Players take on the role of executioner named Mondo Zapp, who is tasked to take out criminal and assassins. The game was released on August 2013 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

The groundwork and planning for Killer Is Dead began in late 2009 with development starting in early 2011. The game does have some content which is mature, but vice president Ken Berry thinks the game can appeal to wider audiences.

“It can appeal to a wide group of people, not just our usual core audience that mainly focuses on RPGs. The key will be getting the additional retail exposure at the mass market retailers like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, which is essential to branching out to the more casual gamers that may not closely follow gaming news and upcoming releases.” [reference]

The game took inspiration from Transformers: Dark of the Moon with its premise. Goichi Suda stated in an interview that, “When I was creating the script had to do with the moon, earth, and sun. I started with a plot that related those elements, but it wasn’t working out so I took that out. I still wanted to have some kind of focus with the moon.

You know the latest Transformers movie? Nobody has seen the dark side of the moon. There could be a house there with somebody living in it and the main character needs to kill that person, but how do you get over there. That’s how I started creating this game.” [reference]

The game would also rely on Unreal Engine 4 as Suda explained in an interview “As a developer, we’re heavily relying right now on Unreal Engine 4, That works really well with both systems – or in the sense that we could go either way.” [reference]

Story

The story takes place in the near future where the player takes up the role of an executioner named Mondo Zappa. The player gets contracts from the Bryan Execution Firm. This firm is run by a cyborg named Bryan Roses, who commissions Mondo and as you can imagine the player needs to kill various criminal across the world. Due to profession, Mondo does not show himself much in the world and lives a private life.

The game will also involve serious themes like “how far can you protect someone”  and “love and execution”, hence mixing action along with player emotions.

Gameplay

The game is a hack ‘n slash sword play combined with wild gunplay, and even some wrestling thrown in for good measure. The main character Mondo handles a sword with his right hand but has his cybernetic left arm that transforms into different weapons, which include guns, drills and more. In addition, his arm absorbs blood from the people that he slaughters and the collected blood is used for a powerful strike called Adrenaline Boost.

Suda stated that, “One thing we got to do with this game, is you fighting against a Yakuza guy riding a tiger. You’re in Kyoto, among all these old-style buildings, and [hero] Mondo is on this motorbike fighting against a Yakuza on a tiger! And the game’s packed with these sorts of situations, the kind you won’t see in any other game. That Kyoto battle got concepted out surprisingly early on, too; I guess we felt like overseas gamers ought to see what Kyoto looks like”.

He further stated that, “Mondo’s an executioner, not an assassin. You have that ‘execution’ nuance added to the act of murdering your foes. The hero’s job is to wipe out these serious villains, real AAA-class international terrorists. He’s dressed so smartly that you might wonder if he’s actually capable of killing, but once the ‘work’ switch is pulled, his aura completely turns around.

“The story depicts him as a man who just does his job without putting much of any emotion into it. I think Killer7 was the best we could do in art expression at the time it came out, but if we just recreated that, it’d merely seem old at this point. So we really pursued an art style that seemed modern with our shading technology. There was a lot of trial and error behind what you see now.” [reference]

As the player performs more and more combos, your combo level will increase which will give rise to four different finishing moves. They are called as the Final Judgement. They are:

• Assassination
• Slaughter
• Punishment
• Execution

Characters

Mondo Zappa – The hero of the game is  a 35-year-old man hailing from America. As mentioned above he who is hired by the Brian Execution Firm in order to kill criminals around the world. He uses  is his pair of Katanas (Gekkou)  to take his foes down.

Hamadayama – He is Yakuza and yields a Katana and is one of the antagonists in the game. He has a tiger tattoo on his back.

Giant Head – Another enemy in the game, Giant Head is an alien.

Vivian Squall – She is a 25-year-old woman from Europe. She  works in the Brian Execution Firm as Mondo Zappa’s boss. She is a very serious and upto the point kind of person.

Victor – He steals sounds from music makers to create his sound of evil. He can transform himself into a powerful robot.

Mika Takekawa – Takekawa  is Japanese woman who works as Mondo Zappa’s assistant.

Brian Roses – Brian is a 65-year-old American and is the chief of the  Brian Execution Firm. In the past Brian Roses was a executioner himself but now, he is turned himself in to a full fledged Cyborg.

Damon- Not much is known about him except he described as a mysterious man with eyes of madness.

This wiki was last updated on 5th, January 2015. 

Runic CEO Max Schaefer stated that, “We are overwhelmed by the reception for Torchlight II. To hit this milestone is a testament not only to our dedicated development team, but also to the greatest, most positive gaming community I’ve ever seen.”

Runic president Travis Baldree also stated that the Torchlight community played a big part in improving the game and staying active since the game’s launch. “It wouldn’t have been possible without you, and we’re humbled and grateful at your response.”

The original Torchlight managed to sell 1 million units but reached this target after 2 years. This means that the sequel has managed to sell twice as much in less than half the time. Check out our review of Torchlight 2 here to learn why it’s one of the best hack and slash, loot-collecting games you’ll ever play.

The main objective of a Hack and Slash game is to kill the swarms of enemies filling up the screen, and as is expected, N3II handles this nicely. The game crams enemies from wall to wall for you to fight against, and gives you the opportunity to send dozens of them flying with melee and magical attacks. But as soon as you feel like you are slicing through butter with a warm knife, more powerful enemies are strategically placed to up the challenge. It takes a lot of willpower to not just start flailing at a large rock throwing ogre after seeing how successful that tactic proved on the now deceased horde of fodder.

Watch out for the big guy

So you may be thinking, I’ve played this type of a game before, whats new? Well a few things. First up is the 5 different playable characters, each with different weapon load outs and specialties. Next we have the customizable weapons and magical spells. 4 spells can be equipped at a time, and have varying effects. By holding the left bumper and pressing a face button, you can launch into a large sweeping attack, massive thrust, or a 360 degree blast. All of these magical techniques prove extremely useful when you start feeling overwhelmed.

Surprisingly enough, there are also going to be puzzle and platforming elements. I am eager to see how this truly plays out in the retail version of the game, because I keep asking myself if the break from insane combat will be refreshing or irritating.

Now for the big one, Two Player Online Coop. In N3II you will have to chance to link up with a friend online and play through special Coop missions, as well as a Survival Mode where you fight endless waves of bad guys, all with online leaderboards. All I know is that from playing hours upon hours of Gauntlet: Legends, its always more fun to go in with a friend.

There are plenty of people to kill

The presentation of the game itself isn’t remarkably stunning. The graphics do little in trying to make you stare in awe, the enemies are seemingly bland, but this is balanced by the fact that there are so many of them. Time spent detailing the lesser monsters would have been completely wasted by how clumped together they get. I am not saying by any means that the game looks bad, it lives up to the standard to how current gen game should look and feel.

All in all if you are a big fan of the Hack and Slash genre, or have ever had some hours of fun playing a game like Dynasty Warriors, N3II will not disappoint. If you have never tried the Hack and Slash genre, or consider yourself too hardcore to play something so “mindless”, swallow your pride and give it a shot. I don’t know a single gamer who doesn’t enjoy these games, even if just for a short amount of time. The Release Date is set at June 29th, which is a day that is piling up with new releases.