Played maybe two or three full matches at this point.
Thumbs up so far. It is pretty much KF2 with a face lift.
It's so shiny in fact, it's almost a little distracting. There's a couple game period of adjustment where your instincts mesh with how you read the visuals. At first it was like "ermahgerd, total chaos", but after a few games I was comfortably back in the groove of finding a good place to post up and popping heads until I needed to move. Spawn points are a little harder to get a sense of, because the environment and lighting does a better job of disguising them.
Re: Lighting. It's pretty good. It doesn't get so dark you can't see where you're going, but it does get dark enough you can't really see ZEDS until they're close. Some but not all weapons have a flashlight attachment as well, so you can't always have your flashlight out. So while it doesn't make the game a ton harder, it definitely makes some areas less appealing to fight in by virtue of the lighting. Some underground rooms and areas can end up being completely dark after the lights are destroyed.
The new gore stuff is great although I feel like it combined with the rest of the visuals is a lot to take in at once. In KF1, blood was bold and kinda bright. In KF2 it's a little subtler as it comes out of a dude, so I feel like I don't notice it as much. Likewise the gibbing is great, but you only truly appreciate it in ZED time. Sometimes the rest of the action is moving a little too fast.
Level are nice. I'd say they're sort of small-medium sized right now, probably owning to TWI not wanting to screw people with a trader too far away. The detail and lusciousness do a good job of concealing the edges of the levels, so they feel quite large. There's still the occasionally awkward looking barricade or rubble pile, but I dunno, I don't mind obvious monster closets, if they look thematic.
Guns feel great although, I dunno, the SFX for rifles and the rifles in general feel weak (talking gun feel not their actual damage.) Like, the basic 9mm feels meaty compared to any of the three Commando Rifles on full auto. I think they could stand to make the gun audio a little crunchier in general, give it a little more impact and base. Maybe this is how guns actually sound, I dunno.
The game handles a little strange, IMO, but that may just be me adjusting, 110 FOV, etc...but for one, the mouse is pretty sensitive even turned down and it uses mouse acceleration which I don't think you can turn off atm. (Maybe you can in the .ini.) Movement no longer feels like you're skating, it feels and appears more like a modern realism shooter. It also feels really slow to me, the running and sprinting that is. At least there's no stamina bar, which is probably a reason sprinting isn't so much faster. Conversely, I'm finding it even easier than I did in KF to hip fire without a reticule on my screen (which KF2 allows you to turn on if you are so inclined....noob...
) I've held off whole waves getting nothing but headshots just by getting the right angle. It almost seems like there's no recoil until you're aiming down the sights, so I almost find it easier to get head shots without the sights...assuming I have time and ammo to fire a round or two to correct my angle.
The new boss fight is...I dunno. Reminds me of an old school Wolfenstein boss, where you're hunted across the level. There is no "wait for him to show up ala the Patriarch and ambush him with AA-12s and Double barrels." At least no so far. He can spread a lot of damage around very quickly, forcing people to move, and once he gets to the health draining part of the fight, you basically have to keep him as far away as possible or he starts wrecking your team 1 person at a time. So the fights against him I've seen that have been successful involve the hold team running away and snapping shot off where they can, barely letting him see them out of cover. I dunno what a Berzerker is supposed to do, honestly. Being in melee with him is an exceptionally bad idea for several reasons. So I like the toughness of the boss, but not necessarily the strategy to beat him that seems to be emerging.
Perks feel like they'll take a while to get through. You gain experience no matter what perk you're playing by using the weapons of other perks. So a commando killing stuff with a shotgun is earning support experience, and a support with an assault rifle is earning commando experience. Unlike KF1, you do not have to meet multiple requirements per perk to level. So while using commando weapons and killing stalkers with commando weapons both earn you commando xp, they both just contribute to an xp pool, instead of like "2000/2000 stalkers." Which is nice. I hated that part of perk leveling from KF 1. The incessant welding!
There's some nice new features like smacking an opponent with your weapon. Useful when you're grabbed by a clot-like enemy (it autospins your camera to face them) to get them off of you. But it doesn't pack a big punch or deal a lot of damage, so it's not a good finisher or even a good interrupter. Still, it's better than nothing. You can hold the use key to pull out your welder rather than using a key or the scroll wheel. Welding generally seems way faster too, both welding and unwelding. (Unwelding is super quick.) Maybe since it's not so tedious more people will work it in.
Anyways, it's KF2.0, through and through. If you liked the first one and wished you could play a sexier-looking version of it with more stuff all over again, a winner is you.
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Topic: Killing Floor 2 - Now with more gore. Early access starts April 21st. (Read 13968 times)