I remember this conversation I’ve had with my friend over the first game. I’ve argued that Brigador is one of the more credible depictions of a modern-day urban warfare, starting my reasoning with the obvious fact how the only consequence of mowing down unarmed civilian who also displays every possible sign of peaceful surrender (go ahead, check your Yellowcoat entry in the lore section of the first game) would be a marginally insignificant bonus to the mercenary’s paycheck. My friend responded with how Brigador attempts to shock with excessive violence because there clearly are no societies degenerate enough for their government officials to murder children or cannibalize people just for the pleasure of doing so. It may be a somewhat bitter and slightly grim victory on my part, but I believe his argument has not stood the test of time particularly well.
Speaking of corrupt governments, in Killers we don’t start as a well-paid and heavily equipped military force of an inhumane regime. This time around, we play as a random guy with his extremely predictable story of radicalization into killing the protagonists of the first game. It goes along the lines of his only friend being gravely wounded by the police yada yada hospital declining help because capitalism more yada yada – what matters is, instead of a mobile armor, we start with gun and a packet of chips (after the four, rather basic tutorial missions) and build from there. Consequently, Killers starts out much slower and is at times more challenging than the first game.
[h3]Non-military targets[/h3]
The good news is – murdering people (in game) is still extremely enjoyable and due to the protagonist’s predicament, more considerate this time around. On foot, Brigador feels more like a mixture of an extremely basic Hitman or a slower Hotline Miami (also, initial missions gave me this very tangible Fallout 1 nostalgia, for some reason) with loot (for example, every corpse can be searched for equipment and ammo) and a bit of soulslike (due to the fact that protagonist forfeits his entire equipment and is sent back to the hub on being killed). Obviously, save remains disabled during the missions . The soundtrack is still a 12 out of 10 experience.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3787675356
[h3]Insurgent Cookbook ( v 0.6) [/h3]
Despite the long development time, Killers is visibly an early access and as such there are many things missing or requiring improvement. For example, the enemy AI is - especially during the stealth phase – extremely basic, remains completely oblivious to the protagonist running just a few steps behind their backs and responds in a predictable way.
The inventory is far from intuitive. There are some features that are not explained properly, made unnecessarily complex or not present in the current build. Dragging and dropping objects between the containers and inventory feels erratic. Additionally, some of the items are currently absolutely comical placeholders, depicted as a vague grey blob more or less resembling the shape of the intended object with its name scrawled on top with red marker. Finally, some of the key bindings feel peculiar before the player gets used to them.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3787676473
The graphics are impressive and detailed – especially the deliberately uncanny character portraits – but the additional levels of zoom not present in the first game result in sprite edges looking unpleasantly jaggy in a close-up. There’s also some rather weird shadow popping in on the edges of the screen once the protagonist gets out to the surface.
Finally, there is a certain degree of randomization to the missions. The same level can be replayed (and therefore farmed) but the enemies that appear there will be different or the exit location may change. This mechanism is also flawed since during my first run, one of the initial missions spawned enemies equipped with force fields that rendered my starting pistol completely useless but after I respawned, said enemies were replaced with the default gang members, turning exactly the same task from nigh-impossible into a walk in a park.
On the side note, if you find the initial chapters challenging, try melee. The enemies do not react to the protagonist running right behind their backs, get stunned for more than a second when hit and the nearby opponents do not get alerted until the shots are fired. Enemies can easily be kited away from their posts as well.
[h3]See you Space Jockey[/h3]
All things considered, in the current state, Killers is not only functional but also enjoyable. There is enough content for a complete single player campaign. Still, unless you are a die-hard Brigador fan, there is little reason to buy it at present. As mentioned above, there is a lot of room for improvement and therefore, Killers will offer much more entertainment in future.
There are also things that will probably not change, like the problematic scaling of 2D sprites, or the fact that due to its nature, Killers remains a considerably different game from the original. Yes, indeed, I am giving this game a positive review and recommend not buying it while at the same time I happily splatter people all over the Nobre’s pavements .
Genocide is complicated.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3787676062
