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The Librarian confronts a Tyranid Carnifex in Kill Team.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
A distant, metallic thud echoes in the long, dark corridors of the hulk. An animal-like, low-pitch moan fills the empty space around the squad.
"What was that?" barks a veteran through the intercom of his Tactical Dreadnought Armor. The motion scanner's incessant beeping becomes faster and higher in pitch.
"This is it!" another yells. "There are hundreds of them!" "Ezeekiel, to your left!" The enemies’ deaths paint the walls a vibrant red. "I am in combat!" Bodiless appendages cover the floor. "There's no end to them!" Chitck. Chitck. "My weapon's jammed!" "Matthius…watch your back!" "Gahhhh!"
Unfortunately, this exciting scene does not describe Relic's first, downloadable console offering, Kill Team (available for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live). But while playing that, I couldn’t stop thinking about a 17-year-old game that regularly throws would-be commanders into such thrilling, haunting scenarios: Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels.
In fact, Kill Team does everything it can to make my mind wander through memories of that title from yesteryear.
Relic has built a carefully guided tour of an Ork starship with plenty of surprises in Kill Team. An elite squad (consisting of a Librarian, a Sternguard Veteran, a Vanguard Veteran, and a Tech Marine) smashes through the hull with its own craft — for inexplicable reasons — and marches onward to decimate all in its path. Players command a single soldier (though, two-player co-op is available) at any given time.
This set up is awfully similar to Space Hulk (pictured right), where players board an ancient, interplanetary vessel (known as a hulk) that unexpectedly returns from the Warp (an alternate dimension that humans have utilized to travel the universe at velocities faster than light-speed) centuries after its initial voyage.
Twisted from a melding with asteroids and other debris, something sinister has come back within the derelict hulk: Genestealers, a vicious foe. These, too, make an appearance in Kill Team, and from the press material, you’d think that such Tyranid creatures were the primary adversary in the game.
Contrary to Kill Team’s limited focus, Space Hulk players lead a team of five to 10 soldiers clad in Terminator suits against the unending alien infestation in search of relics from the dark ages of technology, to exterminate heretic marines, and to ultimately prevent the hulk from making planetfall and threatening the Imperium, humankind's galatic empire in the 41st millenium.
Kill Team's Orkish horde advances on the Vanguard Veteran.
And this is where the two titles depart. Ultimately, Kill Team is a rote experience of moving your guy this way while launching your explosive projectiles that way or getting up close and personal with various swords of chain and power. The twin-stick shooter suffers from all the pitfalls that plague Team 17’s Alien Breed reboots — the most offensive being the game's tendency to frequently pull the camera away from players and dictate exactly what they need to do next. You’ve nothing to figure out in Kill Team! And this only reinforces the title's relentless tedium.
Space Hulk, though, will merely let players know their mission goals, give them a map layout, and then release them to the hounds (so to speak). Contemplating how you’ll get a flamer-equipped soldier to that distant corner in need of purging? You’re on your own. Searching for long-lost archive records in a maze of corridors and small rooms? Start looking! No one’s going to tell you where those are located. And that makes experience simultaneously terrifying and gratifying.
This first-person, real-time strategy title elicits genuine moments of fear, anxiety, and triumph. Space Hulk is a wondrous cacophony of the heat of battle, tactical decisions gone awry, and attention-demanding challenge. Kill Team's meticulously scripted gameplay is mechanical, flat, and empty. Relic doesn't trust me enough to make my own fun. I'm just going through the motions. I feel nothing.
Kill Team seems less a game than it is a several-hours-long advertisement for Relic’s upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (and nothing makes this more obvious than the unique weapon unlock for Space Marine presented to players during the boot screen). I just wish this downloadable title wouldn’t (intentionally or not) tease me so much with references to a better experience.
