Enemies

ENEMIES:
Clot: The clot is your basic monster, there’s alot of them and they don’t really pose that much of a threat. They can usually be one hit in the head for an instant kill with most guns, even the 9mm. The only real ranger is just having to kill them all and not concentrate on the larger enemies that can actually kill you.My advice is kill them from a distance using a Handcannon or a Lever-Action Rifle.
Bloat: The next tier in monster technology, the bloat is basically a huge fat zombie that moves slowly towards the player. Bloats have a nasty special attack, which allows them to vomit their corrosive bile all over the player, doing damage and messing up the vision for a few seconds and they can also take a fair bit of damage. Bloats are not entirely dangerous on their own, but if they get in close they can blind players and leave the vulnerable to attack. Strategy is to blow their heads off right away so they cant do the special attack and then fill them full of hot lead.
Stalker: The stalker is a stealthy monster that sneaks up to do a high damage attack. The stalker is extremely weak, and one shot is usually enough to kill it instantly. Its not that hard to spot in a well lit area, but inside darker areas or open areas where they can sneak up on you. They do a fair bit of damage as well, so its best to not let them get you, and they come in packs sometimes, so if your not careful you can die very very quickly if cornered. Best way to deal with these is… to shoot them, after the first few games you become accustomed to spotting them, so they are not too big of a problem.
Gorefast: The Gorefast is an enemy you meet usually mid game, and in high numbers endgame. The look similar to a Clot, but have red skin and a big blade on one arm. The are significantly stronger than clots, and alot faster, and they get faster the closer they get to a player, they also deal a high amount of damage and attack quickly. Th best way to deal with this enemy is to take out before they get close and faster, usually a headshot or two will take them down.
Crawler: The crawler is a small, fast, extremely annoying monster that crawls quickly towards a player. The are not that strong, and they don’t do a whole lot of damage, but they can close in very quickly and disorient the players with attacks. They also attack in numbers, so they can overwhelm you if you are not careful, the best strategy is to kill them before they get close, or use a Shotgun to kill them a few at a time. The commando perk is also geared towards killing these little annoyances.
Siren: The siren is the only ranged attacker out of all the monsters, other than the Patriarch of course. The siren emits a loud screech when she gets close to opponents, which deals damage and also disorients players and reduces accuracy. The siren is a slow enemy, and you can usually see her coming from a distance away, which is the best time to kill her. The siren isnt terribly strong by herself, but if she keeps stunning players with her scream you can easily become overwhelmed. Kill her from a distance, plain and simple.
Scrake: One of the stronger enemies in the game, the scrake is basically a large humanoid monster with a chainsaw grafted onto one arm. The Scrake takes alot of punishment and has the ability to “charge” at players when they get close. They also do massive damage with the chainsaw when close range, so avoid melee combat at all costs. The best way to kill this creature is by using the Shotgun straight to the face at close range or sniping from afar.
Fleshpound: The big daddy of the monster family, the fleshpound is the hardest enemy to fight other than the boss. The Fleshpound can take a massive amount of damage and even has some armor plating grafted onto its body. They can tear a player apart pretty quickly at short range so its best to concentrate fire on this enemy from afar. Only thing is, once it starts taking damage its chest light will start glowing red instead of yellow, which means it is enraged, an enraged fleshpound can run faster than the fastest human.
The Patriarch (Boss): If you manage to survive the rounds of gruesome monsters to the last round, you then get to fight the boss. The Patriarch is a single enemy that stands a bit bigger than a Fleshpound, it also has a chaingun, a rocket launcher, and several special abilities. The chaingun is the Patriarchs favorite weapon, and can usually kill a player quickly if not dodged, the best way to deal with this is to take cover or weave around while shooting. The rocket launcher can kill a player one hit, the best strategy is to watch the patriarch to see when he is about to shoot a rocket, and get out of the way. When he takes enough damage he will turn invisible and heal, once hes all healed up he will pop up behind a player and deal a massive melee attack that is usually an instant kill if you are not full health. He can heal a total of twice, which is quite enough with the massive amount of damage he can take. The best strategy is to have a well balanced team of players: One flamer dealing constant damage and flaming the patriarch when he turns invisible, at least one player with a L.A.W. to damage the patriarch as much as possible, One medic is nice as well to heal through the damage. The rest of the players should have Bullpups, Shotguns, or Rifles and continuously shoot the boss in the head, and use ALL your grenades. If done properly you can kill him before he heals, but you have to be organized and know how to dodge his attacks and rockets.

