Killing Floor (2012 Update) Review

Multi-Damaging ZEDs – Both Armour and Health

Gorefast – Are easy to spot due to their reddish-light maroon complexion. When a player is in range, they will charge in a burst of speed, swinging the fused sword protruding from their right arm. They are very good at strafing and dodging to throw off players, and have better than average penetration resistancy. If gone unnoticed, Gorefasts will rip through both health and armour, as they do the highest damage per hit of any of the common ZEDs. Gorefasts tend to make a low growling noise during spawn, and pant when running towards targets.

Husk – One of the cooler (pun intended) specimens, the Husk is the only non-boss specimen that has a complete ranged attack and has a high resistance to fire. When sighted from anywhere, a Husk will quickly charge and unload a fireball from its hand cannon, which makes a distinct spin-up sound. Husks are very good at hitting targets, and will typically track and predict player movements, and this includes explosives which will trade damage with his fireball if struck. The fireball does a large amount of initial damage, depleting both health and armour, and causes a burn effect. On hit, the fireball will also cause an explosive knockback effect. Husks have high fire resistance, but are relatively slow.

They are found between the middle to end of a line of specimens, and use their Husk cannon as a melee club if a target is in melee range. They have a reddish complexion, with burn marks all over. Husks also have gas masks and gas cylinders to fuel their cannons, and glow orange due to their burn marks and gadgets. Thus, they can easily be confused for Fleshpounds on first sight, as Husks are also quite tall. They make a deep gurgling sound as they approach, and their cannon makes distinct spin-up and discharge noises. These are also considered high-priority targets, as they can decimate an entire team with a few well-placed shots.

“Barbecue tonight?”

Heavy Hitters – What Just Happened?

Scrake – The Scrake is something out of your usual horror movie. It was designed as a combat medic able to take unfathomable amounts of pain while continuing to work in the field. While a success, the Scrake became too interested in pain, and could only learn by inflicting wounds on himself (like the Gorefast). Hence, he can be seen as the larger, tougher version of the Gorefast, sporting the highest health of any non-boss specimen. He wields a chainsaw in his right hand, with an earloop mask, and leather glove on his left hand. He is a slow moving, high damage, high health ZED.

Scrakes are fairly easy to maneuver around, but if surrounded, chance of death is extremely high. Once a Scrake falls below a certain health point, he will charge his attacker and swing a powerful arc with his chainsaw, but will not attack until this criteria is met (unless a player gets right up in his grill). During this time, he will not un-charge like the Gorefast, and will stay in a state of rage until killed, which cannot be outran. Even if his target is killed, he will always remain in this frame of attack. The Scrake is susceptible to headshots, but not from dinky weapons. It takes a high-powered sniper rifle or crossbow to kill this one. He can easily be heard due to the racket of his chainsaw (which is always humming), and undecipherable words coming from his mouth. He is a very dangerous, very high-priority target.

“Doctor with a chainsaw! Yeah, that makes sense!”

Fleshpound – The last thing you ever want to see when you are alone, the Fleshpound is the highest damaging, most powerful non-boss ZED in the game. Injected with muscle growth and adrenaline stimulants, Fleshpounds were designed as super-soldiers. Due to their highly volatile condition, Fleshpounds were fitted with adrenaline meters with injected depressants to keep them calm and preserve life. They were also restrained with spiked wrist cuffs, making them better at pounding flesh once they broke out of Horzine labs. Fleshpounds are imposing figures, moving at normal speed. They are as tall as Scrakes, but unlike Scrakes, Fleshpounds have erratic behaviour. They will pursue a target until another target comes closer in range, gets attacked, or breaks line of sight. In a calm state, their adrenaline meter reads yellow, but if attacked beyond its pain threshold, or if out of battle for too long, it will turn red. The Fleshpound will release a loud roar and charge at the closest player, arms outstretched and spinning. The charge cannot be outrun, and a Fleshpound will only un-rage if he hits his target, if the target dies, if the target breaks line of sight, or if it is too far away to catch, and/or if there is a structure blocking him.

Rest assured he can close the distance extremely fast. A raging Fleshpound will kill anything, even other ZEDs to get to its target, strafing and dodging the entire time, and his rage time and predictability are highly volatile. On harder difficulties, critical hits to every perk aside from Field Medic, even with full health and armour, are instant deaths and very rarely survivable (depends on the manner in which he strikes the player). Fleshpounds are on top of the danger scale, and are first-priority kill-on-sight targets. They can be heard via their robotic maniacal laughter, rage roars, and lit-up body.

“God, he’s all lit up!”