I WANT to recommend this -I really do. I’ve been a long time fan of the
Killing Floor series
(I even make maps and mods for them) starting with the mod on Unreal
Tournament 2004 - . This latest installment of the game series has
fantastic gore, satisfying and numerous weapons, fun villains, nice
graphics, a cool leveling system, and overall very satisfying gameplay.
But due to it’s flaws, I recommend picking up a used console version of
the game, or picking it up during a humble charity bundle when
available, because I can’t really condone giving money to tripwire
anymore.
These flaws are as follows:
-Loot boxes. This is
one of the big ones. I was excited when I saw that I could dress my
character up in this game, as I felt that was a cool new customization
option to have. Sadly, this only serves as a platform for tripwire to
manipulate users from. You can earn a limited amount of cosmetic items
through dosh vault crates that you earn through gameplay, as well as
earning cosmetic items during holiday/seasonal events, but all the rest
is locked behind a paywall. The game “rewards” you with usbs and
lootboxes that you have to *pay* to open and see what is even inside -
which might not even be something you like, or might be something you
already have. This could have been a cool feature of using the dosh you
earn through gameplay to access some sort of trader shop in the menus to
unlock cool outfits and weapon skins, but instead tripwire has used it
to make the game feel sleazy, unimmersive, and manipulative.
-Increasingly
greedy DLC prices. I personally don’t mind dlc as a general concept.
They are addons to a game you can purchase where you know exactly what
you’re getting. But compare the prices to the dlc from the first Killing
Floor game….
In Killing Floor 1, you could get 4 new weapons for 8 dollars. In Killing Floor 2, you’re charged 10 dollars for one weapon.
In
Killing Floor one, you could get Reggie the rocker, a playable
character with unique dialogue for 5 dollars - in the second game, it
costs 10 dollars for the same deal with characters like Mrs. Foster.
Combined
with the loot boxes, this makes the game feel very slimy. I want to
feel like a badass playing KF2, not like I’m trapped in the room with a
cartoon stereotype of a sleazy businessman.
Gameplay-breaking
bug(s): My experience during the seasonal event, Neon Nightmares, was
particularly frustrating. The blood blender trap in the newest map
bioLapse, has (or at-least had, when I wrote this review) a bug where
it won’t always kill the zeds that get tossed into it. Using this trap
was required for one of the events challenges, and also prevented me
from the finishing a match on weekly, due to the fact that I was the
last one alive, and didn’t have the firepower to take down the scrake
(his health was regenerating too quickly) - so I launched him into the
blood blender only to have him not die and get trapped down there, thus
making it impossible to finish the wave. The entire event managed to
pass by without tripwire fixing this bug in the map.
Lastly, the
inclusion of large amounts of christian metal on the soundtrack hurts
the atmosphere of the game for me, and it is also another reason I no
longer give tripwire money, as I don’t want my money going to such
bands. That said, the tracks contributed by zYnthetic are fucking great,
and I wish they’d just had his work as the main soundtrack like he was
for most of the first game.
Some 2023 Update Notes: Since I’ve originally written this review, they also added a “witch hunter” costume (yay
for promoting the murder of religious minorities), and the tripwire
president was asked to step down after making a twitter post attacking
bodily autonomy rights for American citizens. It was nice to see the
rest of tripwire hold him accountable, but it just further cements why I
no longer give any money to this company. A lot of people in KF2
community nowadays seem to just constantly beg for a Killing Floor 3,
and if such a thing ever exists, I really hope the IP changes hands to
something other than tripwire first. My favorite game about sassy
British people blowing up monsters deserves so much better than this
trash company.
Dead Space is a survival horror game set in - you guessed it - space! Specifically, the USG Ishimura. You'll follow protagonist Isaac Clarke as what started as a an attempt to fix up a spacecraft turns into an wonderful example of "everything that can go wrong definitely will". The story takes several twists and turns and you'll even get to venture beyond the game's central location a few times! As usual, I won't go too deep into the story because I'd like you to be able to experience it for yourself if you've never played the game! I quite it enjoyed it though, and the game created a good sense of isolated fear while also making me concerned for the safety of Isaac's few surviving crew-mates throughout the game. The combat is very intense as most of the creatures you'll encounter move in a very violent and erratic manners, and you'll want to target their weak points - usually the limbs. Thankfully, the game has a cool upgra...
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