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Review:

7th June 2004:
kill.switch
War is tricky business, there is never a convenient one to be found, so get ready to hit the kill.switch and start one.
Posted by Chris Snook - PC - UK and Europe

kill.switch is a curious game. Converted from the PS2 version kill.switch follows the exploits of your soldier, who has been recruited into a secret organisation in order to create a global conflict. Over the resulting missions you learn more via flashback.

With minimal story to get in the way of this MGS look-alike the hope is that kill.switch will excel at what it is, a third person shooter with the innovation of a blind-fire system that allows you to spray bullets into a lot of empty space on the off chance that you hit an opponent.

The game comes on two disks and gives the option to install both DX9 and EAX sound extensions. It is from here that things plummet downwards fairly fast.

The options available to you are basic, there is no way to really tweak graphics in order to improve performance, ditto for the audio - in fact no audio performance options at all as far as I could see when the tab was clicked. Oh and the refresh rate default for the monitor as so high, it was outside of those listed for my monitor - I had to reset them manually in the graphics card control panel.

Then there are the controls - they clunk. Set up for the 'gamer' in a classic WASD pattern with all the other keys nearby there is no way to conveniently reassign them to a less wrist breaking setup, k.s is designed to be played keyboard only, pity not everyone does so. It smacks of forcing the player to play a certain way.

Finally in game things look decent, nothing overly fancy, the graphics do their job and some of the linking segments look swish but that is as far as it goes, explosions explode, the levels do what they are meant to do and that's it. And the upper resolution is 10x7, hardly ideal. There are also inconsistencies in movement, both with yourself and the enemies. Either too fluid or to blocky, often your feet move far too fast for realism. Add to this a camera system that is apparently used to aim tagged onto the cursor keys you get a feeling of disconnection with the way the game reacts to your moves.

Audio wise there is nothing to really write home about. Music is lacklustre and is just there, it is so bland that you fail to notice it is there half the time. Effects are however excellent but repetitive, there are only so many ways to make a bullet sound, like a bullet. There are also the occasional sound drops and clips that can be very, very frustrating as you strain to hear just where that damn sniper is firing from. Voice work is solid if uninspiring and runs into another Clint-a-like early on. Normally not a problem but folded into the mix gives the feeling of yet more lack of inspiration.

Level design is practically linear, go in and shoot the enemies, use cover to you r advantage and progress to the end of level, achieving your objectives. That's it. The levels are short at times, have next to no finesse to them beyond hiding and using the terrain to keep alive by ducking and shooting round corners. It is here that the blind-fire is meant to be of use. Trouble is that it is hardly accurate and often you can waste whole clips of ammo before killing one out of a number of targets. Hardly worth bothering with when a quickly chucked grenade is more viable. The objectives often involve, hitting a switch, setting a demo charge or even just making it to the next exit. In any case they are horribly similar to each other in execution. The missions themselves seem unconnected to each other, again partly due to the lack of a cohesive storyline and again partly because the flashbacks, which are meant to link things together often wind up being ignored as they grate after the first few and leave you just wanting to charge on in. Oh and they are short, often gapingly so.

Upsides are that the basic mechanics are good, the shooting is solid, the cover system is apart from the blind-fire a nice idea and is well executed, the sniper modes work and are nicely done. Weapon variety is nice with a chunky number of options, just no real flair with them. There is the core of a good game here, buried under ideas that do not gel or are badly executed.

Unfortunately there is no incentive to continue playing, or even to reinstall it, even at the special pricing point of a tenner there is nothing to really hold you for any length of time. Admittedly there maybe a possibility of improvement later but by that point virtually all interest will have been abraded away. Could have been good but is now only for the die hard third person fan.

Chris Snook

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Review Summary:

Lacklustre entry into the third person game with a linear level design, plot so thin you can see daylight through it and distinctly average graphics, sound and gameplay. Fatally flawed in execution in conversion, there is a core of decent mechanics that are woefully covered in mediocrity. For genre buffs only.

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