Recent reviews by sir-scudio!

story's ok. lamar carried the whole thing but trevor has some good moments too. wait for a sale at least if you're thinking about getting the game.

online is a grindy trainwreck. don't even bother unless you have friends to play with, then it becomes somewhat tolerable. rockstar lost vision when they started adding all this futuristic ♥♥♥♥ people unironically like.

as of writing this the most recent update was that car meet update, literally took them half a year to add a new location, a few "new" cars and some other stuff nobody cares about. well done cockstar, real ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ impressive.

god why do i keep on playing this game

Now you might be thinking: "Look at this moron, hes got all those hours in this game only to give it a negative review." and you're right but honestly, it's about time I did this. I think it's time I tell you about the absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ state of this game. (Spoiler Alert: It's not good.)

1. RNG? In my skill based shooter? It's more likely than you think!

Yeah, on the higher difficulties Fleshpounds and Quarterpounds have a chance to spawn enraged as a way to increase the difficulty of the game but all this does is go against the design of the Fleshpound itself and ruin the flow of the match.

The whole idea of it raging is that you failed to kill it before it enters its most deadly state (whether it be leaving its rage timer to countdown to 0 or failing a combo/ takedown/ whatever the gamers call it nowadays) and thus you're being punished but with it spawning enraged, you and your team are being punished for being simply unlucky (basically, something out of your control). Not very fair is it?

2. Balancing Issues. More content for the sake of more content isn't a good look.

Some of the weapons in this game are the raw definition of Power Creeping, people have called for nerfs but have fallen on deaf ears.

For example, The Kaboomstick. This weapon is so hideously broken it makes the Demolitionist a cakewalk as it removes one of the perk's primary weaknesses, has the same knockback boost as the Boomstick and you can carry an RPG with it, making the other Demolitionist weapons not even worth using.
Other examples of weapons being OP are the Piranha Pistols, Healththrower and the FN FAL.

Hell, the perks themselves have somewhat lost their touch too. Commandos taking down Scrakes and Fleshpounds with ease, Medics being the best tanks in the entire game (Wait, what?), Berserkers using guns (Alright mate, stop.), Sharpshooter being an inferior version of Gunslinger... I think you get the idea.

3. EDARs. You heard me right, an entire section dedicated to one enemy type with 3 variations.

These robots are an absolute disaster, the fact they haven't been removed or relegated to a Weekly Outbreak at the very least is incredibly concerning because people have been calling for their removal since they were released (Which was Summer of 2018).

You're wondering "Why do you hate these crackhead robots?" and I'll tell you why.
1. They simply don't fit in with the rest of the cast of enemies present. Sci-fi robots mingling with fleshy and organic abominations? No thanks bro.
2. They don't have their own spawn pool, instead they have a chance of replacing Stalkers and Husks respectively which nicely ties into RNG.
3. The Trapper. This variation is the worst of the 3. Its laser completely locks you in place and this is a game all about fast pace movement. They're literally designed so you can't play the game properly.
4. Much like Fleshpounds and Quarterpounds spawning enraged, these voice line reusing bastards ruin the flow of the match and most of their kills feel cheap and undeserved.

4. Horrible mistreatment of community maps. Killing Floor 2 (like other games) allows its players to create their own levels with a level designer provided by the developers and quite a few of these maps have been officially added to the game, very cool isn't it?
Yeah you might want to change your mind when you find out the developers actively chop and change your map for the sake of it, not considering your own vision of the map in mind. From adding unnecessary props to block movement for you and the zeds, removing things that never needed to be removed in the first place, slapping zed spawns around corners and in other cheap areas as well as watering down the atmospheric lighting.

The best example of this comes from the map maker Delta who has made an in-depth video on how his map Desolation was absolutely butchered by the developers.
For those interested, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqxn6at0yxY

5. Weapon DLC. I feel this is the part where people will ruthlessly attack me.
♥♥♥♥ the weapon DLC. Most of it feels incredibly lazy and gimmicky for the sake of being gimmicky, there are a few nice additions such as the Riot Shield and the Frost Fang however.
Some of the biggest offenders are the FAMAS and G36C. They are absolute jokes all the way from their functions to their animations. The fact they expect us to pay money for these weapons is downright despicable.

Even today they're still overpriced, admittedly the Season Passes do soften the blow a little bit but that's like putting a band-aid over a gunshot wound in a knee-cap.

I have a few other things that I want to pick off about this game but I feel I'd turn this ♥♥♥♥ into something way longer than it needs to be. Might edit this review later to add these, might put them into the comments. Who knows?

I know there'll be a few people who'll say things along the lines of "cope", "mald", "seethe", "lol git gud" and everything in-between. Keep in mind your comments won't be taken into consideration since you clearly can't put together a coherent argument.

