Killer Frequency (Switch)

Powah Dunk | June 27, 2023 | Review | No Comments

1987, you’ve lost your job at a popular radio station and are now slumming it in the sticks, boredom creeps in over the neon flickering light as you pick your next record. Tonight should play out like every other night of your dwindling radio career until you take a phone call from the local 911 Dispatcher, sound good? Tune in and find out.

Killer Frequency originally released as a VR game before the developers decided that everyone should get a spin of the record, patched it up with controls and produced a remix that will hit with a larger crowd than that of the original.

The game is a horror puzzle game where you take control of a Radio host who through sheer bad luck, ends up being the 911 Call handler for the town after the Sheriff Dept is taken down by an urban myth come true “The Whistling Man”.

Graphically Killer Frequency has a nice look to it with a slight cel shading to really pop out that 80s look it’s going for. Sound is king here and you’ve got some stellar voice acting and really great original 80s style tunes including some synthwave because why wouldn’t you have some with a game set in the 80s!.

Inbetween providing your listeners some jams to make their night more enjoyable you’ll be taking calls from the victims of The Whistling Man, helping them try to survive with dialogue choices and other puzzles using stuff found throughout the radio station.

The conversion from VR to traditional controls is done well enough but has the expected amount of clunk to it, especially trying to navigate with the Switch’s joycon set up which isn’t the best for First Person games at the best of times, fortunately accuracy isn’t the aim of the game here so the cumbersome controls for manually moving handles and picking records are manageable.

In terms of gameplay, Killer Frequency is a little on the bare side. It’s more of a listening and choice making style of game ala Telltale but it does present gamers with quite a unique experience and one I really enjoyed. The game has 3 different endings tied to how many people survived and how to handle a situation later on in the game which I won’t spoil.

Overall while Killer Frequency isn’t my usual type of game, the setting and unique radio station based setting really sold me on it, the narrative and well written dialogue kept me engaged and some genuinely tense moments spoke to my inner horror fan. This is one game that while won’t appeal to everyone, is a game I’m certainly glad isn’t just locked to VR.