The best game with a period in the middle of its title you'll ever play...
I know. Kind of vague, huh? Well, the game doesn't do a great job of communicating what's really going on but here's the gist:
The love of Bishop's life is killed by a maniacal villain named Archer. Archer and Bishop appear to have a past, but there's no exposition on it during the game.
Archer has some sort of mind control device thingie that can be used to control Bishop and these devices are being sold to people of questionable character to perform questionable deeds.
Enter "Duchess". Duchess seems to be working for the same agency as Bishop, although once again it's never really explored and we're just left to make assumptions. Duchess manages to hack into the data-stream used to control Bishop, trying to set him free of aforementioned mind control device thingie.
All of this, however, has little bearing on the actual game since it's really just an excuse to drop Bishop into a setting, kill everything, and move on to the next spot where, once again, Bishop likes to get him some killing done.
The game takes you through various vistas that you've probably seen before; cities, factories and secret bases are all present and accounted for and for the most part they are rendered fairly well, if not a little on the plain side. Bishop and the enemy soldiers look decent although most suffer from some painfully exaggerated animations.
The game also sounds pretty good. The gunfire sounds more realistic and less "Hollywood" and enemy soldiers will occasionally yell out to "take cover" or "flank him". Injured soldiers will sometimes cry "I don't want to die", only to shoot you in the face. I hate that.
The game gives you a fairly large arsenal which which to play, and includes machine guns, shotguns and grenades. While guns have different ranges, levels of kickback and damage, none of them feels much different. You'll usually find yourself just using the gun that you have the most ammo for. Speaking of ammo, there's plenty of it. You'll never really find yourself running low. If you do, however, you'll find an effective close combat attack at your disposal. Bishop also has the ability to dive in any direction using the X button.
Kill.switch has an arcade feel to it that mostly works. The right stick moves Bishop around while the left stick aims your weapon. R1 shoots. The biggest asset the game has is the excellent cover system. Pushing L1 will move Bishop into cover and using the left stick allows you to peek out of cover to get a shot. You can also "blind fire" which is highly inaccurate but keeps you safely behind cover. This cover mechanic is really the draw of the game and combined with some tight controls makes going through the levels and shooting the same soldiers over and over again quite a bit of fun. You really have to take advantage of the terrain in order to survive as standing out in the open for more than a few seconds can lead to a quick death.
Speaking of death, it will find you. As you get shot your health bar depletes. The kicker is, if you manage to get behind some cover and avoid being shot most of your health will be recharged. While the game itself isn't too difficult, the save points can sometimes feel a little few and far between. It's not that you have to go a great distance between saves, but often you'll have to slowly make your way through a huge firefight, only to turn a corner and take a shotgun to the face, making you have to do the whole thing again. This isn't the case during most of the game, but there a few sections that you'll probably have to play many times before you get through them.
Kill.switch offers very little in the way of options. You can play through the missions one at a time on either normal or hard difficulty and after you've completed a mission you can play it over again on it's own. That's really it. You can finish all the missions in 5 hours or less on the normal setting, so not only are there few options but the game's main mission mode is quite short.
Kill.switch is fun while it lasts. Slick controls and a great cover system make this game worth a play-through although there isn't much to keep you coming back once you've finished it.
~Say my name....~