Killing Time is a game I never would've thought would find its way to me, spiraling out of the void and onto my lap. A 3DO game with a very mixed reception seemingly condemned to be a one note contribution to a video game system nobody really cared about. Nightdive has a knack for adapting games with somewhat bad reputations, it seems. They did the game thing with The Thing, giving it a second life! Judging by the plays here, I can't really say Killing Time is getting any kind of renaissance, but it was enough of a boost for someone like me to find it. A newer, younger audience of people eager to dig through the relatively unflattering past of boomer shooters. It may not capture the attention of the masses, but it's a great little gem with all kinds of silly quirks I'm happy to see polished and restored.

The first thing to note about the game, is its extremely silly and unfocused aesthetics. It's the 1920s, and you play as an archaeologist investigating a mysterious case of rogue archaeology on a rich woman's extravagant island mansion. The poster character of the game is completely unrelated to any of this archaeology or 1920s shit, and looks like some kind of fucked up mix between a Grinch, The Mask, and Lobo. There's a clown on the cover of the game, and yeah, all throughout the mansion are clowns who giggle and say they're gonna tickle you. There's also zombie ducks, ghosts, mutant dogs and duck hunters, jackal spirits, giant bugs, Helga, succubus maids, and even more.

There is Egyptomania all over the game, and the mysterious story is all conveyed through ghost sprites which transform into diegetic FMV clips when you stand in front of them for long enough. The ghost sprites say the SAME "Help me!" sound clip over and over again, every single time without fail. The plot isn't too important, but it's pretty a girlboss who cuts herself up into ten organ jars a little bit too close to the sun, and all of the hired clowns, gangsters, bootleggers, and lovers she roped into her sick bid for immortality. And there is also her boyfriend who becomes a grinch monster, I guess. It's really funny and charming, and the best way to describe the game was best put by contemporary critics of the time: It's sort of like if you mixed the FPS formula with The 7th Guest. As a fan of The 7th Guest, this is a delight to me.

Beyond the baffling and impressive stylistic choices of the game, the next most important element of it is the way it approaches its level design. It is one, gigantic, cryptic, confusing, baffling, bold, ridiculous labyrinth with an ungodly amount of backtracking to find a rainbow of keys and organ jars to progress. Each area of the game has its own unique flavoring, interesting enemies, funky and quirky music, and it mercifully lets everything you kill die for good once you clear out an area, so the backtracking process more fun and explorative than it is stressful. But it's not exactly easy to figure out everything you're supposed to be doing, I had to refer to a guide to make sure I wasn't missing a key somewhere, which I was. If you hate giant mazes in FPS games, you're going to hate this game, because it's all this one is.

Each jar you obtain confers special little benefits, power ups which almost feel like cheating, with a limited use. Some give you super sight to poke at secrets when you're looking for something, some give super strength, some give you double max health, super fast, etc. I played conservatively most of the game and didn't need to use them until the end, but I thought it was a really fun little twist to enhance the otherwise sort of boring weapon choice.

Speaking of the weapons, you get a crowbar and knife as your melee weapons, generally underwhelming but useful when using the jar buffs. A weak pistol, which becomes a good utility for killing specific enemies when you get a second. A shotgun and tommygun which will be what you're going to use for 80% of the game, nothing special to say about them. The molotov cocktails are the most interesting, but the worst to use, because they will kill you if you're not careful. Not only will they accidentally kill you, but if something hits a molotov pickup before you get to it, it will catch on fire and become a level hazard, which I had very mixed luck with. I love how dangerous it made the game feel. The flame thrower is good, but it chews through ammo, it's unspectacular because of how little you can get away with using it. The last weapon is the Ankh, which is my favorite and the most scarcely distributed. Drops a huge bomb, and made the endgame a lot more tolerable.

And on that endgame, good lord. Duncan, he's chasing you across the house, immortal, constantly hitting you. Once you kill him, he's dead for ten seconds and quickly comes back to life. He teleports to you. You have to break the six artifacts to weaken the water clock to break the spell to kill him, forcing you to wander through different corners of the mansion all over again, and it is one of the most rough boss sequences I've ever played in a game. That said, it was pretty interesting and noteworthy.

The feel I'm left with playing the game is not so much the gunplay, or any details about it being an FPS. It feels more like a game that yearns to be an adventure game. Wandering through the caverns, using the map which generously revealed secrets doors and switches.. Moving to find one zone to unlock another thingy so I can go back to the original spot to find a new thing, while I'm talking to FMV ghosts! It's delightfully corny and tickled my brain. The silly sounds, the fancy music, the strange noir and modern fantasy tone.. This is like.. a delightfully aged cheese to be paired with a gin and tonic, like they drank back in the prohibition, if I'm led to believe what the flapper ghosts were saying. If you like silly absurd games that want to trap you in a stupid little maze full of clowns, then this game is definitely for you.

Reviewed on Dec 28, 2025