kill.switch Review

The third-person shooter genre is one that garnered little to no attention last-generation. This generation we have seen such titles as Freedom Fighters, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Splinter Cell, and now, kill.switch. While I don’t have much of a genre preference, the third person shooter genre has consumed a lot of my gaming time this generation, probably about 10% of it. For those of you saying that 10% isn’t very high, you would be right, other than many of these games are relatively short in overall length.

Kill.switch starts you off in a training facility. This helps you get acquainted with the controls, which are somewhat difficult to grasp at the beginning. It also trains you how to equip and fire your weapon, move your camera, fire grenades, snipe, and take cover. Kill.switch emphasizes the use of cover tactics to avoid serious damage. Players can also utilize their surroundings and study the “fly-by� for some levels in order to give them a slight advantage over their computer enemies.

Kill.switch is all about gunfights. First, it allows you to do a variety of moves, especially while interacting with the environments. For instance, a wall, vehicle, etc. will always come in handy to protect yourself from enemy fire. First, lean against a wall with L1, and then be sure to duck. From there you can use “Blindfire�, where he raises his gun and fires, but doesn’t actually look at what he is shooting. When you feel comfortable, you can always come out from cover and fire away with more accuracy. Since you may run out of ammo for guns that you use a lot, I recommend using the O button to hit close enemies. Enemies in early levels will die in one hit; others might take two or three hits. Switching weapons and secondary weapons (such as grenades) can be done with the control pad.

Enemy A.I. reacts to your actions by taking cover and taking advantage of their environments, along with using sloppy teamwork. When enemies work as a team, they will use team-based tactics to seek you out. For instance, one person may go on the offensive while others give him cover fire. I must accentuate that the enemy uses rudimentary teamwork, nothing too complex.

In total, there are six war-themed missions in over 18 levels. Environments include an oil rig, deserted Middle Eastern city, biology lab, submarine pen, missile silo, ancient ruins, and more. To close my review, kill.switch is well worth a weekend rental and possibly a purchase, if you are the type of person that will play games multiple times. However, if you only play through a game once, rent this, since it can be beaten in about three to four hours.