Killing Floor 2 Review (PS4)

A month after the conclusion of Killing Floor, the outbreak has spread throughout Europe, destroying every societal structure that once was. The only hope for survival rests in the hands of mercenary squads who take it upon themselves to exterminate the Zed populating different areas. With a dozen locations, a dozen specialties to master, and an armory of weapons to wield, it's up to you and up to 5 friends to bring safety back to Europe.

Killing Floor 2 Review

Introduction

Killing Floor 2, developed by Tripwire Interactive, and published by Deep silver and Iceberg Interactive, is a first-person shooting, team-based, survival game where players fight to survive against waves of mutant creatures known as Zed. It's a follow-up to the first one, Killing Floor, which released in 2009 and garnered multiple awards on PC. In this one, though, you descend into continental Europe where the outbreak has gone completely out of hand causing every form of societal structure to crumble. No more government and no more military, the only hope remaining survivors have is the small bands of mercenary gunners who take on the role of exterminators. Play solo or with up to 5 others online and survive against anything the Zed throw at you.

You can buy the game on Steam or PlayStation Store for $39.99.

GamePlay

There're two different modes you can play; Survival and vs Survival. In Survival, players can team up with up to 6 people total to fight waves of Zed, either 4 rounds, 7 rounds, or 10 rounds. It's also completely possible to play solo offline, or even just a private match with however many friends you wish. After completing however many waves you selected, you'll face off against an incredibly tough boss. The same goes for the "VS Survival" mode except there will be up to 6 people playing as the Zed (6v6 competition). When you play as the Zed, you'll be in third-person and have a few different attacks to use. It handles great but I only played a few matches (the Zed are strong and arguably OP in comparison). The real heart of the game is in Survival while being paired up with up to 5 other players.

Personalize your character by choosing from over a dozen possible choices, and then equipping them with different outfits, hats, accessories, etc. There's a lot to choose from, and a way for you to purchase more via DLC. After you've customized them, you'll choose from a dozen different specialties (Berserker, Commando, Support, Field Medic, Demolitionist, Firebug, Gunslinger, Sharpshooter, Survivalist, and SWAT). These will determine which weapons you are more efficient with, and which perks you'll access the future you progress with them. It's not a set choice and that's what is so perfect about the system. You can switch it in-between games, or stay committed to one and level it up. Even if you perform other specialist tasks, or use another specialist's weapons, while playing as someone else will gain you experience for them (for example, if you heal teammates while playing as Demolitionist, you'll gain a small amount of experience for the Field Medic, or if you use a sub-machine gun while playing as Sharpshooter, you'll gain experience points for Commando).

Killing Floor 2 Swarming Zed
You can fight for survival in a dozen different locations; Biotics Lab, Black Forest, Burning Paris, Catacombs, Containment Station, Evacuation Point, Farmhouse, Hostile Grounds, Infernal Realm, Outpost, Prison, Volter Manor. Each one of these is open for you to run around in and don't hold anything away from you; the entire map is unlocked from the beginning. You're encouraged to move around though because in-between every round, a supply pod will be available for you to re-up on body armor, ammo, grenades, and even purchase new weapons. There's only one pod that will unlock at a time, but the game will put up a running blue line that will guide you through the quickest route to get. This encourages the team not only to move around but to also group back up at the start of each round. The game can be played on 4 different difficulties, and although the easiest one (normal) will be pretty easy with some time put into the game, bumping it up to hard will put a huge hurt on you. In order to survive the higher difficulties, growing your specialties is your best hope.

In combat, you'll find yourself facing off against roughly 100-200 Zed each round (sometimes more, sometimes less), and they will come in groups from all directions. There're the normal walking ones that look like people (and the aggressive invisible versions of them), crawling alien-like ones that will leap at you, fat and slow ones that will vomit and temporarily blind you, and a few different brute elites. I don't want to ruin the excitement of battle the bosses for the first time, but I will give you a heads up that they are not easy. They'll require the whole squad to run through a crazy amount of ammo. The weapons, ranging from modern military assault rifles, historical and classic weapons, and wild science fiction guns. As mentioned earlier, you'll be able to use weapons outside of your specialist's perk weapons, but then any perks you have unlocked will not have their bonuses (25% extra damage when using perk weapons, move 10% quicker when using perk weapons, etc). Melee combat is another focus in the game as well, so don't forget to test out the swords and machetes.

Killing Floor 2 Squad Survival

Presentation and Performance

I'm most impressed with how polished the game is and how smooth everything works. It's art the way everything operates is as close to flawless as you could hope for. It runs 60 fps at 1080 and holds up to this mark even with intense shooting and explosions on screen. The environments are each unique and extremely realistic, and often had me just running around enjoying each room and alleyway. The subways under Paris are dark and eerie, the catacombs even more so (you have a bright flashlight to help you while playing), and the Farmhouse with the big barn next door, surrounded by cornfields, is the ultimate freakout environment. The developers really captured some amazing scenes for you to fight for survival in. The pictures and video trailers don't do it justice; you have to play it to appreciate how details everything is. You can change the gore intensity between three settings, but if you have it high, you'll fill every room with blood and guts, painting the whole environment red.

Audio effects of gunshots and explosions hit just as powerful as they appear. You can feel the strength behind every bullet you fire, both sound and graphics. I haven't felt a game with such strong shooting responses in both aspects. Zed screams and pounding as they aggressively come for you sends chills and can cause extreme paranoia if you're all alone. There's very little load time if any at all (mostly when searching for a game), and I only had issues finding a match a couple of time (I've played a ton of matches already though), but it was resolved by canceling and restarting the search. You can pick what region you want to search for a game, and when I tried one that was on the other side of the ocean, and I had 100 more ping than others, I still had an incredibly smooth play. The servers are no issue which is surprising since many games struggle at launch with housing all the players.

Killing Floor 2 Leaper Combat

Conclusion

The best way to describe it is if Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty Zombies had a child, gave it steroids it's whole life, and let Doom babysit every other day of the week. That's a wild and almost disturbing concept, but the game is truly that insane and well developed, and I can't think of any better way to describe it. It's been molded into arguably the best online co-op shooting experience on the current-gen console, and perhaps a top game for the Steam community. The graphics and performance are as top quality as you can ask for, and the shooting is beyond responsive. You don't even need to aim down the sights for your shots to hit where you want. With an incredibly smooth gameplay, tons of content, and a cheap price compared to many AAA games when they release, you can't go wrong getting this title. It's one well worth the money and the hours you'll spend playing it online with friends or randoms.

Pros Cons
 + Tons of content (characters, weapons, maps, etc.)
 + Responsive shooting and fun gameplay
 + Detailed environments
 + Smooth 60 fps at 1080p
 + Great price $39.99
9.5
Amazing

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