Game Review: Mass Effect 3 (Extended Cut)

Mass Effect 3 is the epic final chapter of a trilogy I have sunk more time into than any other series. While this review does seem a bit late, with the release of the Extended Cut DLC, the game is now more complete than it was on release. So now seems like a good time to review it.

Mass Effect 3 follows the continuing adventures of Commander Shepard and the crew of the SSV Normandy, as the galaxy erupts into a ferocious war against the organic-decimating machines, the Reapers. Shepard’s task is to build an army the likes of which the galaxy has never seen, and solve the thousands-of-years-old issues that cause tensions between the various alien races.

Allying these races against the Reapers forms the main brunt of the story. Unlike in Mass Effect 2, which saw Shepard attempting to recruit highly skilled individuals for his suicide mission against the Collectors, the stakes are bigger and Shepard needs to convince the entire galaxy to forget the grudges of the past.

While this may seem like it makes for a much less personal story, the ability to import your saves from the previous two games means that there is a much greater connection to your individual Shepard. It is easily the most emotionally-affecting title in the franchise, as we see Shepard struggle to deal with the losses he has encountered (and in most cases, caused) over the years, as we see well-loved characters die, and as we see races teeter on the brink of extinction.

As you assist individual characters, militaries and races, you gain War Assets which add to your Galactic Readiness meter. This essentially determines how well prepared the galaxy is for the inevitable final battle and is integral to the success or failure of the end-game. It’s a system that works well, and it does an excellent job of letting you know how well you are doing.

As an evolution from the original Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 was astounding. Clunky combat and menu systems were streamlined, and the game was pretty much as polished as it could be. So it’s little wonder that, while Mass Effect 3 definitely improves on its predecessor, it’s not as big a leap forward as the previous sequel. But the important thing is that it does improve. Tedious mechanics like planet scanning are minimised to their bare essentials, movement is slicker as Shepard can now roll, make prompted jumps across gabs and climb ladders, and the Galaxy Map is easier to navigate (with an added threat of Reapers chasing your miniaturised Normandy).

But not every change works as well. Side missions are given to you awkwardly, as you overhear conversations on the Citadel (essentially a galactic Hub) and then dispatch yourself to solve these people’s problems. It’s a little like hearing someone in the street say they fancy a sandwich, and then you decide to return in a week with a sandwich for them. It’s awkward, and they feel a little pointless in the grand scheme of things, despite the fact that you gain War Assets for these little detours.

It’s a good job then that the main story missions work so well. Each one feels relevant and worthy of the time of the galaxy’s saviour. The conversation and choice system works the best it ever has, and your choices feel like they have a genuine impact in determining the fates of entire species. Combat is also mildly improved over Mass Effect 2. The cover-based third person shooting feels fast and fluid, with the game’s Powers system bringing an excellent balance and some stunning effects. The addition of a heavy melee (which differs for each class) also brings a different, welcome aspect to fights.

The AI of your squad works well, and they are often useful in fights, only going down if you aren’t paying enough attention to them. The enemy AI also provides a great challenge. They won’t just stick to cover and pop up like Whack-A-Moles, they will throw grenades, attempt to flank, and generally try their best to kill you. There are a variety of different types of enemies and each one requires a different set of tactics, which keeps the gameplay feeling fresh on your umpteenth playthrough.

Now, as this review is being written because of the Extended Cut DLC, I should mention the endings (spoiler-free). I was one of the people unhappy with the game’s original endings. I thought they were full of plot-holes, were very vague, and were just generally unsatisfying for someone who has invested 5 years and between 20-30 combined playthroughs of all three games. But with the addition of this DLC, I no longer feel like I’ve wasted my love on this franchise. Each ending feels satisfying and any previous inaccuracies are explained away well. I sat through my ending with a grin on my face the entire way through. That says a lot when I was previously so disappointed.

