"Killer Frequency" Review - *ch-ch-ch, Yeah-Yeah-Yeah!*

Publishers: Team 17, Fireshine Games

Developer: Team 17

Available for: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows, Meta Quest 2

Reviewed for: Playstation 5

A couple of times a year, I scour steam and the playstation store for potential hidden gems. In doing so, I often find vastly-overlooked games that go on to win several awards in my end of year review, so it's always an excited adventure to embark on. And in 2023, it looks like the first mostly-unknown indie game to win a special place in my heart is the topic of today's review: Killer Frequency. Made with VR in mind but 100% playable on all the major consoles (and PC), this hidden gem is, dare I say, a near-perfect experience that I highly recommend you try out! So, let's get into the nitty gritty of why!

In Killer Frequency, you play as Forrest Nash. Forrest is a for-reasons-unknown disgraced former bigtime radio host who now hosts the late show (meaning, beginning at midnight) for a local radio station in the backwater podunk of Gallow's Creek: 189.16 - The Scream! The year is 1987, and our airwave-affiliated hero starts off his work night like any other: putting the equipment through various checks that serve as tutorials for new players before kicking off a corporate-mandated call-in contest. As he takes the first call of the night, he finds that the city's 9-1-1 operator, Leslie, is on the other end of the line. She tells him that the sheriff has been murdered and the only other cop available has been knocked unconscious, so she needs to take this unconscious cop and head to the nearest town to get backup. After some brief back-and-forth, it becomes clear that the sheriff's killer is either the living spirit of or an ill-intentioned person impersonating "The Whistling Man," a serial killer that terrorized the town in the late 1950's. From here, Leslie explains that she has diverted 9-1-1 to Forrest's radio station so he can handle things while she goes to get backup to take down this killer. The reasoning? Forrest is the only other currently-available person in town who has experience operating phone lines like those they have at dispatch. Fair enough, but the real kicker is that the nearest town is around 2.5 hours away. That means our hero has to hold down the fort for 5 hours while a dangerous individual stalks the town. From here, we have our premise: Forrest takes calls from various citizens of the town and talks them through their situations in an attempt to save as many people as possible, and, perhaps, discover the truth about the situation.

Pretty interesting idea, yeah? Well, I'm glad to say that the plot lives up to that premise! What's more, you'll likely start formulating ideas about what the various twists are going to be way ahead of time, and if your guesses are anything like mine, you're going to be wrong. So, despite setting up a narrative that could be predictable, the game smartly subverts expectations when it matters! 

But beyond just the story, I have to say the cast of characters and the town itself are pretty compelling as well, and we don't see any of that stuff! Our protagonist is as charming as one would expect a former bigtime radio host to be, and the rapport he has with his producer, Peggy, is equally charming! Then there's characters like the lovable Roller Ricky (who overcame severe alcoholism with the help of a friend and now strives to bring joy to the town that gave him so much through his roller rink and personal roller disco style) and his roller-skating dog, Max. Or the equally lovable Samantha, who sounds like Moira Brown from Fallout 3 and runs and hippie-dippie jazz dance studio and likes to go on "jazz" runs at night. On the other hand, there are characters like Teddy Gallows Jr., the son of the man who owns most of the town who was a baseball star in High School turned republican mayoral candidate running on a predictable platform of faith and law enforcement. That guy starts out about as 1-dimensional a republican political candidate as you can imagine, but even he gets some excellent development as the story goes on. Hell, even the minor characters are compelling! For example, Brian Ponty, the owner of Ponty's Pizza (one of three restaurants in town). This lovable guy calls throughout the night and breaks up the tension by finding new and unique ways to advertise his business under the pretense of having real information about the killer, and it's not always obvious that he's the caller, so it actually comes as a pleasant surprise a couple of times!

