time to say goodbye
For its simplistic ascetic and mechanical handling, I was taken back by how fun Door Kickers turned out to be. A variety of SWAT scenarios and equipment options coupled with powerful controls for handling each mission creates tense and fast gameplay. Blending real-time action with pause controls for additional planning makes for a unique experience in the world of close-quarter combat.
if you go nappy on time enough times to get enough gold stars i'll give you an m4 assault rifle
Players will take on the role of a SWAT commander, ordering officers in the field and managing equipment decisions. Troopers are equipped with class-based accoutrements and it's up to players what factors are prioritized. Heavy weapons, armor, and breaching equipment means being geared for any kind of contingency while sacrificing valuable mobility. Ensuring your troopers are agile enough to maneuver rooms and find firing angles is critical, especially in missions involving timed hostage rescues or bomb disposal. Having an efficient team composition is also critical. Each trooper has individual masteries that make one officer better in some aspects over others.
The scenarios themselves offer a variety of situations from simple hostile neutralization to complex VIP rescues and arrests. Troopers can be told to move, rotate, deploy equipment, and interact with limited environmental objects such as doors (especially doors) and objective points. With simple controls, Door Kickers offers strategy in the form of planning how to breach a room, how to approach covering angles, and how to do so quickly and precisely. Scenarios vary in location from tense close quarters to dangerous open areas. Some missions also feature a sniper that can pick off selected enemies in key locations.
command hasn't told us to do anything; keep staring at that wall!
Although missions can be performed in real time, it is often prudent (and more satisfying!) to plan ahead. Players are allowed to pause the game at any time to immediately give new orders as the working environment changes. The planning element in Door Kickers resembles programming aspects with the troopers movements running along set paths as analogs for decision trees and flowcharts. Finishing a mission with only one plan is a challenge available to players, along with finishing a mission without pausing and finishing a mission with only one trooper. Each challenge type will test the player's improvisation and planning, adding a great deal of replay value from previously completed missions as a simple rule change can completely change the experience.
The individual, stand-alone missions are complemented with a series of different campaigns, each ranging in difficulty. Whereas officers start out without any injuries in the stand-alone missions, campaigns feature an "iron man" challenge where officers under your command retain all injuries across missions. Should an officer fall in the line of duty, that officer will not be available for deployment in future missions within the campaign without reseting the campaign progress. Campaigns offer extra challenging enemies that pack a variety of combat equipment of their own, so it is recommended that players familiarize themselves with tactics and techniques in the stand alone missions before venturing further.
you can always go for the one-man terminator strategy
To top it all off, Door Kickers offers full level creation and sharing, a valuable and powerful asset. By being able to allow players to create their own levels and download them off of the Steam workshop, the game virtually has an infinite number of scenarios. Modding support is also available and has empowered players to create and share their own classes, weapons, and even total conversions. With simple creation tools, it is easy and accessible to begin forging one's own levels to share.
Although the game suffers from user interface issues that makes giving orders to stacked units difficult, Door Kickers' simplicity is its genius. With only a few well-placed commands, it is possible to witness and experience your troopers pull off impressive and mesmerizing tactical dances. KillHouse Games shows just how much depth outclasses complexity.