Despite being a story-and-character-driven game, Bioware decided to include a multiplayer component to Mass Effect 3. It could very easily have gone wrong, but thankfully it works amazingly well. Each match gives you Galactic Readiness to use in your single-player game and being able to play as each of the galaxy’s races is a treat. You haven’t played Mass Effect 3 until you have head-butted a Brute to death as a Krogan. Combine the excellent gameplay with Bioware’s continued free updates, and this becomes a multiplayer mode I will gladly sink many more hours into.

Fans of the series play Mass Effect for the story, for the characters, and for the fascinating universe that Bioware has created. Mass Effect 3 does not disappoint. It’s a thrill to play and is a world I will continue to engross myself in for many years to come. If you haven’t given this excellent franchise a shot yet, do yourself a favour and pick it up.

Developer: Bioware

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360 (Reviewed), Windows, Wii U

Genre: Action RPG/FPS

Release Date: 15 June 2012

Price: £39.99/$69.99

By Paul Brown

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Game Review: Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter

A welcome less-'Serious' & over the top shooter in the age of gritty realism: 

In "The First Encounter" Sam "Serious" Stone had to battle his way through vast hordes of enemies to prevent alien races from taking over the universe. As this is a direct continuation the story follows the same path however so does the gameplay.

Largely "The Second Encounter" is exactly like the first in the series just with a new environment and a couple of extra weapons and enemies so going into the game thinking there will be a whole lot more will leave you disappointed. I however was expecting exactly what I got and it definitely was not a bad thing.

The game starts with Sam crash landing in South America, conveniently close to the object he is now trying to obtain. The player is stripped of all weaponry collected in the first game which makes sense seeing as there will be players who start with this game and it is the beginning of a new part of the story. What didn't make sense to me was how the game reintroduced about half the arsenal within the first couple of stages along with three new weapons. Although the armoury felt more complete with a chainsaw, flame-thrower and sniper rifle to use, the pacing that the game used for their distribution felt rushed.

As ever Serious Sam does not hold back and throws everything it can at you right from the off however within the opening minutes you'll be facing enemies which weren't introduced until much later in the first game. This may be the reasoning behind including so many weapons in the very early stages of the game but it may be a little overwhelming to newcomers. With those two points out the way, alongside the old enemies are an array of new ones including chainsaw pumpkin men, alien soldiers and winged demons. This new cast of cretins adds a small but welcome variety to the enemy ranks waiting to get blown to pieces.

There are three scenarios throughout the game, South America, Persia and Medieval. Each has a unique look and different level layouts which is a lovely contrast to playing through a mostly yellow coloured campaign in the shape of Egypt from the first game.

An annoying feature is that you lose all collected weaponry at the beginning of each scenario, not just the first one. And each time you are quickly re-introduced to the lovely collection you had to leave behind. Again, it makes little sense to me.

In terms of core gameplay, it is largely the same as the first game but with different level structures. Puzzles are still no more complex than "find button, push button, kill an army equivalent to the population of the Earth and continue" but the game uses them well. The boss encounters are a lot more exciting than simply fighting another horde of enemies as this time three main bosses are included, one for the end of each scenario. Although they largely follow the same structure in terms of how to kill them, it felt good to have a finale style battle.

In terms of multiplayer, "The Second Encounter" includes a co-op mode and a death-match mode, which return from the first game, as well as a new survival mode. I managed to play all three this time around, if only for a short while however, I did gain an opinion on all three.

The cooperative model is the one people have hyped up for me. It allows for up to 16 players to battle side by side through the games campaign missions with unlimited re-spawns and what I visualised as full-on carnage. Sadly, I was disappointed. I paired up with around 5 others and played through a level midway through the game however with the firepower of 6 people it was ridiculously easy, let alone 16. I can see how people may find a thrill to having that many people play at one time against a mass onslaught however winning isn't fun if it's too easy and there is practically no way to lose.

There is a version of the co-op campaign which limits the team to three lives per level which means players actually have to be careful. This provides a much more tense and fun experience in my opinion.

