Warhammer 40k: Kill Team

The Short


Pros
- Co-op duel stick shooter
- Visceral and violent, with great graphics for an XBLA release
- Lets you shoot up Orks and Tyranids
- Follows the Warhammer 40k mythos, which means all the space marines look awesome
- Four space marines to play, each with level-ups, perks, and gear upgrades
- Has a difficult "survival" mode after you beat the game
- Fun powerups remind me of Smash TV
- Gives you an exclusive weapon in the Warhammer 40k: Space Marine retail game


Cons
- No online co-op
- Only six levels; can beat the game in about two-three hours
- Unlocks are fun, but you get them all pretty quickly and then...nothin' left
- Playing through single player can be aggravating, as the game is full of cheap deaths
- Camera angles often screw you up
- Pretty obvious this game was a marketing ploy to sell more copies of the Space Marine game

Grab a friend and blast some space orks.

The Long


I have a confession: I love the Warhammer 40k universe, but know nothing about it aside from what I've played in the Dawn of War and Space Marine games. As much as I'd like to get into the tabletop game, I know it'll just be an even bigger money-sink than video games are, and I haven't gotten around to reading the books. That being said, I really dig the universe, with its crazy names for things (like the fact all the Space Marine stuff is in Latin for some unexplained reason, and their mages are Librarians) and absolute insane number of alien races. Even though all the characters look like toys (which is because they are), the art and universe is unique, really cool, and even inspired some other game companies to make games not-so-subtly based off the universe.

And from left to right, Tyranids, Eldar, and Space Marines...wait, this isn't Warhammer 40k! Huh. How did I get that confused? 

So when I found out they were making an XBLA game based on three things I really like (duel stick shooters, leveling up, and Warhammer 40k) I was all over that. Plus, it's co-op! That means I can force my poor wife to play it with me!

Kill Team is a pretty basic, run of the mill duel stick shooter, with a couple tricks up its sleeve. Aside from the aforementioned leveling up system, the game actually has characters that are more melee based than ranged, putting a unique twist on the "stay as far away from everything as possible" that duel-stick shooters are known for. You have four characters, two ranged focused and two melee focused, and each has their own unique power they can use once every couple of seconds. As you go around the world, power ups like faster shooting, double-bullets, health, and more can be picked up and used. Again, this is pretty much par for the course for these types of games, and if you were thinking Smash TV you wouldn't be too far off.

Plus they have dudes called "Sternguard Veterans" with PLASMA CANNONS. How cool is that? 

You can tell this game was made to be played co-op, because you can each only old one power up at a time, but if you stand close enough to your buddy when he has a power up active you share it, meaning you can get quad-shot and rapid-fire going off at the same time for total craziness. As you can guess, this also makes the game a bit easier, but not by too much. Kill Team has a pretty high difficulty curve, which makes playing co-op a must, as if you die you'll get revived/resurrected rather than having to load a checkpoint.

Which is where one of Kill Team's most annoying issues comes in: cheap deaths. There are lots. The game is hard, to start, with plenty of aliens just bum rushing you as you try to not lose all your heath. The only way to get health back is find a power up, so if you die before you reach one it's back to a (not so liberal) checkpoint for you. In addition, levels that require you to navigate specific narrow paths (and then do it back, on a timer, with an awful camera) are extremely tedious and obnoxious. The camera, as I just said, also doesn't ever to be in the right spot. It seems like it's the right distance, it just...always picks the worst angles.

Shoot a space ork in the head

The game also has lots of segments where you walk across long areas, shooting. Which is fine, except your marine walks really slow (even when sprinting), and later areas can have a hefty amount of backtracking. While there is technically a decent amount of enemy variety, the strategies to take them down never really change: either beat them with a chainsword or blast them with a bolter until they go down. This would be fine if they'd veiled it by keeping your forward momentum constant and the setpieces crazy, but whenever the game stutters a little you realize you've just been doing the same thing for the past 45 minutes, and that isn't a good thing at all.

The game is also really short, with only six stages in the main part that can be beaten in about 2-3 hours on co-op. It then unlocks six additional survival maps, where the game just sends wave after wave of enemies in your direction with full intent to mess you up. These are actually pretty fun, with power up being rationed out to you, and if you play co-op it requires a great deal of coordination. Most of the single player problems (slow walking, monotonous objectives) are replaced with hardcore survival shooting, which I'm all for. They also pre-determine which characters you can use, ramping up the challenge.

Man, how can something be both so goofy looking and so awesome at the same time?

With no online co-op, you'd better have your friends nearby if you are going to run through Kill Team. In addition, the cheap deaths and just general receptiveness of the game will probably turn a lot of people off. However, if you really dig the Warhammer 40k universe (I do), like playing co-op (I do), and enjoy duel stick shooter (I do), then you really can't go that wrong. The game retails for $10, but I'd wait until it's $5 (which is what I did), if only because 1. It's short and 2. You'll probably only beat it once. Still, there are plenty of worse games on XBLA, and this one looks great and plays fine, so grab a buddy and blast the crap out of space orks and zerglings. I mean tyranids.

I give it three out of five stars if it's $5, and two out of five stars if it's $10. So we'll say three for now, because shouting "FOR THE IMPERIUM!" is awesome.