Kill.Switch (PS2) Hard - 7 "They Can Bill Me" (Level 2-2)

"I'll go ahead and leave them a convenience charge, too."
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OK. First thing to get straight in this game is that you are controlling a guy controlling a guy. ...You're playing as a person controlling a remote controlled human. Makes sense? Good

It's a very good idea to snipe the guys in the towers at the start. Take them out in one shot, and the others won't be alerted! The spots where you plant C4 are really finicky... it may look like you just need to stand in the glowing circle, but you actually also need to face the exact spot where you need to put it. Be warned that enemies will spawn each time you place a C4.

I'm recording this game as I went through it, though, I'm only putting up when I successfully complete a level. What this means is, a lot of the time I'll have the start of the level practiced well (if it's a difficult one) and the rest of it is by ear. (Sometimes the majority is by ear!

I no longer have any excuse! I was playing this with the audio set up properly - I can actually tell where gunfire is coming from! Yay!

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Kill.Switch is a third person shooter with the interesting distinction of being the first video game of its kind to make cover-based gameplay its driving feature. You may have seen this style in the Gears of War series where it has been popularised.

Apart from that, it's a fairly average shooter, although the AI can be challenging and makes use of cover as well.

One thing that caught my eye was how they manage health in this game. You can heal by staying away from bullets, like in newer games, but... the game ALSO makes it so that your maximum health goes down with damage, too. (Think of it how fighting game health bars work.) What this means is that you CANT just rush into a situation, drop everybody, and then simply wait and fully heal. You are PUNISHED for foolhardy actions by having a lower potential health. That said, you can fully heal (your maximum health, too) with medkits.

If anyone knows another Shooter that manages health in a way like this, I'd be curious to know!

The weapons in this game are okay... I think the majority of them are real-life weapons, but they all kinda... feel the same. I mean, they sound different and all, but as you're looking at the little HUD image it's kinda hard to tell what's what. And what's more, they all end up performing about the same. Although the crosshairs and firing rate of some may be different.

The other complaint is a more major one: The "fog" in this game is atrocious! Half the time it renders a sniper rifle moot. It's generally better to take out your automatic and have at 'em! Might just be the PS2 version, but it still stinks.

The cover mechanic is done well. I rarely use the blindfire mechanic (which this game introduced) because I found it wasn't worth the loss of ammo. It can be used to scare enemies though. Also, I tried tossing a grenade when up against a wall once, and it didn't work, so I assumed that wasn't possible. Turns out it IS (at least when crouching behing a barrier). I recommend tossing grenades in this way - I really could have used it myself!

All in all, a pretty okay game. It's worth picking up if you like getting games that had a big impact on how newer ones were developed. It is a really short game, though. I imagine a lot more so on "Normal". I chose "Hard". Worth a few bucks for a used copy!
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NOTE: WIDESCREEN IN THIS GAME IS NOT "WIDESCREEN". That is... it doesn't give you extra viewing area on the sides. Instead, it cuts off the top and bottom bits of the 4:3 screen, and zooms in. That's a HUGE loss of visual information! This is why I played in "4:3".

Category:

Gaming

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[andrewsaffle]

dude this is of the easier levels... and you are getting your ass handed to you. you are seriously failing to control your weapon and epicly failing on useing the enviorment to your advantage

[WhiteKhakis]

@andrewsaffle Ah, good. I was worried you were thinking I was making an expert speed-run video here for a second! (That said, it wasn't all that bad~)