That actually provides a decent segue into the last thing I'd like to discuss on the story front: the game's sense of humor. Obviously, the subject matter gets pretty dark given the concept, but the game is sure to include a bit of levity every once in a while to keep the tone from being too one-note. In some cases this is accomplished through characters like Brian Ponty, but in most cases, the humor stems from the overall concept of this being a radio show. See, just because Forrest and Peggy are acting as 9-1-1 for the evening doesn't mean they're relieved of their contractual duties. They still have a radio show to do, after all! So, every 9-1-1 call is preceded with "You're listening to 189.16: The Scream, with me, Forrest Nash! What's your emergency for today?" Frequently, when Forrest and the person he's trying to save have to temporarily hang up for a second, he'll have to cut to a commercial break or another track of music. In such instances, he'll introduce these things in ways like "but before we see what happens next to Christine and her friends, a brief word from our sponsors," or "this one goes out to Sandra as she tries to find the tools in her car. Sandra, our thoughts and prayers are with you!" For all of these things, the tone goes right back to dark afterwards, but they serve as a sometimes much-needed break from the doom and gloom, and they're always amusing. To be able to balance these two kinds of content is a delicate art, and I have to say that Killer Frequency strikes that balance excellently!

But as excellent as the story and characters are, it's the puzzle-centric gameplay that really takes home the gold! As you may have already inferred, the gameplay is essentially you talking to various citizens of Gallows Creek over the phone. Each of them find themselves being hunted by the killer, and as they talk you through their current situation, you need to mentally keep track of the details and figure out how to get them out alive. Sometimes this will just involve your critical thinking with something in the radio room or even just with the details you're given. In most cases, however, you'll be faced with a unique challenge that forces you to go through the building looking for anything that can possibly give some clue as to what can be done. This being an incredibly small town, that's not as much of a stretch as you might expect. As the town's one and only radio station, this station has people who cover just about every local topic, so there are plenty of materials lying around that could be useful. 

To give an example, one early problem sees a woman having made it to her car, temporarily evading the killer, but she dropped her keys on the way. So she needs to know how to force a car to start without keys. Knowing that the station features a show about cars, Forrest goes off in search of any reading material that he might be able to use to guide her through the process. To give a slightly more complicated example from possibly my favorite puzzle, Forrest gets a call from a woman whose house the killer is currently trying to break into. She lives next to a frat house, but she doesn't know the phone number and the party they're having is too loud for them to hear what's going on. But she does know that they ordered takeout from one of the three restaurants in town. From there, Forrest goes through the office reviewing food reviews, local advertisements for these restaurants, and special promotions to try and piece together which restaurant this group of frat boys would have ordered from in order to place another order and include a note telling them to call the station. The puzzles are just complicated enough to make you think twice about one or two things, but not complicated enough to be frustrating in any way. Once again, a perfect balance that this game can boast about!

Unfortunately, there's one minor flaw. This being a game with positive and negative outcomes for each character, with a strong focus on replaying again to try to save (or kill) everyone in the town, you're obviously encourage to play through multiple times. However...on subsequent playthroughs, there's no option to skip through dialogue....and there's a lot of it. Obviously, having that option during an initial playthrough would be catastrophic if it were to be accidentally used. But there should've been some kind of option after that to go from puzzle to puzzle or something like that. Beyond that, the walking speed is just ever-so-slightly too slow. As far as negatives go, not too bad!

Because this game was ultimately made for VR, there are no technical issues to speak of. So, on to the conclusion! Chances are good you haven't heard of Killer Frequency, but that's why I believe it's so important for me to put the good word out! As a reminder, I played this game on the PS5, so on a TV screen instead of the ultimate VR vision the developers had. Even with that handicap on the experience, I only know this game was meant to be a VR experience because I figured it would be great in that context as I was playing, and I looked it up. This is actually the first time I've played the flat-screened version of a VR title, but I find it hard to imagine that they all hold up this well. If you're the kind of person who really likes logic puzzles like me, you'll definitely enjoy Killer Frequency no matter what platform you play on. But if you're that aforementioned type of person and you have the right kind of VR hardware, what on earth are you waiting for?!

Let us review:

Minor gameplay flaws - 0.3

The final score for Killer Frequency is...

9.7/10 - Near Masterpiece

Excellent work, Team 17, excellent work!