Tuesday, July 24, 2012

More "Killing Floor"


Man alive, Killing Floor has really impressed me of late.

I should have drawn comparisons between it and Counter-Strike much, much sooner. Ten years ago, I put in many, many hours with Counter-Strike and Killing Floor might be the first game I've played since then that has done a good job of nailing that upwards upgrade progression during the course of a match. Do well in a round (survive, at the minimum) and the player is rewarded with additional funds to purchase bigger and better weapons or equipment. And if you don't do so well, you need to rely on the generosity of your comrades to drop some money on the ground so you might be able to put down the next wave of zombies together.

I really dig the fact that if players are super selfish and keep all the money for themselves, while ignoring their potentially under-powered and ill-equipped team mates, they run the risk of having to survive alone. That's no easy feat. I've seen it only a handful of times when the best player can actually survive a horde by themselves.

Running to get to the Trader so the items and weapons can be purchased is actually kind of irritating.

More specifically, it's irritating when there's one infected enemy left and rather than run toward the next location of the Trader -- so the team is closer when the round ends -- they off the last bad guy and the entire team has to haul ass across the map before the timer runs down on the Trader and the next wave begins. If everyone is on the same page on this, there's always plenty of time to outfit yourself properly, but having to traverse the entire map means that on more than one occasion I've had a mere handful of seconds to pay for a better weapon.

With some practice and experience, I'm sure it's a simple thing to operate from memory on the proper "upgrade path." The interface is clunky for buying things from the Trader and I'm still not used to it. Hopefully in the coming days I'm acclimate myself to grab the proper weapons quickly without having to think about it, especially as it pertains to the class I'm playing.