplayer mode, Killing Floor does also feature a single player mode, although this is extremely difficult to find success in. Mainly thanks to the fact the game doesn’t tone things down when you’re playing on your own and still throw horde after horde of zombies at you. The single player mode also doesn’t really have the same appeal as the game multiplayer aspect and the game seems to lose some of its pace and intensity. I would go as far as to say that the single player mode has been added as a training exercise for the multiplayer aspect, allowing gamers to familiarise themselves with the games controls and so forth.

However, despite the high praise for the games excellent shooter mechanics, the game is let down in some other key areas. First the selection of maps available to play on is some what limited, with some quite badly designed allowing the zombie hordes no chance to get close to your squad. There are also numerous object detection problems and you often get snagged on rails, boxes and so on quite some distance away.

Visually the game isn’t spectacular and has a very old school look to it. The game is presented in a B-movie style with grainy camera which compliments the games atmosphere. Character models are fairly good, but animation is some what robotic and environments aren’t the most eye-catching to ever grace a FPS.

Sound in Killing Floor is ok, music is some what limited with a few basic tracks repeated on a loop. Voice work in the game obviously is intended to provide humour and succeeds, although hearing the same phrases over and over can become a little irritating, especially considering there all performed in a stereotypical cockney accent. Other sound effects in Killing Floor all serve the purpose without ever really excelling.

Killing Floor isn’t the most polished first person shooter on the market. However, it does offer one of the better co-op experiences, with excellent shooter mechanics, intense action and a good community that will keep you coming back for more. Just like the zombies you’re tasked with taking down.