Brief Product description:

Killing Floor is a Co-op Survival Horror FPS taking place in the devastated cities and countryside of England, after a series of cloning experiments for the military goes horribly wrong. You and your friends are members of the military, dropped into these locations with a simple mission: survive long enough to cleanse the area of the failed experiments. The only problem is, these “experiments” aren’t waiting to be taken out – they’re coming for YOU!

Key features:

• Co-op game mode for up to six players obliterating multiple waves of specimens

• Persistent Perks system, allowing players to convert their in-game achievements into permanent improvements to their character’s skills and abilities

• Over 40 Steam Achievements, including “Dignity for the dead” for killing 10 enemies feeding on dead teammates’ corpses and “Hot Cross Fun” for finishing off 25 burning enemies with a Crossbow.

• Watch those crucial and violent creature deaths in slomo “ZEDtime”, even in multiplayer

• Solo game mode for offline play

• 9 different monster types trying to eat your face off, armed with everything from teeth and claws, through to chainsaws, chainguns and rocket-launchers

• 12+ weapons for the players to chose from, ranging from knives and fire-axes up to pump shotguns, rifles and a flamethrower

• Add in a welder, medical tools and body armor to help the players survive

• Players choose which Perks to play with, so they can best balance out a co-op team to survive the horrors

• Open, non-linear play areas: choose when and where to fight – or run; weld doors closed to try and direct the monster horde

• Fully-configurable, allowing players to change things as simple as the difficulty level or number of creature waves, or go so far as to set up their own favorite waves of monsters

• Support for Steam Friends and other Steamworks features

• Includes SDK for the creation of new levels and mods

The History of Killing Floor

Killing Floor started life as a mod for Epic’s Unreal Tournament 2004. The mod was first released in 2005 and has steadily grown in popularity. It was featured in PC Gamer and PC Zone magazines back in 2005, plus various sites across the web. A small core team, led by Alex Quick, kept the mod going. As with all mod teams, people came – and people went. School, work, life and being eaten by stray specimens all took their toll on the team. By 2008, the mod was up to version 2.5 and a small but dedicated and perfectly-formed crew of 4 people.

During 2008, Tripwire was the first company outside Valve themselves to put out mods to their games over Steam, with the release of “Mare Nostrum” for Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45. Given Tripwire’s famous background as a mod team, this was no surprise.

Later in 2008, Alex brought Killing Floor to Tripwire’s attention, with a view to moving it on to Red Orchestra and lining up a mod release over Steam. We took a look and decided it was way better than that. So, a deal was done, Tripwire bought the rights to Killing Floor, took on the mod team and set about prepping the game for a full retail release over Steam. Valve, as always, were hugely supportive and all that was required was an insane level of effort from Alex, Myles, Marco and Zynthetic from the mod team, plus more insane effort from the Tripwire crew.

Killing Floor was announced to the world through IGN and Voodoo Extreme and a new article in PC Gamer UK. The response was excellent. To quote: “you can never have too many good zombie games…”. And the rest is down to YOU!

Killing Floor: The Bedtime Story

On the last day of August, everything changed in the bustling city of London.

A group of several thousand protesters were reported assembling outside the offices of a wealthy Biotech corporation called Horzine. The riot police were called in because the general consensus was that these protesters were the violent sort and needed a lesson in civil obedience. All of this was based on eyewitness testimony that the office entrance had been smashed to pieces. It was agreed that this was a poor way to treat the property of a renowned government defense contractor and the boys suited up, put their visors down and moved in. With a few armed Special Branch lads hidden in amongst them, because they didn’t want to miss the fun.

On arriving, the officers found the entrance to be deserted. Still, a gaping hole stood where the doors had been and there was debris, twisted metal and all the evidence they really needed to start clapping hippies in cuffs. And as though he had read the officers’ collective thoughts, one of the protesters emerged from that man-made orifice and stumbled up to them. It took a few moments for the screaming to start as this protestor, a naked, emaciated specimen, had sunk elongated teeth into the neck of the closest cop and was vigorously tearing off bits of flesh. It only took a few more moments for the Special Branch types to haul out their 9-mils and the gunfire erupted.

With the smell of blood now thick in the air, the rest of the “protestors” emerged from that wound in the building. By the hundred. They howled and shambled and moved as though they had some terribly important purpose. There were little ones and large ones and those with chainsaws and cleavers instead of limbs and in the last moments of his life, the police sergeant mused that it was a bit like staring at a macabre circus troupe.

On the last day of August, London turned into a Killing Floor.