If you want to play a game where you go around shooting weird abominations and...robots I guess. I won't stop you, infact I hope you have fun.

Even after all this, I'm still going to open the game to try out the "new" content they add. After all, not every addition has been absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ so there's that. I'm someone who actually tries something before giving an opinion on it.

Leaving this review off with one last thing (This applies for video games in general, not just Killing Floor): Mediocrity is NOT the norm, don't let developers get away with this and above all else, don't settle for less.

People sometimes ask me why I still play this game and here's why.

Pure soul and absolute kino.
Killing Floor has stood the test of time and is miles better than any other co-op zombie shooter currently on the market (an exception for Left 4 Dead can be made here).

This game is VERY hard to get into due to being very unforgiving for new players but when you've got the hang of it, you're locked in. Hard to learn but relatively easy to master.

Gunplay? Incredibly clean, crisp and makes you feel like you're shooting a crater sized hole through reality itself, it never gets old. Puts more modern shooters to shame without a doubt.

The visual style? Dark, gritty and a horror/grindhouse feel that one can never forget.
A friend of mine once said and I quote: "Aesthetically KF is like the video game equivalent of a gas station bathroom floor and I don't mean that in a bad way."
Quite frankly he isn't wrong, it looks like you could get tetanus and 3 other diseases just by having a glance at Biotics Lab and I love it.
You might wondering: "Wait, horror?" Try turning a corner as a Commando with no armour only to be face to face with a Fleshpound. You don't get that kind of feeling in any other game.

Then again Killing Floor IS a horror game until the protagonists start speaking so make of that as you will.

Anyways, what about replayability? 7 perks (classes for newcomers) that serve their own unique roles, a wide selection of weapons that would make Toys R U- an American gun store blush, 30+ official maps and on top of all that the game has Steam Workshop support.
Mods can provide so much for this game and it's all right there. Custom perks, weapons, zeds, playermodels, maps etc. You name it, the Steam Workshop has it. Go wild big man.

Servers and players? Still fairly active even after 15 years after the game's initial release. You'll always find around 200+ players playing at any given time on both vanilla and modded servers.
Speaking of servers: Skill based matchmaking? More like "Skill cringe matchmaking".
Killing Floor doesn't play like that. All you need to do is open up the server browser, find a server you want to play on and- oh would you look at that? You're in and you're blasting away British people AKA zeds. Who needs to wait around for a few minutes when you can just find the server you want in a few clicks?

Teamwork? Not mandatory but it's definitely recommended. Zed health and numbers increase with how many players are in the server and thus it makes playing as a lone wolf even harder.
Just be sure to pass around the healing when you see an injured teammate, you both benefit.
If playing with randoms isn't your cup of tea then playing with friends and/or playing solo is always an option.

The enemy variety? A homerun. Each zed has its own unique mechanic and they come accompanied with a terrifying design that makes them easy to read both from a distance and in a crowd which helps you to pick your targets accordingly.

So yeah that's why I'm still playing this absolute gem of a game. It sticks to what it does best and doesn't try to deviate from it. (The same can't be said for the sequel sadly.)
As of writing this I have just under 1300 hours and I'm still not bored.

By the way for all new players: There's other playermodels besides Corporal Lewis, just sayin'.

oh yeah and there's huge wads of dosh too. loadsamoney.

Oh and before I begin because I have a feeling someone will say something. I've been playing this game since November 2009 so sit down junior.

You sitting comfortably? Good, time to go down the laundry list and oh boy is it something.

Man, where do I begin? What a downfall TF2 has had over the years and it blows, it really does.
What was once an iconic, finely tuned and well thought out FPS is now a husk of its former self.

The artstyle? Tarnished. Remember when the mercenaries received cosmetics that were fitting of both their character and the style of the game? I sure do. At first we got clean and high quality cosmetics but now we're getting ♥♥♥♥ like "Haha funny hot chocolate hat!", "Funny pumpkins on the player's head!" and also "Goofy train on Engineer's head!" If I see another person using a full lime green/pink set I will actually give them a dinner date with God.
Skins: A good chunk of the decorated weapons are cool but warpaints? Bloody ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell, have you seen the trash that has flooded the game in recent years? Some warpaints have been proven to use traced clipart and stock images ripped straight from Google. Talk about replacing a perfectly fine system with an objectively worse one that lowers the bar for submissions.
Remember when taunts were actually taunts and not Fortnite-tier emotes? (Guys he said the thing!)
Remember when Unusual effects were simple, effective and NOT forgettable eye sores? I do.
Infact here's something for you: Name as many unusual effects spanning from 2010-2013 as you can THEN do the same for the unusual effects added AFTER 2013. Good luck.

