Kill.switch Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 19 February, 2004

"Kill all the switches," surely?

Version tested: PlayStation 2

Kill.switch is an extremely simple game to describe, so I was surprised to pick it up earlier this week without really knowing anything about it at all. Apart from the issue of Sony doing a deal with Namco for its European console exclusivity (which you can read about elsewhere), all I had to go on was a vague recollection about some revolutionary gunfight gimmick which lets you shoot round corners without looking. Well, never fear, because after a couple of days' research I've discovered what else you can do in Kill.switch. You can shoot round corners while looking.

The name game

'Kill.switch' Screenshot 1

Imagine a game that looks a lot like Metal Gear Solid 2. The main character Bishop behaves like Solid Snake and has a gun-toting Marine-ish look and posture about him, the identikit enemies you kill are all military or terrorist types with overly dramatic death animations, and most of the levels are dull grey military sites with lots of intricately detailed rooms that you can barely interact with. Also imagine a single solid gameplay mechanic for elaborate gunfights, which has you camped behind one of a million carefully placed crates or walls trying to coax a crosshair onto dozens of enemies peeping out from behind identical crates and walls further on. Now, imagine said mechanic repeated across a series of increasingly elaborate and ostensibly linear levels, throw in a bizarre plot about remote control soldiers laden with a few self-referential videogame jokes, chuck on a few more polygons with a close-up third-person viewpoint, and within two paragraphs you've got Kill.switch... Briefing over!

No, really, that is it. There are no puzzles (other than the story), no funny lock-picking mechanics to break up the slaughter, no bundling guards into storage lockers - in fact, no other gaming activities of any kind, unless you count holding the triangle button for a second while Bishop hits a switch. (Waaait a second! All you do is kill and hit switches. Kill.switch! It all makes sense now.) Simplicity itself, then, in terms of what we're used to, but here we find Namco's strict adherence to its central mechanic as the be all and end all of the experience has actually worked surprisingly well for them, presumably because they simply didn't have that many other things to worry about.

Each time you run into a new area, it's exactly the same pantomime - find something to cower behind, gently point the crosshairs wherever your enemy's head pops up, then either utilise the PR-friendly "BlindFire" approach of just holding R1 to spray bullets randomly, or lean over and squeeze off a few measured rounds that always find their mark. It should get boring. It has no right to be this engaging. But everything here has been fine-tuned to best serve Bishop's ubiquitous Peeping Gun exploits, and there is something about the cohesiveness of the experience that renders it satisfying even after several hours of non-stop play.

Sing me to shipwreck

'Kill.switch' Screenshot 2

There are problems here, yes, but mostly they just contribute inoffensively to the equilibrium. Death animations are repetitive and unrealistic, but flailing limbs are a clear visual indicator even at 50 yards, so they're more useful than tedious. Player movement is worryingly similar to Resident Evil in that Bishop can run, sidestep and back-pedal, but can't pull diagonally back on the left analogue stick and expect to run off in that direction. It sounds crap on paper, and yet once you get beyond the training area you quickly realise that it's ideally suited to the nature of the action. Enemies are clever enough to seek cover wherever they are, but the level design means you can pretty much guestimate where they're going to be whenever you have to replay a section, and the abundance of total cover means a little variation doesn't throw that big a spanner in the works anyway. It's quite free to descend into learn-'em-up territory (as it does in one instance in particular), and any claims of "advanced AI" are therefore pretty redundant and all for the better.

Heck, even the utterly repetitive assembly of crates, low walls, statues, pillars, trucks and other items to hide behind elicits an entirely illogical reaction. Under normal circumstances, this sort of behaviour would have us peering gloomily into every section, but here every crate is a potential lifeline, and every angle it can offer is a potential breakthrough in the midst of a gunslinging deadlock. The whole thing ought to be diametrically opposed to my gaming principles. In the end, Kill.switch is a videogame Siren, really. I'm entertained, sure, but ultimately I'm chewing on the very rocks I was trying to avoid!

Less rocky, perhaps, are the technical and narrative sides of the game. Graphically it's very much like MGS2 in a hundred shades of grey and brown, with a brief sojourn to the Middle East (which looks like Mogadishu) and some temple ruins thrown in, but the animation and texturing is mostly unobjectionable, the close quarter shootouts are lit up by spectacularly strobe-lit automatic gunfire, and on the whole it's perfectly adequate if completely uninspired. The story, meanwhile, concerns a brain-jacked soldier-type being piloted around stirring up World War III to some mysterious end - an intriguing little yarn that doesn't really have a point to make and leaves you just curious enough to continue, only disappointing in that the CG fight sequences are so much more elaborate and exciting than anything you do in the game, and that the end sequence is pretty brief.

Best Namco game in ages? No?

'Kill.switch' Screenshot 3

Why then, you ask, doesn't all this sound like a 'best Namco game in ages' review? Several reasons, which don't massively inconvenience the previous 'rubbish components somehow produce a masterpiece' train of thought but do at least shoot it in the foot. For a start, this game clearly knows it's being too clever for its own good. As a smug backhander aimed at folks who hate these mechanics, it's pretty clever, but it would have questionable staying power in the long run - as such, the final few levels pile on the difficulty by throwing in rocket launcher bad guys and dozens more foot-soldiers, and the archaic save system makes you replay the whole level again when you die (checkpoints, people, checkpoints!), but it's still over in a matter of six hours; three by the game's clock, three apparently spent replaying levels. And there's nothing beyond the single-player game.

