Cooperative horror FPS series Killing Floor will return for another monster mash (hopefully it'll be a graveyard smash) in Killing Floor 3, developers Tripwire Interactive announced today. Sadly they've said little about the game and shown even less but yup, once again you and your pals will get to fight through hordes of wacky bioengineered monsters. Honestly, science was a mistake. Isaac Downtown and his pal Harry Stottle owe us all an apology.
]]>It’s a running gag that Swedish conglomerate Embracer Group regularly buy up large chunks of the games industry, but now they’ve only gone and bought a whole universe. Embracer have acquired the rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit properties from long-time owner The Saul Zaentz Company. That includes games, along with movies and other media content, folks. Ol’ Embracer have also acquired seven companies within the gaming realm.
]]>Whoa whoa, calm down, breeeathe. Now, explain it to me slowly. The RPS podcast did what? They talked about the games that make them panic? Hm. That does sound like something those scoundrels of the Electronic Wireless Show would do. They’d probably talk about Subnautica and Duskers and SpyParty. Okay, well stay calm. That’s right. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. There’s no need to –
[The podcast appears from the shadows]
AAAGGGHHHHHHHHH.
]]>Update Night is a fortnightly column in which Rich McCormick revisits games to find out whether they've been changed for better or worse.
Gaming’s greatest gun is still Doom’s double-barrelled shotgun. We have to all say that, right? For my money, though, slots two, three, four — all the way down to about 15 in the list of Top However Many Shootiest Guns in Videogames — belong to Killing Floor 2.
]]>Chop a zombie's head off with an axe, grab the skull and chuck it at one of his ghoulish friends, all using your own, real-life hands. That's the kind of thing you can do in Killing Floor: Incursion [official site], which is out now and brings combat based on the excellent Killing Floor games to virtual reality. It's exclusive to the Rift right now and requires the Oculus Touch to play, so there's a big barrier to entry, but if you're already kitted out then it could be a go-er.
The combat looks intense, and you can shoot through the hordes on your own or with a friend in co-op. The Touch gameplay means you can slash your knives in whatever direction and angle you want, or chuck a shotgun to a friend so they can blow the head off a zombie that's getting too close. Plus, it looks bloody terrifying: the Killing Floor games weren't exactly scary but being in VR means there's no escape. Gulp.
]]>Killing Floor 2 [official site] is brought to us by the colour red, with the claustrophobic corridors and ruined streets of this multiplayer FPS painted in blood, viscera and the grisly remains of a thousand dead zombie mutants. It revels in gore and over-the-top, frenetic cartoon violence, encouraging the mayhem with an ear-pounding metal and industrial soundtrack. I feel like I should be rolling my eyes, but instead I’m shouting expletives at a mad, German mecha-scientist and whooping as another zombie explodes in a shower of guts and bone.
]]>August was a busy month for the RPS community, with action seen in Dirt Rally [official site], Rocket League [official site], Terraria [official site] and others - including Awesomenauts [official site], Natural Selection 2 [official site] and Killing Floor [official site].
Click on for information about each, along with how you can get involved.
]]>It has been a decade since the original Killing Floor mod for Unreal Tournament, which was released in much-improved standalone form in 2009. It's one of those games that quickly turns some people off: the visuals were a bit shonky, it was essentially built on repetition, and the less said about the Dick van Dyke voice-acting the better. But for devotees, Killing Floor is one of those games that stealthily racks up several hundred hours on Steam and swiftly becomes a fixture among like-minded mates, a precision blastathon where the repetition is the whole point.
You got better; the game got deadlier. And Killing Floor 2 [official site] is as straightforward a reload as you're ever likely to see.
]]>As luck would have it, I'll be in Paris right when monstrous hordes are due to overrun the city. Tripwire Interactive have announced plans to release Killing Floor 2 [official site] onto Steam Early Access on April 21st, and I'll be on the look out for - wait is that a lady with blue cyberhair in that screenshot - for myself?
The original was a barrel of murderfun, and I'm quite keen to return for more first-person face-shooting. Especially as one of the sequel's big selling points is that faces (and other bodyparts) will explode in a squillion different gory ways.
]]>Look, it's the last day of term and we're allowed to bring in whatever we want. Pip's batting an avocado about, John's cradling what appears to be a small hairless cat with opposable thumbs, Graham and Adam are kicking some kind of spherical egg between themselves, and me, I've brought in a video to watch. It's about zombies and monsters and big guns and cool swords totally murdering zombies like schhhhing! in Killing Floor 2 and before you ask, yes, my mum did say it's fine if I watch it okay.