It’s a co-op survival horror game. Up to 6 players in online co-op mode, or just you, on your own, playing the Solo mode. The aim – cleanse each area of zombies, in waves, until you get to the last one. The Big One. The Patriarch. Then exterminate him, too. Actually, they aren’t “zombies”. They are the left-over “specimens” from a cheap and dirty government program to clone soldier-monsters. The basic ones will just munch on your arm and try to disembowel you. The bigger ones were the first ones they tried arming. Nothing much. Just a chainsaw or a blade for starters. They had just got on to the chain gun and rockets when the government tried to secretly shut down their secret program.

But, in the typical way these things go, the program didn’t want to be shut down. The specimens got loose. No-one was left alive to turn off the specimen-cloning equipment. And now they are running amok. Well, some of them are running amok. Others are shambling amok or even jumping amok, but you get the idea.

The police were sent in, but that wasn’t even a challenge for the specimens. The first army units hadn’t been warned what to expect. The screams of “its got a bloody chainsaw!” over the radios probably didn’t do much for morale, as whole units were chewed up. Quite literally, in some cases, of course.

And now, there is just you. And a few friends. The few survivors from the first police and army units thrown in. Of course, you can’t tell anyone anything, because that would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act 1911, 1920, 1989. And that would be a disciplinary offense. So just get in there and do your bit for Queen and Country…

Zombies. Lots of them. Big ones, little ones. Armed and Dangerous. JUST MAKE THEM ALL GO AWAY!

KF review

The premise of Killing Floor is thinner than thin. Some biotech company has been busy conducting genetic experiments for military purposes. These predictably go wrong, and now mutated, deadly, and very hostile Specimens are running all around London slaughtering and devouring people. You are a member of a British Special Forces team sent in to deal with this threat by using your advanced medical training to test the effects of bullets - on them. All right, maybe not so much that last part.
It's a very bare-bones premise, and it has no real hook to it - nothing like "You're the last four surviving humans in the zombie-infested city, you have to escape." Killing the Specimens isn't something you do en route to the goal, it is the goal. Your helicopter drops you off, and you're just going to have to kill everything that moves that isn't on your team. Games of Killing Floor consist of increasingly larger and more difficult waves of Specimens, culminating in a final boss fight, after which congratulations, you've won!
True, it's hardly reinventing the wheel, here. But to Killing Floor's credit, what it does, it does fairly well. The half-dozen levels in the game are all your standard horror fare - deserted farmhouse at night, the eerily abandoned streets of London, a dilapidated Victorian manor, etc. - and the game does a very good job at providing the proper atmosphere to get under your skin and creep you out. There's no such thing as a completely defensible position in Killing Floor: There are always multiple routes of entry to any given space, and even if you weld doors shut you'll always be having to check your back.
That's why you bring friends, of course. It's possible to play games of Killing Floor solo, but the game was clearly designed to be played cooperatively. Games can range from as few as two people to as many as thirty, with the sizes of the waves increasing relative to the number of players (why, is that a wave of over a thousand Specimens? I do believe it is!) Though it's wisest to stick together, the maps are fairly large, so it can be easy to get separated from your squadmates - a recipe for trouble.
The enemy Specimens eager to devour your succulent flesh supply a rather wide variety of foes to battle, from the fairly weak Clot to the extremely dangerous Flesh-Pound (who becomes enraged when shot with small-arms fire). Combine that with the handful of Perks you can select for your character, and you've got a game that still manages to feel fresh after you've been playing it for a while.
On the whole, though, Killing Floor feels somewhat inconsistent. Playing it cooperatively is entertaining, sure, and it can definitely be intense when you're in the thick of combat and frantically firing at a swarm of oncoming enemies. But that's simple run-and-gun action; we've seen that before. Killing Floor is at its best when you're playing it solo - when it's just you, your gun, and the slithering sounds of something lurking in the dark - and it genuinely creeps you out. The game becomes much less scary when there are five other people all watching your back, all shouting out the same stock phrases with the same voice actor.
In the end, I think that playing Killing Floor multiplayer might arguably be more entertaining, but going it solo was much more memorable. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to leave the lights on tonight.
Bottom Line: Not very polished - the characters are barely any distinguishable from one another, and all use the same voice - but a solid effort from developers Tripwire Interactive nonetheless. The co-op multiplayer is intense, filled with you-watch-my-back-I'll-watch-yours moments that get your heart racing, but playing it by yourself is far more likely to creep people out. Killing Floor does what it does very competently, though it doesn't exactly knock anything out of the park.
Recommendation: Fan of co-op survival horror? If you have a spare $20, you could do a whole lot worse than Killing Floor.