You get games with great stories, games with average stories, games with bad stories, and games with no stories whatsoever. Warhammer 40 000: Kill Team falls into that last category. I mean, there was some shouting about an Ork Kroozer and something about something else, maybe, but don’t go looking for elegant narrative subtleties like characters, dialogue, or plot development here, because those must’ve blown out the airlock when whatever it was that happened with the Ork Kroozer went down.
Of course, Kill Team is really just pre-launch marketing for Warhammer 40 000: Space Marine, in the shape of an arcade-style twin-stick co-op shooter, so it’s not like it has to be clever or anything.
So basically, it’s a series of copy-pasted stages with a bunch of copy-pasted objectives with some of the nouns swapped around or reconfigured, that really mostly amounts to moving from A to B, and dakka-dakkaing everything in between on no real pretext other than “do it, because”.
At the start of each mission, you get to choose from a roster of four classes – including the ranged specialist Sternguard Veteran and Techmarine, and the melee specialist Vanguard Veteran and Librarian – although the only really significant difference between them is their special abilities. Protip: The Techmarine’s turret > everything else.
You can also choose from a modest arsenal of weapons, as well as two perks, all of which are upgraded over the course of the game, and persistent between class profiles.
And that’s… that’s pretty much it.
Something probably worth mentioning is that, for some reason that couldn’t possibly make any sort of sense whatsoever, when playing in co-op, only the primary player can earn Achievements / Trophies. There’s also no online co-op, which is a pretty egregious offence in 2011.
Kill Team isn’t a bad game by any means, it’s just not an especially good one either. Quite in spite of its solid mechanics and presentation, the humdrum level design and total lack of personality quickly turn this game into a bit of a slog. Clocking in at just about four hours, it’s also rather short, and while there’s some replay incentive with additional classes, I’m not sure why anyone would bother.
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