Review: Warhammer 40K: Kill Team

Sometimes the appetizer can be the best part of the meal. Small plates of delectable morsels that do so much more than simply quench your hunger for the main event. Instead, they in themselves are savory islands which stand on their own and do not just ameliorate the main course, but transcend it.

And sometimes, you just get bread. Unfortunately for us, Warhammer 40k: Kill Team is bread you ultimately get charged for.

Warhammer 40K: Kill Team (XBLA)
Developer: THQ Digital Studios
Publisher: THQ
Released: July 13, 2011

The premise of Kill Team is simple. You play the courageous Space Marines as you make your way through various levels, dispatching Orcs and other vile enemies of space, with humble abandon and completing various objectives. You'll have both melee and ranged attacks at your disposal to do the dirty work, as well a myriad of perks and powerups which all go a long way to improving your ability to slaughter. And you'll be doing a lot of slaughtering during your time with Kill Team. In fact, one of the main problems is that's pretty much all you'll be doing the entire time. Sure there may be some small objective based areas, but for the most part you'll simply be taking down wave after wave, after wave, of enemies with little to nothing to add any variation.

The aforementioned powerups do a little to change things up a bit, mostly in how you use your character. For example, a character who's main weapon is the bolter would do well to pick up ranged bonuses and shields, while a melee character will want to race for that health upgrade or melee weapon booster. Characters also sport secondary abilities which range from Area of Effect attacks to increased weapons damage. These also last only a short time, and recharge on a timer, but are essential to defeating the hundreds of enemies which will be swarming you throughout the levels. But even though these aspects may make some difference in gameplay, they are really nothing more than an ends to a means, and the end is always the same. Shoot more stuff.

The game seems to get a little more interesting in the later stages when you start fighting off Genestealers but this may just be me feeling nostalgic about Space Hulk and wishing that a new, proper, Space Hulk game would be made. Unfortunately this simply is not that game.

Bosses propegate the levels but use many of the same tired mechanics that you've seen before. Most are of the “shoot this area until it blows up / falls off “ variety with only a few showing any real ingenuity. In the end, however, even those tended to feel like a monotonous affair.

Kill Team also boasts two-player cooperative play but, for some ungodly reason, the developers failed to add in Online functionality. So unless you and your friend are in the same room, it's single player limbo for you, and that's truly a shame because even as mediocre as Kill Team can be, it still fits into the axiom that a game is almost always more fun with someone else. Why they wouldn't try to suck as much juice out of this concept is beyond me, however I think it has more to do with the fact that Kill Team seems to be a fairly rush job than anything else. Adding in network might have simply been out of the scope of the project, and the awful truth is that the game suffers terribly because of it.

Even the balancing of the game seems to scream out for another player. During my single-player sessions I was routinely overrun with enemies and put into situations that I thought would have been almost fun, rather than frustrating, if only I was playing them with another person.

Kill Team might have something to offer the gamer who has an in-person gaming buddy, or the die-hard Warhammer enthusiast, but even they shouldn't expect much more than a few hours enjoyment before the game ultimately becomes a chore. As for everyone else, there isn't much value to be found here. And it's truly a shame. With the vibrant universe and interesting lore that Warhammer offers, Warhammer: Kill Team could have been so much more than what it is. And in many moments you can almost feel the game reaching outward to grasp a small piece of excellence just before it becomes bogged down in another wave of enemies.

If only they had made the online portion more accessible, and added an additional layer of depth, there might have been more bang for your buck. As it is, wait for the main course.

Score: 55%

(A mediocre appetizer with not much value for the sole gamer)