The deathmatch mode was fun from what I played however I got booted from every game for playing the game as it's meant to be played; get kills, don't die. That aside, the arenas were nicely designed and the "Quake" style of play worked well.
There are several other game modes however deathmatch was the only one with players.

The last mode, survival, was the most fun I had outside the solo campaign. It is very similar to Horde mode from the Gears series or the Firefight mode from the Halo series however instead of multiple waves there is one never-ending one with timed enemy spawns. It was great fun to play, shooting everything in sight until you simply couldn't hold them back anymore. After you die, your time of death is logged and counts as your score. This provides a contrast to the L4D survival in which team time is awarded.

Overall I enjoyed the multiplayer aspects of the game but I personally feel a greater sense of achievement if I beat something really difficult on my own and when there is a way to lose.

I can imagine playing all of the different modes would be fantastic if playing with people you know as it always adds a greater element of fun than playing with or against random people.

Although it has flaws, "Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter" was ab enjoyable experience. I'd have to recommend it over "The First Encounter" as it's practically the same game with simply more stuff added. The new enemies, weapons, power-ups and some truly wonderful secrets compliment the new campaigns to provide an intense, full-on old school fps.

For those who played the originals, you already know what the games are like, however, if you didn't get a chance to play it back in the day (like myself), give this remake a go. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Developer: Croteam

Publisher: Devolver Digital & CDV Software Entertainment 

Platforms: Steam (reviewed) & Xbox 360 Arcade

Genre: FPS

Release Date: 28 April 2010

Price: £6.99 / 1200 MS Points

-Tom Seed

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Game Review: Serious Sam HD TFE

Serious Sam HD Review

Developer: Croteam

Publisher: Devolver Digital & CDV Software Entertainment 

Platforms: Steam (reviewed) & Xbox 360

Genre: FPS

Release Date: 24 November 2009

Price: £6.99

In today's market it is fairly unusual to find a first person shooter which doesn't try to overload the player with a "meaningful" story line, a more realistic experience or numerous customization options for practically anything the player can think of. "Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter" is an exception which takes the player back to a time where the rule was "shoot everything you see, no exceptions" and although this doesn't take much thought it provides a fun and oddly refreshing experience. "The First Encounter" is set in Egypt with the plot revolving around collecting elements in order to travel back in time, a truly flawless storyline! Though the game may be lacking in the narrative department it makes up for it with the intense, non-stop gameplay which requires the player to stay focused if they want to stay alive.

Staying alive provides a challenge with the game launching wave after wave of enemy forces at every turn. Enemies consist of horse-like skeleton creatures, soldiers with saw blades for heads, giant walking robotic brains with laser cannons, scorpions with machine guns and headless kamikaze soldiers, who comically scream as they charge towards you, and this is only naming a few.

Sam is however well equipped to take on the variety of ludicrous enemies with an equally varied arsenal including shotguns, machine guns, lasers, canons and rocket launchers. Though there is about sixteen weapons in the game I found myself sticking to about four, with the others becoming more and more redundant as the game progressed. A lack of ammunition wasn't a problem for me however I can see it causing issues on the harder difficulties in the game.

The game, however simple it may be, is most definitely not easy. The continuous bombardment from every direction requires quick reflexes so the player doesn't get overloaded by enemies who can deal fairly large chunks of damage at a time. Trying to deal with enemies as soon as they spawn is the best plan of attack however they spawn so frequently that the player can often be overrun. On a couple of occasions I found myself being literally thrown around by countless charging bull type enemies leading to my inevitable death.

"The First Encounter" seems to have a fairly even difficulty curve by which I mean it starts by sending multiple enemies at you and ends by throwing everything including the kitchen sink. However this onslaught or enemies can be tackles in a group of up to 16 players in co-operative play and although I didn't get to try this feature due to no-one being online, I can imagine it being amazingly good fun.

The game takes most elements back to root level with health and armour packs dotted around each level as opposed to health regeneration found in most fps games today. Level layouts are largely liner with any tasks simply requiring the player to push buttons or find a key in order to progress. The fast paced "shoot on sight" gameplay takes centre stage however it does run the risk or feeling largely repetitive. Impatient gamers shouldn't be put of by this though as the game is one that you can simply dive in and out of at will.

