A third-person shooter developed by Namco's defunct American studio, Namco Hometek, released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC and Game Boy Advance.
One man known as Archer has gotten his hand on revolutionary technology enabling remote control of human beings through neural implants. Using the body of a former soldier who won't be missed, you, as Archer's psychopathic hired hand "Controller", are to cause global chaos by assassinating prominent officials, sabotaging infrastructure, and initiating rogue missile launches, all in the name of stroking tensions between the West and the North. That is, unless a concerned hacker has anything to say about that...
kill.switch's main claim to fame is its cover system, allowing players to hide behind objects, shimmy along chest-high walls, peak over or by cover objects and blindfire. It was not the first game to feature cover mechanics (being preceded by the likes of Winback, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Namco Hometek's own Dead to Rights), but it set the basics of expected controls and features for a cover system and made it the main feature of the game, pairing fast-paced arcade-style shooting with the need to maintain awareness of one's positioning and use the environment to your advantage.
Though not successful in its own time, kill.switch proved to be immensely influential, with third person shooters released in the following years such as Rogue Trooper, SpyHunter: Nowhere to Run and CT Special Forces: Nemesis Strike adopting the games cover mechanics. Among those to take notices were the developers of mega-blockbusters Gears of War and Uncharted, the former even hiring kill.switch's combat designer to help in implementing the game's cover system.
See Gamer, for a similar concept of actual people being controlled by similarly depraved real-life gamers.
This game provide examples of:
- Bald of Evil: Archer, the Big Bad of this game, is bald as a cue ball.
- Checkpoint Starvation: The game has no mid-missions checkpoints.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The game more or less follows contemporary shooter control conventions, with the big exception that going into cover, instead of pressing the bottom face button or simply moving against a surface, is done by holding the left trigger.
- False Flag Operation: The final part of Archer's master plan is to steal deadly viral samples from a military lab, load them on a missile and, once he's done launching it, have The Controller command Bishop into committing suicide so that the whole thing looks like a US-backed covert operation gone terribly wrong.
- Heroic Mime: Bishop is completely silent in the early stages of the game, being little but an empty puppet for the Controller. He gets more talkative once The Duchess frees him
- Maximum HP Reduction: Bishop's Health Meter drops should he take too much damage, his Regenerating Health capacity notwithstanding. Should it happen, he must find the med kits that are scattered around the levels to undo this effect.
- Psychopathic Manchild: The Controller signed up because he sees the job as big fun video game, even asking to stay in the Middle East after fulfilling his objective so that he can further his "high score".
- Reckless Gun Usage: One of the first things Bishop comes across is overhearing a soldier being reprimanded by his sergeant for pointing his gun in the wrong place.Mook 1: Hey, is your gun loaded?
Mook 2: Um, I think so, why?
Mook 1: BECAUSE YOU'RE POINTING IT RIGHT AT ME! YOU IDIOT!
Mook 2: Oh! Sorry! I'll point it in the other direction!
Mook 1: Good decision...HEY, YOU'RE STILL POINTING IT AT ME! - Regenerating Health: Bishop's health recovers while he's not under fire, but if he incurs too much damage, his Health Meter drops permanently and he must heal the damage with med kits scattered around the levels.
- Sequel Hook: In a post-credit scene, Bishop and The Duchess discuss than even if Archer is dead, he managed to ship out the body control technology to many buyers and that he mentioned having an upgraded version of it in the works...
- This Loser Is You: The Controller is meant to represent particularly cruel players, who relish in Video Game Cruelty Potential and get a kick out of killing people, combatants or not, and treat warfare as a game to engage in a murder fantasy and get some high scores.
- Villain Protagonist: For the first half of the game, you're running around and killing innocent people to further one man's war profiteering scheme. The Controller is perfectly aware of the ethical implication of his actions – and entirely unconcerned with them.Score one for the bad guys!
- War for Fun and Profit: Archer's master plan is to start a war between the "North" and the "West" so that he can sell the neural implant technology to both sides of the conflict.
- You Bastard!: Most of the game revolves around a completely amoral mercenary gleefully using a mind-controlled soldier like a puppet to cause war, and all the horrible destruction that comes with it, to help sell arms to both sides and revel in murdering soldiers only defending their country.
