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 and an immunity to being rooted by clots), 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, they are the weakest unit with the second lowest HP, but they can grab you and inhibit your ability to move allowing more lethal specimens (such as the gorefast) to close the gap and finish you off. Crawlers: A mix between a spider and a human, will crawl towards you along the ground and leap out to deal damage in the worst possible moment. Crawlers are second most common Specimen. Gorefasts: A beefier version of the Clot with more HP and a faster movement speed. A large blade grafted to the gorefasts arm allow this specimen to do significant ammount of damage on higher difficulty settings, especially in the groups they are most often found in. Usually taking a gorefasts head off is not enough to stop them, they will continue to walk towards you and attack a few times, even if they're doomed to die shortly thereafter. Bloats: Killing Floor's Boomer: similar to the boomers attack they throw up on you, but instead of attracting enemies it does a good ammount of damage and covers your screen making it difficult to see. The machete bloats wield is less dangerous than it looks. after a bloats head has been removed (and with it, its ability to projectile vomit) bloats can be ignored for the most part. Stalkers: A small specimen that usually accompanies crawlers (they share the same spawn points) stalkers have the ability to become invisible. This is not as bad as it sounds, the invisibility is not complete allowing a triained eye to see them from a distance and pick them off before they cause any trouble. Stalkers have very low HP and can easily be managed with the start 9mm. If a Stalker manages to get behind you they do deal a significant ammount of damage, and like gorefasts this damage is increased by their inclination to attack in a group. Stalkers are a good reason to always be watching your back. Sirens they look like a (zombified) woman in a straight jacket and will slowly walk towards your group while screaming. the screams deal a rather large ammount of damage at a long distance. A first priority on lower levels and a very high priority even after fleshpounds and scrakes begin to show up. They are more resilient than they look so its best to have a sharp shooter tasked with taking them out quickly. Their scream also destroys rockets and grenades mid-air, so be wary of lobbing grenades into a group containing a Siren. It will most likely be a waste. Husks: Has a cannon for an arm, deals quite a bit of damage from affar. another good target to take out of the picture with haste. they have a habbit of picking off low health players. Again a sharp shooter with a stead hand is useful here. Scrakes: Obligatory chainsaw-wielding zombie that has a great ammount of health. scrakes "enrage" after taking a certain ammount of damage so killing them is best done quickly with burst damage. A high level sharp shooter with a cross bow is again, the best for these high level threats. not scrakes take a massively reduced ammount of damage from explosive weapons. The last infected you will encounter in rounds 6 through 10 is none other than the Fleshpound: these are the mini bosses of KF, a high ammount of health (although less than a scrake when 6 players a present) and a massive ammount of damage (enough to oneshot a player without armour on higher difficulties.) Taking these down can be a team wide affair, although smart teams can kill them before they enrage and decimate your team. This is, of course, easier said than done. then there is the Patriarch: The final boss of the map; has a Gatling for an arm and can kill you in less than 3 seconds, much, much, less if you're not using kevlar. But thats not it, for what boss is complete without a rocket launcher. These rockest pack a massive whallop and can also be used by the Patriarch to destroy welded doors. Both of these ranged attacks have lots of warning though, the patriarch will always say somthing before deploying one of his weapons so be wary of vocal cues. If you piss him off too much two things can happen, some times both. Either way they both begin the same, he will, as you would expect, turn invisible. After this he will eather run away like a little girl to heal, or run towards the closest play and punch them around a few times, most often killing them, and THEN running off like a little girl to heal. The patriarch can heal 3 times before he runs out of his healing syringes but can be killed before he has a chance to use any of them if they players can deal damage fast 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.