Survival | test

The zombies are back only this time they're not zombies, they're more like creepy lab experiments with zombie-like tendencies. Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Killing Floor which I picked up last year during the steam sale and hadn’t really gotten into playing it until lately. A friend of mine and I were looking for a co-op shooter to play and the horror theme of Killing Floor seemed right up our alley.

The game has an interesting story but it’s not at the forefront; it’s more hidden through dialogue in the objective gametype maps. From what I understand, you and your friends play as the military dropped into hostile areas around England and its countryside, with the sole task of cleaning up failed military cloning experiments, and you can't leave until they’ve all been dealt with.

There’s a ton of maps to play on—either in-game or community created—and they're all fairly open allowing you to adapt to situations and waves differently. For example: bottlenecking weak enemies that can swarm you at a choke point or using large open areas to more easily kite and kill the larger and stronger “Zeds” safely.

When you start the game it comes off as being a lot harder than it really is and it’s because the game has a slight learning curve. Most times when you play a horde-mode game they're slightly more forgiving with the early waves and Killing Floor is no different. But for a new player you won't realize how much damage and how easily the zeds can kill you. Add in the fact that their attacks slow you down, so getting caught in a crowd of even the weakest enemies can mean a quick death. Once you get a hang of the game and its controls, you learn how to kite and kill your enemies while at least attempting to keep them at arm's reach.

Killing Floor also has a class system with perks. They all have their own strengths and weapons, but that doesn't mean if you were playing as a commando you couldn't use a weapon that's good for a demolitionist. The only sideeffect to doing so is that it would just deal less damage because class perks increase damage and capacity while reducing overall weapon costs. Speaking of costs, the game rewards you for kills with cash and a bounty at the end of each round, which you then spend on better weapons, ammo, and body armor, all of which are pretty much necessary if you want to survive till the end.

Now the game has a wide variety of enemies. There’s clots, which are basically cannon fodder and only dangerous if there's a whole lot of them. Then there's gorefast which are a little bigger and angrier than a clot, and also weild a massive sword for an arm. There's also bloats which are massive bloated corpses that puke acid on you; stalkers which are invisible naked women; crawler's,a man spider hybrid that’s straight out of my nightmares; and husks, giant men with a rocket launchers for a hand. There's also sirens which are horrifying women in straitjackets who do a giant AOE scream attack; scrakes which are psychotic men who run at you with a chainsaw and lastly the two toughest enemies: Fleshpounds and Patriarchs.

Now Fleshpounds are these walking behemoths with metal fused to their bodies and giant spiked clubs at the end of each arm. They also have these massive glowing lights in their chest which lets you know there mood. Yellow means all good and red means I am to murder you and everything you love. Once the light turns red, they get increased movement and attack speed and if you don't kill them quick enough they can easily kill a group. Last but definitely not least is the Patriarch. Now the patriarch is the final boss who you fight in a bonus wave after you’ve been to each level. He’s definitely nothing to laugh at; you have to work as a team if you want even a hope of taking him down. He has a massive health bar and invisibility. He's also equipped with a chain gun and a rocket launcher that can kill you in one shot. He’s also the smartest of the enemies. Once you’ve weakened him he'll run away and hide to regain his health and come after you again, so you have to actively hunt him down or else he is nearly impossible to kill. He’ll pick you off one by one making it even harder to kill him in the end.

Killing Floor has seen a lot of love from the community over the years and has a cult following. I was surprised when I logged into it to see how many servers and active players there were. I’ve never started a game and had it just be me and my friend till the end, which surprised me considering the game is fairly old. Another cool note is that they do holiday updates, like for example: as of Yesterday (October 16th, 2014) and on until the 3rd of November, there’s a Halloween event where they reskin the enemies in festive and horrifying outfits. The same goes for Christmas and honestly it’s worth checking out around the holidays because nothing says Christmas cheer like blowing Santa's head clean off. If you’re looking for a shooter to play with a bunch of friends and battle back hordes of mutated freaks, look no further than Killing Floor! It’s on sale on steam now all the way to the 30th of October. There’s also a sequel on the way but there isn’t much info on it just yet, just a couple screen shots and some teaser footage.

Have you ever wanted to play Minecraft but found it wasn't terrifying enough? Well look no further because The Forest is just that! Now as I said last week, because of the glory that is the Steam sale I've recently acquired a lot of early access games I've had my eye on, one of which was The Forest.

The Forest is an open world survival horror game where the main baddies are a tribe of savage albino cannibals who would like nothing more than to eat a delicious slice of Long Pig—which while we're on the topic is the nickname I gave the main character. Now the game's story is pretty simple: you're traveling on a plane with what appears to be your son, but due to some unknown circumstances, it rips in half and crashes in the middle of a forest. You wake up in the flaming tail end long enough to see your "son" getting carted off by this weird albino native before you slip back into unconsciousness, you wake up again shortly after and that's where the game begins.

The game itself is a lot of fun and it has a ton of cool mechanics that help your overall survival while not being tedious or boring and without dulling down the gameplay. The Forest has a lot in common with Minecraft and Don't Starve; you spend a lot of your time foraging and collecting supplies to eat, make weapons, and to build your shelter. A lot of the early game is spent collecting things and exploring, while also trying to stay hidden from the packs of albinos who patrol the forest looking for food, which is you. The stealth aspect of the game is really fun too and reminiscent of the Amnesia titles.

In the same vein as Don't Starve and Minecraft, your goal is survival and the game doesn't make it easy on you. Between the weather affecting your stamina and well-being, the constant need to forage and hunt for food while balancing out the creation of your shelter and eventual base, then throw in the occasional cannibal pack attacking you, the game becomes pretty difficult. It also has a similar crafting system to the aforementioned games, utilizing whatever you can find to create makeshift weapons and even explosives.

The natives themselves are really well-designed; they're this perfect mix of creepy and unsettling but at the same time, you're always in such close proximity you learn a lot about them, like how to avoid them, their routines and once you find the village you can see their goings-on. The weird part is once you've fought enough of them you can take their bodies and create these weird burning effigies to ward off others. The reason I find it weird is that you have to chop up the corpses to do so, so do they find you frightening or are they just accepting you as one of their own?

Now as I said before this is an early access game and it's still in its alpha phase, so it's nowhere near the finished product but all that said, the game is still a lot of fun. I find myself constantly establishing goals like building a base and then creating gardens for renewable food, going and setting up traps to catch even more food and so on and so forth and it really instills a sense of accomplishment as you fulfill them.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a little biased when it comes to most survival games as when I was a kid I loved the genre of survival books like Hatchet and Brian's Winter along with shows like Survivorman, so this game was right in my wheelhouse. Saying that, I think this is gonna be a game that's definitely worth looking into but with that being said the game itself in its current state is pretty glitchy. On the other hand, it's being regularly updated and through an interesting ticker on the main screen you'll always be aware of when the newest patch will be ready. If you like the survival horror or just a good open world game, The Forest is worth a look and at the current price, there's no reason not to.