Killing Floor



Killing Floor, released 2009, is a zombie team-based FPS developed by Tripwire Interactive.

Brief summary of the game
First things first. It's a FPS. It's team-based. It has zombies in it. But it's a completely different thing from Left 4 Dead. It started out in 2005 as an Unreal Tournament mod, and now has evolved to become a standalone game. Each match turns around a particular layout: Up to 6 teammates (May be changed with mods up to more than 50 players making it a massive clusterfuck) try to survive for a particular number of waves (usually 7 or 10) as zombies spawn trying to kill them. Simple, right? Well, not really. There are different types of zombies, and one big motherfucker at the end. Will focus on this later in the article.

Plot
As almost all of the other multiplayer games, there's almost no plot in this one, apart from the fact that zombies have started appearing and you've been sent and blah blah blah. Usual shit.

Graphics
Killing Floor looks like shit pretty good. The models are high quality and the textures are sharp. It's a PC exclusive but it sure doesn't look like Crysis. However, this can turn into an advantage because most of the shitty computers will be able to run it. The game also has a grain effect which can become somewhat of a nuisance sometimes, but doesn't really bother. The following images have been taken at resolution 1024x768 and everything else on the highest graphical setting available.

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Sound
The game has a pretty neat heavy metal soundtrack. Problem is, you won't hear it busy with all the gunfire. SFX isn't bad at all. Each weapon has a different sound binded to it. You might be able to find a couple of mods that upgrade the sounds, too. I haven't checked myself.

Fun fact: the hilarious quotes said by the player characters in a hilarious british accent have been retraced by /v/ up to this particular video.

Gameplay Mechanics
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Avoiding repeating what already said above, know that there are different classes and different zombies.

Each player can be one of 6 different classes with different advantages. There is the Medic (Can heal faster, gets significant discount on his main weapon, uses his main weapon better, kevlar armor works better), Support (Can weld doors faster to lock out zombies, uses better shotguns and gets a discount on shotguns), Sharpshooter (The sniper: gets discount on long-range weapons and rifles and uses them better. Plus, his headshots do more damage), Berseker (Same as above, only with melee weapons), Firebug (He is advantaged using the flamethrower and gets a significant discount on it) and Demolitions (Everything that goes boom, he uses it better and gets a discount on them: grenades, grenade launcher, RPGs...) and the Commando (average british dude, better with assault rifles, cheaper assault rifles, can see invisible people and health bars of enemies at medium-close range).

There are also different kinds of zombies. When referring to zombies in general the term "Specimen" is used. Anyway, there are Clots (The basic and most common Specimen, weakest unit with the second least most HP, but they can grab you and block movement), Crawlers (A mix between a spider and a human, will deal damage in the worst possible moment. Second most common Specimen), Gorefasts (the exact same thing as Clots, only they've got a blade in the place of their hand. They also sometimes survive to their head being blown off, even if they're doomed to die anyway after that), Bloats (Killing Floor's Boomer: Only difference is that this guy is armed with a machete and that his bile is poisonous), Stalkers (They turn invisible and then try to sneak onto you; luckily they usually stick to the other Specimen so you shouldn't have trouble catching one), Sirens (They scream and deal damage with that; their scream also destroys rockets and grenades mid-air - NEAT!), Husks (Has a cannon for an arm, deals quite a bit of damage), Scrakes (Obligatory chainsaw-wielding zombie), and Fleshpounds (The biggest motherfuckers of the entire game; They take loads of shots to kill and can kill you in six seconds if you're not lucky) and the Patriarch (The final boss of the map; has a Gatling for an arm and can kill you in 3 seconds, 1 and a half if you're not using kevlar. He can also shoot explosive rays at you and will turn invisible to sneak up on you raping you or heal himself if the team damaged him enough).

The gameplay is a blast, and you won't care losing. If you'll play on pubs, you'll for sure lose a lot, because like in L4D the vast majority of players of this game don't know what "teamplay" is. For that reason there is /v/'s official group for Killing Floor, you can find it here.

Lasting Appeal
The game is extremely subjective to how long it'll last. There are, of course, quite a lot of maps, so entertainment valued gets refreshed. However, most of the time it's the same maps being played, so get ready to play through KF_offices quite a lot of time. But playing the same map isn't that bad. Actually, it doesn't get old. The game is taken in "pills". What do I mean? That usually you'll find yourself playing for about 2 hours (2 hours and a half for me), then feel the need to take a pause and then go back killing some more zombies.

So, is it worth it or not?
The game sells for 17,99€. About 60% of the people who buy it at this price will be alright with it. However, if you find it for 10 bucks or less on some offers, be sure to get it because it's a fucking steal.

DLC / Expansion packs
The game has both free DLC that added new maps during Summer '09 and paid DLC only used to support the developer. That's because the DLC has no utility at all, it just changes your character model in-game. There are two paid DLCs at the moment: the Nightfall character pack and the Outbreak character pack.