By the midway stage in the game the player will have seen practically ever enemy the game has to offer which does get boring, creating the feeling that you're merely fighting clones. Waves of enemies can become tiring when locked in a room or arena to do battle with the same enemy for minutes on end. However this is a HD remake much can be forgiven.

The visuals in the game are impressive, especially when you look back to the original, which has not aged well, it shows what a good job the developers have done. Everything now looks bright, crisp and colourful which is exactly what you want from a HD remake.

 

Serious Sam The First Encounter (2001)

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter (2009)

As with the co-operative play, I was unable to play the deathmatch mode due to lack of online users so I can't really comment on it. I imagine it would be very like unreal tournament or quake online and if the opportunity arises I'll definitely give it a go.

As a newcomer to the series I would recommend "Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter". The old-school gameplay provides a solid adrenaline fuelled experience and though it is very simplistic and short in comparison to modern fps games it definitely holds its own. If you are looking for relentless action or simply just want to shoot things until they explode "Serious Sam" will deliver.

- Tom Seed

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Game Preview: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer

Game Preview: Mass Effect 3 Demo Hands-On

Saving the Galaxy: Try before you buy!

The highly anticipated Mass Effect 3 demo was released on the 14th of February and included the fantastically fun Multiplayer beta, so let's take a look at it shall we? The Mass Effect series up till now has been entirely a single player experience, for obvious reasons. The game is set in a hugely immersive galaxy teeming with life, and it's really something you can only experience fully on your own rather than dragging teammates around with you. This originally made the idea of multiplayer in ME a rather strange prospect and a little worrying for those who are diligent fans of the series. But now that it's 
been put out for us to see I can wholeheartedly say that it's brilliant.

As I'm not going to touch upon the single player aspect of the demo, I'll just quickly mention some of the newest aspects in Mass Effect 3. The graphics are excellent, and have definitely been polished up since the previous games. The visuals have always looked delicious, but I look at them now and wonder how they could possibly get any better. The controls also feel as though they have been tightened up to compliment the combat and action. I never realised until recently playing back on the first Mass Effect game just what a huge improvement there has been. One thing that was a really pleasant surprise was the hit marker that comes up when you successfully get a shot on someone, like in Call of Duty. The tiny X pops up on your reticule and you get a little vibration in the pad... It might sound a little weird, but if you've played the COD games, you'll probably understand what I mean.

Multiplayer Trailer

The basic premise of the multiplayer is styled around a horde mode, like Gears of War; but in my opinion a more refined and fun experience (not to mention with a lot less drab colours...) You and up to three other players can pick from six uniquely different classes to team up and try to complete the mission. All the classes are in the single player game already, so there's no unfamiliar powers or abilities that you'll have to get used to. Customisation is available as you choose from the different species: Humans, Asaris, Krogans, Turians, all the wonderfully absurd alien types that populate the galaxy. Along with choosing the armour colours and arranging the perfect loadout of powers and weapons for your mission; there's a nice amount of things to get done for your character/s. You'll have individual characters for each class you pick, so you can have two Infiltrators with different abilities, or two soldiers with different weapon kits. Once you get everything organised and start upgrading and levelling up all the different characters; you'll have a small squad of troops ready for almost any situation.