]]>I do enjoy how Killing Floor's monsters look like people in Halloween costumes, the sort of thing one could make with a few hours and some household supplies. Given me a black bodysuit, some tights, cotton wool, pipe cleaners, socks, and wire coat hangers, and I'll make you a Crawler that'll win you pity in your office costume contest. Unsurprisingly, Killing Floor gets into Halloween in a big way.
The co-op survival FPS's annual spooky event launched yesterday, and KF is also part of Steam's ten-game Free Weekend Weekend, so all and sundry can come fight the horrible, horrible dolls that are murderous and horrible.
]]>Summer has arrived in London, and it's pretty glorious all right. But I say that as someone on the third floor with a nice south-facing window and a cat dozing in the sunlight. Parts of London are today, I say exaggerating only an awful lot, Hellish. You hop on the Central Line during rush hour tonight and you'll see. So where better to set a level in a co-op horror shooter?
Killing Floor's annual summer update has arrived, with goodies including a new Underground map and a new playable mutant-murdering lady. And, as they cannily do with big updates, developers Tripwire have also launched a few new paid DLC packs and put the game on sale.
]]>Dear readers, until today I had thought that the screaming and chattering noises spiders make in movies and video games were entirely fictional. I had intended to post a Killing Floor 2 trailer which introduces a few of its mutants, including the arachnoid Crawler, and say something clever about the "shared unnatural sonic vocabulary" of popular media. But, curious about the origins of this, I read around a little (looked on Yahoo! Answers) and discovered the world is a terrible place.
Now I know that some spiders do actually hiss and rattle ('stridulate,' we say--know your enemy), I find this trailer for the co-op FPS abhorrent and oh god why have the hairs on my neck pricked up what's that feeling is there a spider on me you have to tell me I mean it.
]]>Killing Floor is a pleasantly solid co-op survival FPS, blessed with chunky-feeling guns and ridiculous English accents shouting daft Britishisms. It also cemented Tripwire Interactive as one of my favourite developers for banging it full of new monsters, levels, and special events for years after launch in a way that only Valve match nowadays. Now, delightfully, a sequel's coming. Imaginatively titled Killing Floor 2, it seems to have as its core new feature, er, buckets of gore.
]]>Tripwire are having a busy weekend, with the announcement of Killing Floor's now-traditional Christmas spectacular, and a free weekend on Steam for Red Orchestra 2. This Christmas' Killing Floor event is IN SPAAAACE, which puts robots and Evil Santa on the moon (a free map with Christmas-themed baddies). Could anything be more festive? Watch the trailer below, and decide for yourself.
R'ochestra meanwhile is free from now until Monday. It's a fantastic, rumpled bastard of a game. Worth a few squeezes of the mouse button.
]]>Killing Floor knows all about mods, having been one itself. They never tidy their rooms, leaving files scattered all over internets and hard drives alike, and trying to organise them is like trying to herd cats. The multiplayer horrorshow is gathering all its mods in one place, the increasingly active Steam Workshop, which should make keeping track of maps and modes much easier. Tripwire will also be adding Steam Workshop support to Red Orchestra 2, which is receiving a paid for expandomod by the name of Rising Storm. I've got a load of notes about that which I shall compile later this week. There are booby traps, flamethrowers and kamikaze bayonet stabbings, all of which I approve of in games though I frown at them in life.
]]>Killing Floor is an acquired taste, or at least it was for me, like chugging down a bucket full of rust and blood, with accents so dodgy they'd taken on form and floated atop the grungy broth like cockney croutons. Where Left 4 Dead directs the players' progress, toying with them, Killing Floor has the player run around in circles, waggling their most succulent parts at the mutants and freaks, encouraging pursuit. Crowd control, herding, elimination; it's a butchery simulation with cattle that bite back. This summer's special event, the Summer Slideshow 2012, adds new levels, enemies and guns. The trailer would have given me nightmares when I was a boy.
]]>The Tripwire guys do like a bit of seasonal celebration in their Killing Floor. This year they're gifting us with "the Winter Weapon Pack, with seven brand new weapons complete with new achievements, free to everyone who owns the game" but there's also an entirely new level, the Ice Cave, which you can check out for free, even if you do not own the game, thanks the free weekend on the Steam from Thursday 8th to Sunday 11th December. There's other exciting new DLC, too, such as the Steampunk pack, which lets you dress like one of those digital distribution punks, I think. Hmm.
