Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team Review

August 6, 2011 by Paul Curtin

Based on the popular tabletop action figure game, THQ and DW’s latest experiment with the Warhammer video game series has brought a top-down 3rd person shooter which plays like a mash-up of Gauntlet Legends, Too Human, and Contra. Set in the futuristic Warhammer 40k universe, Kill Team‘s story isn’t anything advanced; you’ll play as a member of the Space Marines whose spaceship has crashed into an enemy Ork ship while on a mission to wipe out the Orks. Each player is given the option to choose from four different Space Marine classes, each with their own strengths, like the Sternguard Veteran who specializes in heavy ranged weapons or the Vanguard Veteran who specializes in melee attacks with objects like a chainsaw sword. After picking your character, you and a friend (if they’re playing right next to you) will be able to play through five different missions that each take around 30 minutes to complete. Each mission will have you battling your way through different sections of the Ork ship, clearing out waves of enemies as you make your way to the final Ork boss.

At first glance, $10 looks like a great deal for such a well-made game. The graphics are about as good as it gets for a cheap downloadable game and it seems as if Digital Warrington has just modified the 2009 Warhammer 40k real-time strategy game, Dawn of War II, so that it plays like a 3rd person shooter, which isn’t a bad thing because the game’s visual and character models are still impressive when shown close up. The controls and camera movement are solid with only basic movement options and one gun-based attack and one melee-based attack. Although the controls lack complex moves, there are Contra-style power-ups such as health regeneration, invulnerability, rapid-fire, and triple/quad-fire which players can constantly pick up to suit their own playstyles and each different combat situation. Even with the solid controls, there are questionable decisions made by the developers such as the ability to only run in short bursts (having to constantly tap the run trigger is annoying) and no evade maneuver because “Space Marines are so bad-ass they don’t dodge bullets.”

Although Kill Team is a fun game, it loses points for its lack of features which in turn creates a lack of replayability. It’s obvious that the developers have tried to give the game some replayability by allowing characters’ weapons and abilities/perks to go through three stages of upgrades, but by the time you’re done playing the entire game, you’re likely to have already unlocked almost everything. And even if you haven’t unlocked all the upgrades, the upgrades alone aren’t enough to get you hooked in today’s MMORPG rare loot collecting era. At most you’ll play a couple levels again for fun or just to help justify the $10 you just spent.

Kill Team‘s biggest flaw is its lack of multiplayer features. While the game does offer cooperative play, it’s limited to only two people who are playing in the same room and on the same console. There’s an online leaderboard, but co-op is not available online, which is a huge letdown. Kill Team would surely be enjoyable for a lot longer if there was the ability to play levels online with friends, but with the game only clocking in at around 3-4 hours of gameplay, it’s hard to feel satisfied when it’s over, even with a good final boss. A $5 price tag and/or the addition of online co-op would have given the game a lot more replayability and made it a great deal. I’d recommend Kill Team if you’re dying of boredom this summer or a fan of the Warhammer series, but don’t expect it to get you through the next month until Space Marine and other games come out. Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team gets 3 out of 5 stars (Good).