Review: Killing Floor - Gold Edition (PC)

Some multiplayer shooters have a certain stickiness to them and long after the official release the online community remains strong. Counter-Strike is a good example.

Originally released back in 2000 as a Half-Life mod, there are strong communities still around playing the original Counter-Strike. In fact, any time there's an update or patch the online community goes a bit bonkers because "upsets the balance" or "forces new strategies.". That level of community involvement is rare for multiplayer shooters nowadays. One of those titles is Killing Floor.

Killing Floor started as an Unreal mod back in 2005, but saw new life when it was commercially released May 2009. More than three years on, the community surrounding the game continues to thrive; there's never any problem finding a server. (Contrast that to something like Gotham City Imposters, which came out this year and, at the time of the review, it could be a long time before connecting to a game, if at all.)

The Gold Version of Killing Floor throws in a bunch of "extras" and represents the million copy milestone that so many games yearn for but few achieve, especially over a three-year period.

The basic formula has increasingly difficult waves of infected monsters to fight off, culminating in a boss battle (of sorts). Between waves, players find the Trader to buy and sell ammo, weapons, and equipment. In that respect it feels like Counter-Strike. If you perform well, there's more money available and hence better weapons and equipment available. Players can also spread the wealth by dropping money for teammates.

What sets it apart from the usual co-op multiplayer shooter, is the ability to weld doors shut (and open them) to impede monsters or herd them toward a churning death sluice, where a coordinated team can make short work of them.

Many of the monsters/zombies can take a substantial amount of damage before dropping, so it quickly becomes imperative that players work as a team (and upgrade to more powerful weapons between waves). Anything after the 3rd or 4th wave practically requires a group of players stick together.

There's a single-player "campaign" stuck in as well, but I'll be perfectly honest, I spent about three minutes with it because Killing Floor is much more about the multiplayer than any shoe-horned single-player.

Also akin to Counter-Strike, when you die you spend the rest of the match spectating.

Dying's not all bad, of course. It provides a chance to check out how old the game looks. Based on tech that is ancient compared to today's standards, everything it blocky, there's no transparency to anything, and physics are something for other games. It definitely looks old but the trade-off is that it'll run on just about any PC released in the last 5 years. It attracts and serves a wider player base as a result.

Killing Floor is strong enough to stand on the strength of its gameplay mechanics and the wave-after-wave structure. One could fantasize the "What if...?" of a Killing Floor utilizing the features of the Frostbyte 2.0 engine (or anything approaching modern), but that would probably limit the reach of the game and therefore the audience. With no sign of slowing down, Killing Floor is still worth checking out even three years after it's official release.

- Aaron Simmer

The Good:
- Dashing to the Trader between waves to upgrade provides tension
- Feels like Counter-Strike in many respects
- Finding a game is never a problem
- Bizarre roster of monsters and creepy crawlies
- Welding doors shut (and open)

The Bad:
- Looking pretty darn clunky compared to modern shooters

- Trader menu navigation is pretty bad

Score: 8.5 / 10