Games Thursday : kill.switch Demo Impressions
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Probably one of the first PC games to utilize the “blindfire” concept popularized by games like Gears of Wars, kill.switch is an old third-person shooter published by Namco Hometek back in 2004, pitting you as a lone supersoldier against groups of enemy soldiers in each level. A demo is still available from Yahoo! Games so here’s my impressions of that demo.
In this single level demo, you are sent to locate and secure a package set in a linear urban map set presumably in the Middle East (again!) Being the highly-trained elite supersoldier that you are, you can dive towards cover in any direction by pressing Space and heal yourself automatically after resting a few seconds behind cover.
Controls are the standard WASD for movement and left mouse button for firing your currently readied weapon. As with all elite soldiers in PC games, you can use an assault rifle or sniper rifle with equal ease (switch between weapons with the mousewheel or press X to bring up your iron sights/scope for greater accuracy). Reloads are automatic but you can also press R for manual reloads.
© Namco Hometek, Inc
Iron sight of an AK-47.
© Namco Hometek, Inc
Red dot sight of an M4.
© Namco Hometek, Inc
Optical scope of the sniper rifle (Apparently a FN Special Police Rifle according to the kill.switch Wikipedia article.
Right-clicking near pillars, walls, boxes or any form of cover allows you to back up behind cover as in the Metal Gear Solid series. As long as you hold down the right mouse button, you are effectively invulnerable unless you happen to be hiding behind a tiny box.
While behind cover, you have two options:
- Left-clicking behind cover allows you to blindly spray and pray with much reduced accuracy and increased ammo usage.
- Holding down a movement key allows you to peek from cover and fire more accurately (or throw a frag or concussion grenade – Tab) at your enemies. (Press X for precision shots at exposed parts of your foes hiding behind cover) Of course poking part of your body outside cover exposes you to enemy fire so you have to assess and react to the tactical situation accordingly
© Namco Hometek, Inc
Safe behind cover
© Namco Hometek, Inc
Peek and shoot?
© Namco Hometek, Inc
Or spray and pray?
The demo level (and probably every level in the full game) is heavily scripted so enemies will always appear only after you cross a specific point on the map -thankfullly they don’t respawn behind you 
. Although the spawn points are fixed, I noticed that the enemy soldiers will usually try to outflank and encircle you (albeit using fixed routes) while your attention is fixated on the enemies in front.
Some configuration tips to enjoy the demo.
- Go to the ingame Options Menu > Controller Options and set Invert Vertical Axis to Off (Default is On which makes the controlling the game feel like playing a flight sim)
- For added realism, turn off Reticle Highlight under Controller Optionsso that the targeting reticle doesn’t flash red when it’s hovering over an enemy.
- Set the resolution to 1024x768x32 in the launcher’s Graphics Settings (default is 640x480x32 which is too low for relatively new PCs)
Pros
- Novel blindfire/peek-and-shoot concept (at least until you get the PC version of Gears of Wars)
- OK graphics for a 2004 game
Cons
- Heavy scripting detracts from replayability
- Cannot save within missions probably because this game was a console port.
- Bringing up the iron sights or scope with X frustratingly sluggish
- Cover is indestructable (which was recently implemented in games like Stranglehold)
Download the demo from Yahoo! Games (77.5 MB)
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