IGN

IGN - Score: 7,5
28 Days Later meets Left 4 Dead. - - Zombies are enjoying a bit of a renaissance lately (which is somewhat ironic considering their undead nature). The shambling hordes can be found in everything from action titles such as Dead Rising to tower defense games such as Plants Vs. Zombies,

and the undisputed current king of zombie titles, Left 4 Dead. Capitalizing on this recent trend, Tripwire Interactive has released Killing Floor, a downloadable title over Steam that initially was released as an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod four years ago. While it's still held down by a number of bugs, Killing Floor is an enjoyable alternative for those players that have exhausted their time with Left 4 Dead and are looking for something new.

The story behind Killing Floor takes place in London, where the metropolitan city has been devastated by a large outbreak of the undead eating and maiming everyone in sight. In reality, these creatures aren't zombies at all; instead, they are "specimens" cloned by a biotech firm. Naturally, they managed to escape and decimate the population. Thanks to the brutality of the attack, very few people are left within London or its surrounding area. You happen to be one of them. As one of up to six survivors (two policemen and four soldiers), it's up to you to put an end to the threat by destroying all of the creatures that you come across. The characters themselves have their own individual bios, including a constable with a knack for police brutality and a soldier who collects fingers of the creatures he kills. The individual details aren't really important since they don't help provide any additional skills or abilities to the character; they just give a mild insight to who these people were before hell broke loose.

A moment of silence, please...

Regardless of which character you choose, players are also tasked with selecting one of six specific character perks. Akin to establishing a class system within the game, the perks give you a number of effects that are imparted to your character to help them survive each battle. For example, Field Medics are better at healing characters and defending themselves, Support Specialists can carry more weaponry and do significant damage with shotguns, and Sharpshooters do extra damage with headshots while experiencing limited recoil. Initially, character perks start at level 0, and all have specific requirements that have to be fulfilled before a bonus can be imparted to the character. So if you want to improve your Firebug skills to do extra damage with a Flamethrower, you're going to have to cause 25,000 points of damage with the weapon.

You can improve any perk whether you've selected it or not by simply choosing to use a particular weapon, which is useful because you don't have to constantly switch back and forth between perks. For instance, you can be a Commando (which focuses on using the Bullpup machine gun) and still improve your Berserker rating by pulling out a knife and stabbing opponents. Since the requirements to reach each levels quickly starts to grow until you get to the level 5 max, you'll be able to play for quite a long time before you max out the advantages, which will earn you a specific weapon when spawning into a round. The only downside is that you might not choose to explore all of the perks once you find a role that you particularly like thanks to this system, so you may never care to master the perks.

Would you want to see this coming out of the Underground at you?

Once you've chosen, you're sent into the middle of a map with a basic assortment of weapons and gear. You begin with a knife, a 9 millimeter pistol with about eight clips of ammo and three grenades to help you defend yourself. Equipment wise, you're packing a flashlight with a regenerating battery as well as a hypodermic syringe which can be used to heal any damage that you or your friends may take. You'll need to wait a few seconds before you can use it again, but considering that you won't find any health packs or bandages anywhere during your battles, you'll come to rely on this item over and over again. The last bit of gear is the welding torch, which can be used to seal doors to help funnel enemies where you want them to go so you're not completely surrounded. It can also be used to break seals in case you've attempted to create a safe room and your plans fall apart.

This will happen frequently under the onslaught of hordes of creatures that assault you and your teammates in a series of intensifying waves. Initially, you might face off against a set of mindless creatures known as Clots, who grab onto you and attempt to bite you to death. Shortly afterwards, you'll run into a larger variety of beasts, including freaks with large scythes or chainsaws on their arms, spider-like monsters, and large muscular beasts that smash through anything in their path. Every monster that you kill provides you with cash; between rounds you have a minute to track down a trader that sets up shop to sell you weapons and gear. You're not able to pick up every weapon you want, of course – your character is restricted by a set weight limit that forces you to pick and choose what gear you'll take with you in the next round.

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