So, now we move onto the actual gameplay: You'll be given the task of defending against ten waves of increasingly difficult enemies, whilst completing small objectives along the way. Objectives such as: hacking a data bank, or taking out specific targets amidst the hordes. It certainly spices up the action and when the objective is thrown at you at the start of a wave, you'll have a specific time limit to get it done, or the mission will be aborted. You'll have to cut a path through the many groups of assault troopers: the powerful rifle wielding Nemesis; the shield-toting Guardians; the agile ninja-like Phantoms; and the huge mechanical Atlas if you want to reach the end of the mission and get all the sweet experience points and credits. There is a nice level of variation between all of the enemies that really do require some strategy in taking them all out efficiently, all depending on how your four man squad is built. To best take out the Phantoms, you'll need a class that can cut through biotic barriers or you'll end up grating away slowly at them with bullets, which I can tell you is no easy task. A sniper rifle would be best suited to the typical Assault troopers for taking them out easily, as well as the Guardians who only offer a small area to breach in their shields. It all requires good teamwork and some variation between each player rather than simply hoping to clean it all up with bullets, which was my original plan of action. Suffice to say, upon chopping and changing, you begin to find some really good tactics that work best in every different situation.

The two levels offered in the beta are a good idea of what's to come: one having tight areas for you to try and not become trapped in and the other with larger gaps to navigate and move around in. There are also three varying levels of difficulty: Bronze, Silver and Gold. If you want to move further up and get a bigger challenge, you'll need to upgrade your characters and unlock better weapons using your earned credits or you won't last two minutes on Silver, let alone Gold. Regarding the actual multiplayer experience overall; it's certainly a lot of fun and the beta hasn't become boring yet, with so many different character abilities and styles to level up and try. With a lot of online games recently, I found my matched partners quiet and longing for a lone wolf gig instead of truly following the idea of the game mode. Playing with friends has been the most enjoyable course of action, but you could say that about most games. A few things need to be fixed of course, but it is only a beta after all. You can't expect perfection from it, but it actually does work very well in most areas. The only major complaint is that in the pre-game menus, everything feels a little clunky. And in regards to matchmaking, there should be some better options for getting you and your friends into a room to make a full game.


I look forward to playing the full Mass Effect 3 multiplayer experience when it comes this March. The multiplayer modes actually help your single player campaign, by helping your 'Galactic Readiness' that will appear as you begin the fight for the galaxy. All the credits you earn in multiplayer supposedly will be sent over to single player too, which is a great bonus. If you haven't played the beta yet, download it and give it a shot. If you haven't played any of the Mass Effect games yet, then go out and buy them too! It's never too late to start the galactic RPG series.


- Andy Robison 

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Game Review: Killing Floor

Killing Floor Review

Publisher: Tripwire Interactive

Developer: Tripwire Interactive

Platform: PC

Genre: First-Person Shooter

Release Date: 14th May 2009

Price: £14.99/$19.99

Killing Floor is a PC game you may or may not have heard of developed by the small developer Tripwire Interactive; winner of the 2004 "Make Something Unreal" competition with "Red Orchestra". Killing Floor, like Red Orchestra, is a total conversion mod using the Unreal Engine 2.5 with a focus on teamwork and cooperation. The game can be purchased on steam for £15 normally but is very often on sale for less than £5. In the 3 years since its release, and even in the 1 year since I bought the game, many updates map/weapon/perk additions have been released completely for free usually around the time of a holiday or celebration such as Christmas or summer very much akin to the frequent Team Fortress 2 updates. 

Gameplay

The game has only one game mode which involves teaming up with up to five other people and shooting, stabbing, and burning various zombie like creatures called "Specimens". These specimens appear in increasingly difficult waves with small and weak specimens like the "Clot" appearing in the first few waves and bigger and nastier specimens like the "Flesh Pound" (shown to the left) appearing in later waves. The final wave of the game involves facing off against a very difficult boss enemy called the "Patriarch"; a monstrous creature with a chain gun, rocket launcher, and claw that bursts out of his chest, not nice. Dying during a wave means you are dead until the end of the wave, you cannot be revived once down. This difficulty curve through the match scales with the improving guns and weapons you are able to buy in between waves from the constantly moving trader. Money can be gained from killing zombies or healing teammates and can also be shared between teammates meaning newer players won't lag behind and people joining the game mid way through won't end up having the worst equipment against tough specimens.