There are also times when you die unreasonably and it's the game's fault, and given the abovementioned save system this can be extremely frustrating. The camera moves fairly slowly, so it's difficult to react quickly if you duck down behind a crate only to discover there are enemies on a gangway above and behind you. It's also far too easy to hide behind an object and reach the extent of the camera's turning arc while aiming over the top of it, having to readjust in order to target certain enemies. What's more, there were two enemies I encountered when I played through that wound up lodged inside walls for whatever reason, despite still being able to shoot at me, and in terms of sheer unpleasant design you can't really beat rocket launcher units firing directly at you as soon as you hit a switch. Finally, the fairly regular slowdown in the latter stages suggests Sony did more than just rob us of the GameCube and Xbox versions of this - they may have robbed us of the definitive version, too.

Despite these flaws however, Kill.switch remains a compelling experience that, while it doesn't do anything especially new or exciting, manages to keep you entertained with its action movie gunfight gameplay over five can't-tell-'em-apart 'chapters'. Picking up a later level I was replaying before I sat down at the keyboard, the action is still just as enjoyable and immediate. I still like to hunker down behind a pillar on a stone bridge, toss a grenade casually and accurately round the corner in the desired direction, wait for the whine of the flashbang and blinded guards' frightened screams and then lean out to pepper them with lead as they flail about helplessly. It's just... fun.

Hard to button

Not essential by any means then, and it's probably not worth much more than a weekend's rental, but Kill.switch definitely proves that even a depressing list of rent-a-mechanic gaming clichés can keep us happy when administered in the right amounts. If you want to see Snake's 'lean round walls' approach taken waaay beyond its logical conclusion, go ahead and pick up a copy.

7 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (17) Latest comment 8 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Blerk #1 8 years ago

    Hmm... Meh! :-)

  • valli #2 8 years ago

    Good review, I've played it for 30 minutes and it was quite ok. Nothing I'd buy though.

  • Abscido #3 8 years ago

    Been playing this over the last day two as well.

    I agree that the game's basic engine and control scheme is really sweet - it's kinda like a free-roaming Time Crisis with nice physics - but it's structured like a tech demo in my opinion. It's a pity they didn't make a Syphon Filter-esque game with it, because (as Tom says) the plot is utterly shit (it makes no sense at the start and doesn't get much better) and the whole experience would be so much more with a decent cinematic atmosphere tacked on.

    I think they've missed the boat now, though. A bunch of other games are using this system now, and one of them's bound to be better on the cinematic level. Shame.

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #4 8 years ago

    I should point out that Bad Boys II is a lot like this, except the cover points are all pre-ordained and it's not as comfortable/intuitive to control.

  • Aretak #5 8 years ago

    Hmm... GamesTM said it's a bit poo.

  • Abscido #6 8 years ago

    In fairness, I should clarify that by cinematic experience I'm talking about plot, cutscenes and scripted sequences - because the other elements are done nicely. The music, in particular, is perfect for this type of game.

  • Nemesis #7 8 years ago

    Well I think they confirms the money is stay in the bank. I don't mind shortish games, but 6 hours is really not much return for the outlay.

    (no rental places near me either).

  • binky #8 8 years ago

    rent it from GAME for free*


    *Returnable deposit

  • Nemesis #9 8 years ago

    But....that's so.....dishonest.

    I was thinking about it though ;-)

  • valli #10 8 years ago

    I remember the PS1 days when every Namco release was an event. Not like that now, is it?
    Wait until "Ace Combat 5" arrives! :)

  • tiddles #11 8 years ago

    Tch! there really is no pleasing some people. You try and put better anims in ( the death anims in this case ) and all you get is "Overly Dramatic" and if you put basic anims in you get "Poor Animation".

    Pah! Surely you should be using ragdoll instead? It's the new lens-flare, donchaknow...

  • Henrik #12 8 years ago

    I quite like it. Has a low budget feel to it though, wouldn't pay full price for it.

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #13 8 years ago

    "You try and put better anims in ( the death anims in this case ) and all you get is "Overly Dramatic" and if you put basic anims in you get "Poor Animation"."

    You wouldn't say it was overly dramatic for someone to do the best part of a backflip when shot in the hip? :-)

  • LostToys #14 8 years ago

    "(Waaait a second! All you do is kill and hit switches. Kill.switch! It all makes sense now.)"

    Or you could actually have paid attention to the story and realised that he is nothing more than a puppet. The "kill switch," therefore, is the mechanism which gives up his full control to a third party [the gamer] and also kicks in when he is in danger [see: cutscene inside apartment]. Not to mention it is a rather clever play on words and coding - you kill someone, and then switch positions, therefore, kill.switch

    And shame on you for not mentioning, or at least describing, one of the best looking CG cutscenes ever in a game.
    Edited by 1 at 21/02/04 @ 11:38

  • Abscido #15 8 years ago

    I really liked the idea behind the plot (and understood the whole 'puppet' thing) but the way it was executed (at least in my promo copy) was shocking. There's no reason given for the majority of the missions, the main 'character' puppet is non-existent, and the antagonists all sound the same.

    They tried to make it mysterious ("say my name";) and just made it obscure.

  • thebuzzard #16 8 years ago

    Just like Kylie: short, attractive and makes your hand ache.

  • funk #17 8 years ago

    heh

    about namco releases being events....i never liked namco, even on ps1
    ridge racer was a disgrace, 3 tracks (mainly the same track at that), then the same "3" tracks reversed is not a racing game
    and there were something like 3 good cars, one with the most grip, acceleration, top speed respectively. all the other cars were pointless inferior models. £45 worth, seriously?
    tekken was not the greatest fighting game ever and it got real old hearing about it all the time
    what else did they do? i'm sure it was crap too :)

    i'm tempted by this i guess, £10 on the pc apparently and some mindless action is fun