If you don't care about fancy stories and all you want to do is kill monsters then this game will not disappoint
Killing Floor in fact does have a story behind it but it really has no impact on the game. If you want to find to read the story check out the Killing Floor wiki cause I'm not going to bother with it here. Though it does have a story Killing Floor has not fancy cinematics or memorable characters. No this game takes us back to days of Doom and Quake where stories were nothing more than some text you read at the beginning and end of the game and in between it's nothing but lots of fast paced action with lots of really big guns and plenty of monsters to kill.
When you start playing Killing Floor you're allowed to select a perk which will give your character special attributes and make them better with certain weapons. For example commandos get a damage bonus with assault rifles and can see cloaked enemies while field medics have more potent medical syringes, better body armor and can move faster than other players. Each perk can be leveled up by meeting certain requirements. This is one of the big things that will help keep you hooked on Killing Floor especially since you've got six different perks which will take a lot of work to level up.
Gameplay really couldn't be much simpler. Basically you and up to 5 other players are dropped into a level with only two real objectives: Stay alive and kill every single monster you see. The monsters come at you in waves starting out small but getting bigger with tougher monsters as you progress. In between each wave you're given a short amount of time to go see a mysterious trader who will sell you new weapons and armor and restock your ammo. Once you finish all the waves you fight a boss monster called the Patriarch. Defeat him and you beat the level and move on to a new one to do it all over again. It may sound like this would get stale rather fast and quite frankly it should. But it doesn't. I don't really know why but it doesn't. It's like Doom 2. I may have beaten the game but I still love playing it over and over again. Why? Because it's just a blast no matter how much I play it. The same applies to Killing Floor. It's just loads of fun and once you've played it once you'll be itching to go back for more.
I must admit I was quite surprised at how good the graphics for this game are. It's not going to beat Crysis but it still looks really great. Characters, monsters and weapons are all highly detailed. Particle effects, while not outstanding are decent enough. Fire also looks incredibly realistic. As good as the graphics are though they are easily upstaged by the sounds and music. As any good action oriented FPS should be, Killing Floor is accompanied by an awesome heavy metal soundtrack that suits the game perfectly. As for weapon sound effects I don't thing I've ever heard better ones in a video game. I hate it when some games make the weapons sound like Nerf guns and air rifles. Killing Floor gets it all right though. The .50AE Desert Eagle gives off a satisfying and bass heavy boom while the SCAR assault rifle's 7.62mm rounds sound like they have some serious power that is worthy of the heavy recoil they give off and shotguns sound like they could knock Godzilla off his feet. I don't think I could have asked for better weapon sounds than these. The monsters all have excellent sound effects to accompany them as well. Clots moan and groan as they slowly make their way towards you, and Fleshpounds have one of the most hideously intimidating laughs I've ever heard. The only place the sound department falters is the voice acting. As the GS review pointed out the Trader's voice acting is absolutely dreadful and you'll immediately be asking yourself "did they have to make her able to talk?" It also doesn't help that all the characters that you can choose to play as are only voiced by two different people. It seems as though they blew the game's whole budget on the graphics and sound effects and so they just walked out onto the street and grabbed the first people they came across and had them do the voice work for the game. Now ultimately this doesn't detract from the game too much but it really is nuisance worth mentioning.
One other big thing to mention about this game is the gore. It's definitely one of the bloodiest games you're ever likely to play. It's not uncommon to see heads splattered into little chunks, arms and legs severed off and sent flying in all directions and monsters simply blown into nothing more than a few little chunks of meat and a big blood splatter on the ground. Needless to say this game is a gore lovers paradise.
Now my final gripe about the game is the effect called ZED time. Simply put this is the same as the bullet time effect from the Max Payne games. It's not all bad in fact a lot of the time it is quite useful. Since everything is going in super slow motion lining up shots becomes much easier and it's also fun for when you want to admire that really awesome headshot you just pulled off. But the problem is you have no control over when ZED time is triggered. The game decides that for you so it can happen at some really inconvenient times like when you're reloading or when there's simply no monsters around to kill. Like I said it's not all bad but Tripwire could have tried to find some way for the players to have more control over it.
Killing Floor certainly is about as simple as a first person shooter can get. Just kill everything in sight and try to make it to the end. But hey it worked for Doom and works beautifully for Killing Floor. This game delivers the same solid action packed and bloody experience that was so addicting in FPS games from the early 90s and still is today. So if you just want to kill lots of monsters and have loads of fun with friends than look no further than Killing Floor. At $20 you're definitely getting your moneys worth.