Killer Frequency [Xbox]
Team17’s Killer Frequency is set in the late 80s in the small American town of Gallows Creek. As Forrest Nash - radio host for the aptly named local radio station, 189.16 The Scream - you’ll have to step up as a temporary 911 operator. After Leslie - the actual 911 operator - discovers that the Sheriff has been murdered by none other than The Whistling Man, she needs to leave town to get some backup; and she’s gonna be gone for a while.
Long presumed dead, the infamous serial killer The Whistling Man has seemingly returned and is wreaking havoc on the town - though tonight is ‘Whistling Night’, which just so happens to make it even harder to identify the killer from the pranksters enacting his telltale whistle, or wearing replica masks. Different things mentioned during the dialogue might have you side-eyeing various characters, such as radio producer Reggie’s demands to do the “Guess that Scream” during tonight’s broadcast; to the incessant calls from a very self-advertising business owner who just won’t give his pizza promotion a rest.
For most of the game, you’ll be standing in front of your desk with all of your radio equipment, switching between tracks and talking to callers. Every so often you’ll have to explore the rest of the radio station to find various things that might help you to help others, such as a map of the Maize Maze, or a magazine that’ll teach you to Hotwire cars. You’ll need to chat to callers to help guide them to safety - with your answers being what results in who lives and who dies, so making sure you hunt around for clues is crucial. There’s options you need to choose - though you’ll need to switch between them with the d-pad rather than aiming with the sticks, since it’ll just pick whatever one is highlighted once you press A, even if you’re aiming at the other option (this caught me once or twice!). You’ll also slowly uncover the mystery as to just who is behind the mask - and why.
Killer Frequency’s 80’s styled soundtrack is great, and you’ve got a variety of records to spin in between all of the callers - with some hidden around the building for you to find - so you can choose which ones you want to play for the most part (with only a few callers phoning in with requests). The voice acting is really well done, and there’s a decent story to follow throughout all the calls - peppered with plenty of humour to give it that well-seasoned blend of comedy-horror.
Within the pause menu, it keeps a tally of the keys you’ve collected, as well as records, and paper ball baskets that you’ve managed to make from your desk. You’ve got an infinite supply of paper balls to toss, which is handy - as it gives you something to pass the time whilst you and your producer, Peggy, chat between calls. You’ll also notice that the overall time is kept track of here, too - with a mention of this at the start of the game when Leslie mentions it’ll probably take around 4 hours to get help and return - so keeping an eye on this will help you to judge how far along the story you are. It’s also a massive help when trying to nab the ‘Forrest Dash’ achievement, for saving everyone and completing the game in under 4 hours. Annoyingly, Allan came in at 4 hours and 5 minutes on his first attempt.
Priced at £20.99 on Xbox - though currently on sale for £16.79 for the next couple of days - and also available on other platforms and VR, too, Killer Frequency is a fun game with plenty of replayability, either to save any characters you might have accidentally killed, or to do a full sweep by killing or saving them all. I had a great time with it, and would definitely recommend it to others looking for something short and sweet with an interesting premise.
In the end, we decided to give Killer Frequency the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Are you interested in Killer Frequency? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Team17 for the Killer Frequency Xbox review code!