Every player also picks a perk of which there are seven: Support Specialist (effective with shotguns and welding doors), Sharpshooter (does extra head-shot damage and uses long range weaponry), Commando (uses automatic weapons and is useful for killing large swarms of smaller specimens), Berserker (uses melee weapons and has extra speed and damage resistance), Firebug (uses guns that set specimens on fire), Field Medic (gets more effective healing) and Demolition (uses explosives to blow large groups of specimens apart). Each of the seven perks involves quite a different play-style and teams will normally need a good mix of each with people even possibly swapping perks mid game to survive. The perks do not force you to use certain equipment but instead give you bonuses to damage on them and discounts on buying them from the trader. The perks also level up as you play going from 0 to 6 leading to bigger damage bonuses and bigger discounts per level. This means that the higher difficulty settings require you not only to be skillful but also have higher levels in the perks with "Hard" and "Suicidal" difficulties being basically impossible on levels 3 or below (and "Hell on Earth" being just impossible). This means new players need to be careful when searching for severs or playing alone as they may be put off by punishing difficulty. In fact this is one aspect of the game I have an issue with; it is not particularly easy to get into with a pretty steep learning curve that players may not enjoy. For this reason I recommend new players either play on solo for a bit (a perfectly viable option since the number of specimens spawning depends on the number of players in the game) or play the game with some friends to learn with.

Other than the initial difficulty the gameplay is an absolute blast, the various perks are all fun to play as and require a long time to master both in terms of skill and perk level (I have played the game for nearly 100 hours and I still haven't got any perks above level 4) meaning you'll be coming back to play for hours and hours. As I mentioned before they are also very varied so you can have a different experience just by switching perks.  All of the guns and melee weapons feel very satisfying; they have a real weight to them and feel very powerful especially after you level up your perks. Every so often during a wave the "Zed-time" will be activated; a short period of slow motion that everyone in the game receives allowing people to line up a shot or get a good view of the field. Sometimes however this can be annoying if you are reloading or healing so you just watch yourself reload really slowly but mostly it feels cool and is very useful. Killing floor is a very challenging game and requires you to really work as a team to succeed, particularly when facing the patriarch, and the game demands not only your skill at aiming and dodging attacks but also strategy in welding certain doors to funnel the specimens to certain areas, placing pipe bombs in tactical locations to deal severe damage etc. The variety of specimens with their various advantages and disadvantages against the various perks and weapons will mean you are constantly learning more effective ways of killing enemies and avoiding death.

Note: trailer does not incorporate the new updated content.

Presentation, Graphics and Sound

The premise of the game is pretty simple: a biotech cooperation was experimenting on "Specimens" and these specimens have escaped and are running rampant around the streets of London. You and your teammates play as special forces sent to wipe out these specimens.This is really it, there is no real story or campaign in Killing Floor, it's is purely about the gameplay. Visually, the game is hardly a piece of eye candy compared to some of 2009's more visually appealing games such as Assassins' Creed 2 or Uncharted 2 and this can be attributed to its older game engine. The game uses a modified version of the Unreal Engine 2.5, an upgraded version of the engine that Unreal Tournament 2004 uses. This is because it was originally a mod, made in 2005, for Unreal Tournament 2004 and people who have played this game will see this right away with the way the menus and server browser are set out. Back when Killing Floor was a mod I would be fine with the fact it uses the same interface, however, four years after its initial release and now that it's a full game in it's own right I can't say I'm too impressed. The interface was obviously designed with 4:3 and lower resolution screens in mind, meaning the server list is extremely small and so it is difficult to pick a server on the larger, wider screens of today's standard. Even without the resolution trouble the menus still feel a little clunky and outdated. 

Killing Floor may not have the most appealing graphics but they can hardly be called "bad" and many of the newer released maps look more like Unreal Engine 3 than 2. And of course the advantage of using an older engine is that most people won't have to worry about the game running well. Any PC made in the past 3 or 4 years should be fine and to any that are worried the system specifications are shown at the foot of the store page on Steam. 