Optimisation is piss poor. Imagine having a solid rig and only getting around 40-50fps in intense situations. Well you don't have to imagine, TF2 exists. This is a game from 2007 by the way.
Oh and the file size being bloated to high hell over the years, that's cool too.
I swear you could nuke half the content in this game and no-one would cry. No-one plays gamemodes like PASS Time, Mannpower, Zombie Infection etc because they're not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ interested. They play TF2 for TF2, not silly, wacky, goofy minigames that are interesting for maybe 10-15 minutes at most. People will get their fill after a couple games or so and go back to the vanilla game, leaving the file size bloated. Another side effect of cramming all this slop into the game is spreading the playerbase even thinner which in turn leads to longer queue times. Same thing applies to maps of well established and enjoyed gamemodes as well.

Also the game is riddled with bugs, alot of them aren't exactly game breaking but they're pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying and should be patched regardless. Oh wait, the Workshop has a "Community Fix" tab but won't implement anything from it because it isn't a simple copy and paste job.

Weapon balancing in this game has always been a rocky road to say the least. Those who played the Uber Update or Love And War when they first dropped know exactly what I'm on about.
A good chunk of weapons are in good enough positions but others are either so blatantly underpowered/broken (as in don't work properly) OR so blatantly overpowered that it's criminal that they're still left as the way they are.
Bring back the Sandman/Flying Guillotine combo, nerf the Diamondback, Bushwacka, Scorch Shot and Wrangler and for the love of god bring back the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Bison, Caber and GRU to their former glory. Oh they're only a few examples.

Meet Your Match. Why.
What a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trainwreck of an update and one that TF2 has still not recovered from 8 years later (coming up). Replacing a perfectly serviceable system known as Quickplay with a completely new system that hardly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ works. Noticing a trend here?
Want a decent game of TF2? Better find those community servers. (Even then that's not a guarantee.)
It's almost as if TF2 has a playerbase that consists of mostly CASUAL players and forcing COMPETITIVE elements onto them is a BAD idea. Who would've guessed?
You can't choose your team nor spectate and it's either roll or get rolled because the game can't balance teams to save its life. (Maybe occasionally you'll get an actual good game that is balanced and fun but they're rarer than unboxing an unusual).
TF2 has been best described as "a chatroom with guns" and plenty of communities were formed BECAUSE of the game's casual nature, even I myself have been a part of. (I miss you Golden Machine Gun.)

Oh yeah, that perfectly leads me onto this next point and one that everyone and their grandparents know by now: Valve servers being flooded with bots and obvious cheaters.
This is a product that Valve advertises as functioning and wants you to spend money on yet they can't be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bothered to do basic maintenance. This is a company worth billions of dollars and they refuse to hire some extra hands to work on a game that desperately needs it. It's pitiful to put it lightly.
This isn't just a TF2 thing either, this expands to other games like Left 4 Dead And Counter Strike 2... ESPECIALLY Counter Strike 2. Guess that's what happens when your games have their own economies worth real life money.
VAC is a total joke and saying it actually stands for "Valve Allows Cheaters" would be pretty accurate.
"Oh but Valve made it so F2P accounts couldn't spam text/voice chat and voice commands because the bots were all F2P!" Yeah that didn't do anything and loads of actual players got hurt in the crossfire, the game is quite literally P2W because of this backward change.
"Oh Valve logged into the official TF2 Twitter and made a tweet mentioning the problem!" Wow, a tweet on an awful website that's also plagued with bots. Cool! Guess what buddy? That was 2 years ago and nothing has changed.

Valve do NOT care and it shows, people need to stick Valve's nose into their own mess that THEY left fester and worsen over time.

Valve games made up a good chunk of my childhood, especially TF2 and it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hurts to see what they've become.
I want to love them but I can't. Not anymore. Shame on you Valve.

Here's hoping that Deadlock flops hard and gives them the wake up call they desperately need.

TL;DR for the lazy: Artstyle ruined, poor optimisation, riddled with bugs, weapon balancing that has seen better days, Meet Your Match existing, bots and cheaters existing in Valve servers, an anti-cheat that doesn't work and Valve being money hungry, neglectful and downright embarrassing.

Thanks and have fun.

UPDATE: Ever since I made this review back in June, the bots that were once seen in Valve's casual servers have been seemingly eradicated or atleast their activity has been slowed down to what can be described as "crawling but with no limbs".
While this is great news I will NOT be changing this from a negative review to a positive one as my other criticisms of the game have not been addressed and personally I think it's VERY unlikely they ever will.
Valve need to do more instead of posting the occasional announcement for a competitive tournament only 10 people care about, posting an announcement about the every-so-often community Mann VS Machine event and adding the cosmetic case cash grab (ft. the occasional War Paint case) that come 3 times a year.