Review: Killing Floor

written on Thursday, May 28, 2009

I am so torn on Killing Floor. The action is satisfying, but the perk system is a nasty grind that takes some of the fun out of it. Single player is dull, but co-op (with a decent group) is pretty awesome.

Also my review scale leans heavily on replayability. But Killing Floor forces replays because there really isn't too much content there: six maps and eight zombie types (and that's counting the final boss). Left 4 Dead has more content in a single campaign, and people criticized it as being way too short. And honestly, the replayability isn't precisely the point.

The point is to consider the impression the game left me with. At a two, I'm glad it's gone and wish it had never been. At a three I'm glad I played it but feel pretty done with it. At a four, I may go back. At a five, I love it and wish it would never end.

This does hurt games with annoying bits at the end. Mario Galaxy springs to mind. But I think that's an important lesson to developers. If you don't leave them wanting more, and instead leave them wishing you'd knocked it off a few hours earlier, players aren't going to remember your game fondly.

By this standard, Killing Floor is in the three camp. I'll go back if PA guys on my friends list jump on. And I hope they will because they're a fun bunch. But if I could only play public games with complete strangers, I'd never touch the game again.

I guess it boils down to this, I had fun. 3 of 5. But if you don't have a good group to play with, I do not recommend this game.

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Hmm. I avoid giving the game two scores by adding a huge caveat. And the final score that will show up on the spreadsheet looks like a positive review. I don't want to start adding asterisks to the score column, so let's just be clear that this is my blog and these scores reflect my experiences with games. They are not buying advice and haven't been since I established my scoring standards back on Sept. 2, 2007. That's good. I hate when I go back and discover I said the opposite of what I'm saying now (Aug. 30, 2007).