Animation and physics are overall pretty good, in first person the game feels very immersive with your gun's iron sights moving back and forth while moving and being thrown up from recoil while firing. Bodies of specimens are often eviscerated and will fly realistically backwards when killed, again adding to the feeling of power from your weapons. The third person animations are not quite as impressive with the running animation being a little strange and glitches where your allies aren't holding any weapons in spectator mode can be quite ridiculous. Some of the particle effects such as the fire are a little dodgy with flame trails appearing directly behind creatures on fire instead of around them. However other effects such as the smoky laser rave room in the "Bedlam" map (shown above) are pretty cool and the build up of smoke from explosions can be quite scary if you don't know where the enemies are coming from.

The dark and gritty metal soundtrack fits in well with the graphics and presentation and the sound effects are absolutely excellent especially from firing guns. The specimen sound effects can be pretty terrifying: with the strange hissing noises of the "Crawlers" to the Skrake's menacing chainsaw revving and laughter. The Patriarch himself even speaks to you, with both taunts and insults that will be sure to infuriate you both before and after he inevitably kills you. People often complain about the voice acting in this game but I personally like it a lot. The voice commands and various "reloading" and "medic" shouts are voiced by only two people: the Vice President of Tripwire and a retired British policeman. Both of the voices share the trait of being having a strong London accent and will often quote famous British films and TV shows such as "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" and "loadsamoney!" to much amusement. 

Mods, community and updates

When the game was first released you'd be forgiven for thinking there weren't enough maps because, well, there just weren't. Only five maps came with the original package and at £15 this may seem a little unfair. However since then new maps have been constantly added in updates and events along with new skins for your character that you can buy as cheap downloadable content and some that can be achieved by completing difficult achievements during the various events such as the Santa Clause skin and the chicken suit skin from the Christmas event and Halloween event respectively. As of writing this review there are 21 official maps out all of which are very varied especially the event ones like the Santa Clause lair, the carnival and even an Aperture Science map released during the Potato Sack deal. None of these maps cost even a single penny to acquire (a practice I wish more developers and publishers would use) which means Killing Floor is great bang for your buck especially if you bought when it was on sale (which it frequently is).

A plethora of community-made maps have been created, some being rather excellent (such as the DOOMed map) and many others being pretty abysmal. Many servers often have custom weapons and textures and again these can be pretty hit or miss but it is always nice to get new content for free.

The actual community it self is probably one of my favourite online communities around, almost everyone I have met in games or in Killing Floor Steam groups has been very helpful and considerate and wouldn't call you a "noob" for asking for advice or help. If you are struggling to survive waves instead of players vote-kicking or insulting you they will most likely give you advice on how to improve which is very welcoming for new players especially when the game itself has quite a steep difficulty curve. The brilliant community is probably one of the main reasons I just keep coming back to Killing Floor compared to other online games because I just always have a more enjoyable experience with the other players.

Verdict

I would 100% recommend this game to fans of shooters, horror, and team-based multiplayer, really anyone who plays video games a lot. It is a little difficult to get in to at first and it's a little rough around the edges but once you've sunk around 10-15 hours you'll be hooked. If you're still unsure then wait for a sale or a free weekend and try and play it with some friends. Unlike most smaller/indie projects it's not trying to be overly creative or artsy it's just good at what it wants to be; pure simple fun!

- Connor Roddie

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Game Review: Dead Island

Tropical paradise. Now with more zombies!

Publisher: Deep Silver

Developer: Techland

Platforms: PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/PC

Genres: First-Person-Shooter/Horror

Release Date: September 9th 2011

Price: PC- £29.99 Xbox 360/PS3- £39.99 (RRP)

Ok, let me just say this straight off the bat, I'm a huge zombie nut. I don't know why, but there's something so strangely compelling about the idea of undead humans stumbling around and feasting on our soon-to-extinct bodies. Of course, what makes this situation so compelling is the idea of survival. The idea of living against the odds and being a true hero of mankind, or something like that. Unfortunately, I doubt this would be the case if a zombie apocalypse were to actually spring up on our planet, (It could just happen yet, just you wait!)

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