]]>Do you want to have a crack at Killing Floor's frightening-looking Summer Thing but are too poor/miserly to buy the game? Well then no problem - at least for fifteen of you - because Tripwire have sent us some keys to give away. Hooray! What you need to do is email us at this address with the reason why you are the best candidate for entering a nightmare freakshow armed with dangerous firearms. Enter by Midday UK time on Friday or LOSE OUT.
]]>The guys at Tripwire have sent word that they're going to be doing another Killing Floor novelty map event, like they did for last Christmas, only this time it's a "Summer Sideshow". What that means is they've poured their mapping talents into creating a grotesque freakshow, complete with 'orrible circus variants of Killing Floor's hideous mutants, and new unlockables and achievements. You can check them out in the trailer below. More details on the site.
It'll be arriving on Steam, and the event will from June 30th to July 22nd. (Also I recall Killing Floor being a popular option for an RPS server. Any +1s to that?)
]]>Portal 2, which appears next Tuesday (how did that sneak up on us so fast?!), continues sneaking its way into other games. I imagine using portals. There must have been a more imaginative way of my phrasing that. Almost every member of the Potato Sack has gained content relating to the cryptic influence of GlaDOS, including Killing Floor, The Ball, RUSH, Super Meat Boy, Toki Tori and even Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which has got some new, free and somewhat cryptic DLC.
]]>Last night I got an exclusive sneak preview of the Christmas update to Killing Floor, in which the familiar range of nightmarish mutants are replaced with an even more disturbing group of gingerbread men, murderous elves, fiery snowmen, and super-powered death Santas. It's an impressive piece of work, and also a little strange, and comes with free stuff for TF2 players. More on these things, to the slightly off-key tune of Jingle Bells, below. (Also, a seasonal trailer.)
]]>Tripwire has released the third free content pack for their co-op multiplayer zombie-shoot, Killing Floor, as well as a new 99p character pack, which is currently available at half price. 49p! That's a bag of crisps. The Incendiary pack brings a new weapon and four new maps, as well as upgrades for the Firebug perk. Bonanza! A video of some professional-sounding people completing the West London level of killing floor awaits your judgement beneath.
]]>Modders-gone-kinda-pro Tripwire Interactive have just released a chunk of free DLC for their popular co-op zombie shooter, Killling Floor. Do you like stuff? Well, it's got a bunch of stuff in it. More importantly, it's a pleasing sign of ongoing and generous support for a game that seemed pretty barebones to mine eye upon release. Also, there's currently a free weekend going on for it, so it's your chance to take a gander without spending any of your Earthman pennies. Details below. And a question!
]]>Tripwire Interactive, the good chaps behind the Red Orchestra series, offered up their brand new, standalone multiplayer shooter Killing Floor last week. Well, I say brand new, but it's an embiggening of an old UT2004 mod. A storm of hype exploded around this co-op survival horror shooter in the run up to release, so now's the time to judge if it deserved such loving treatment. Indie zombie face-splatting? Sounds about ideal. Or does it? Impressions below...
]]>Zombies zombies zombies. Zombies zombies zombies. Zombies. This one could go huge, I suspect. It's the next game from the makers of the evergreen Red Orchestra, and it's stealing a little bit of long-term supporters Valve's thunder by being a co-op zombie shooter. Cheeky! Left 4 Dead 1.5 it ain't though, thanks to more arena-like playing areas, abilities beyond simple shooting and healing, and persistent player upgrades. It's a lot more OTT and Doom-y than L4D, too.
Reportedly, preorders have been pretty high. Us gentlemen of the internet do so enjoy shooting zombies in the head, after all. It went live on Steam today for a reasonable price, and while RPS hasn't been blessed with a review copy yet, we hope to have some sort of verdict very soon. Anyone else playing it yet? Whaddaya think?
Below the magic words of information protection, some video footage of this violent delight.
]]>This was announced earlier in the week, and normally we'd wait until there was more information before saying anything else, but Tripwire Interactive are apparently getting this co-op zombie game on Steam in the near future. So probably best to know what The Makers Of Red Orchestra Did Next as early as possible, I think. Co-op zombi... yeah, it does seem somewhat familiar, but Killing Floor, as John Gibson tells IGN, was originally a mod back in 2005. It seems to be six-players, more wave-based than the cinematic routes of Left 4 Dead and features some shambler zombies. Hurrah for slow moving freaks you can beat up. And before the inevitable John Walker gag, let's skip to a relevant feature list from the press-release beneath the cut...
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