Next to Halo 3, Killzone 2 was probably the most hyped game of this entire generation. Four years of development and an E3 trailer promising the most realistic graphics yet on a console raised expectations for this game impossibly high. The fact that the development team Guerrilla Games had only produced mediocre shooters before this point and that Killzone 1 was one of those games seemed to slip most people by. It may also help that Killzone 2 is one of the best looking games ever made, but all the polygons in the world won’t save Killzone 2 from the harsh criticism it’s about to receive.

Let’s start by getting the obvious out of the way. Killzone 2 employs a cover system that keeps you in the first person throughout the whole experience. This cover system is hampered mostly by the game’s awkward button placement. The input method most gamers will likely use is Alternate 2, but this forces you to hold down three buttons at once to shoot as well as using both analogue sticks to pop out of cover and aim the crosshairs. Cover and crouching are combined together, which is fine except that crouching only drops you down a few inches. Of course that could only be because your character’s eyesight is much lower than everybody else’s, which is a strange feeling.

The shooting mechanics are hit and miss. Some people will no doubt fall in love with the heavy feel of the weapons and minimal amount of auto aim, some will hate it. If there is one problem that affects everybody though it’s the lag time between when you hit the button and when the gun fires. Don’t believe me? Check Eurogamer’s excellent feature on the subject. It exists and hardcore shooter fans, like the ones who will glean the most pleasure from this game, will notice, especially in multiplayer and especially when you’re trying to snipe somebody.

And talk about multiplayer I probably don’t have to mention that the game comes with a class and perk based system quite similar to titles like COD4 and Team Fortress. Now it’s clear that a lot of work went into coming up with interesting attributes for each class, but despite this the multiplayer is terribly unbalanced. The rocket class is especially overpowered and in many games you’ll find it disabled because all too often rounds can devolve into anarchic explosion fests that aren’t fun for people who prefer more nuanced gameplay sessions. Grenades too feel overpowered and grenade spamming is quite common in choke points. This is a particularly damning issue because most of Killzone 2’s multiplayer maps are littered with choke points and corridors. The multilevel design of the maps is a nice touch and welcome but radar only displays people on your level and it takes an agonizing second to kick in when jumping down or going up stairs.

Killzone 2’s story and characterization deserve the most criticism though. It’s just terrible. Clichéd space marines killing clichéd space Nazis in gritty brown and grey environments. The four main characters with whom you spend most of your time with are all painfully stupid, both in personality and A.I. The three NPC’s are wisecracking melodramatic jarheads that curse like teenagers and frequently make unfunny yo mamma jokes. Instead of presenting these characters in an over the top or ironic sense GG chose to portray these characters seriously. The problem though is that you can’t take them seriously and when you try to you jus end up disliking them. The character Rico deserves the most ire. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such rage at a fictional character before.

He’s short tempered, arrogant, idiotic, stupid, selfish, foulmouthed, remorseless, careless…pretty much the exact kind of person you wouldn’t ever want to go to war with. The protagonist, Sev, whom you play as, is given the task of reviving your teammates when they go down. A thankless task because your allies will rush headlong into battle and get gunned down often, forcing you to choose between giving up an intelligent position to save them and not have to fight an army by yourself, or stay where you are, deal with everything on your own and listen to them whine about how they need your help. And it’s all very pointless because once you do push through to the next area the team will revive by themselves for the sake of continuing the story.

The story is your standard: stop the evil dictator from using the nuke business and doesn’t take any plot twists you don’t see coming from a mile away. Eventually the nuke goes off, but it doesn’t carry anywhere near the impact it did in COD4 and the only effect of the explosion on gameplay is to turn the skies of the last level red and make ash rain down on you while fighting. So either they have inoculations against nuclear fallout in the future or your team’s battle armor is made out of lead. Which when I think about too hard makes me wonder why these professional soldiers don’t where combat helmets. The lone bright spot in the whole campaign is the excellent voice acting of Brian Cox as the charismatic Emperor Visari. So good is Cox that you’ll actually wish you were fighting for him instead of the brain dead United Federation of Planets knock-off. I seriously hope that Killzone 3 will let us play from the Helghast perspective so we can slaughter the protagonists from Killzone 2.

In all seriousness though, Killzone 2 is a must buy for PS3 owners. Not because it’s a masterful first person shooter, but because it looks so ‘effin amazing. Killzone 2 is the Independence Day of next-gen shooters. It’s something we all buy to demonstrate the capabilities of our PS3’s in the same way ID4 did with the first generation of DVD players. It’s not a game that will change your life or redefine videogames as a whole but as a piece of technology it’s very impressive and merits being owned just so you can put it in the tray and knock your friends’ socks off. Is that a vain reason? Absolutely. Is that going to stop you from marveling at the drop dead gorgeous lighting effects? Probably not.

• Add New

Comments (3)

• 2009-10-07 13:55:21 |69.156.81.xxx| AZ  - hmmm

  well i actually strongly dissagree with most of this i actually found the characters funny though rico i agree with grrr lol anyways i love the corridors in KZ i think its the most intens game i ever playd watching bullets fly past your heads and your comrads geting gund down and chunks of walls fly past your face with dust being left behind and chunks of blood on the floor leave me a feeling like wow that was intense. and honestly i think the cla*s system is balanced its fair when 2 people on ech team are rocket cla*s guys makes it perfectly even most of the time you need them to take out the robots or clear a room also the late firing thing well i dont notice like i do but i dont, it makes it feel better actually, you are especially wrong with the sniper though its perfect anyways and the cover system best thing ever if you cant hold down L2 and use both sticks while ressing R1 to shoot at the same time you shouldnt be gameing IMO all i can say is its the most beautiful intense game ever made plus trophies online 9 new maps released new guns and new trophies in the expansions its a must have.

  • 0
  • 0

  ReplyQuote

• 2009-10-07 15:06:23 |83.83.204.xxx| Shooterfan  - Different

  What happened in the milliseconds áfter you pull the trigger, that's what made KZ2 special. Pretty much everything secondary sucked, but Geurilla Games nailed the primaries: truly engaging gunfights vs great enemy AI, no easy L1 CoD kills, you have to work hard & the tools are very satisfying. Wrap it all in the best paper known to consoles and I seriously wouldn't know how any shooterfan could write a re-review and come up with all this nonsense, and forget about the important stuff. Killzone 2 is Bada Bing! a great and pretty unique Shooter, Warzone is a great and pretty unique multiplayer experience.

  • 0
  • 0

  ReplyQuote

• 2010-01-01 06:01:03 |98.149.204.xxx| CME20  - mp is too crazy

  i love killzone 2. it is a great game when you're a low rank, but when ranking up, the game gets to hectic. There is too much going on. There is no time for strategy or thinking your moves because there so much going on. It ruins such a great game. This is just my opinion : take out turrets and flying things, rockets, and grenade launchers and there game would be awesome. i hope they change the mp in kz3 :/

  • 0
  • 0

  ReplyQuote

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email:

Website:

Comment:

Title:

UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Joomla components by Compojoom