Original 2005 Killzone 2 Trailer

Actual intro and in game footage

When you hear ‘Killzone 2′ a few things probably flash in your head. Most likely that infamous 2005 e3 trailer that was promised to be in game footage, which turned out to be a pre-rendered movie. The next thing that comes to mind is Killzone 1…which if you played it, was not very good at all. So with this in mind, Killzone 2 has received a lot of hype, and if you have played it, well deserved.  I wanted to leave a small impression of what I have experienced so far. Come read more after the jump.

The campaign thus far is nothing new in terms of branching paths or story line. You are thrown into a war on the foreign planet of Heligan, and it feels like war; sound, visual details. For starters be sure to have your sound system cranked. The surround sound is well executed, shells dropping , soldiers yelling and plenty of explosions. The background of the levels always have some nice eye candy as well.  Now on to the visuals. At first glance, you’ll notice the character modeling is top notch, along with a great feeling of depth. The only complaints I have in this department, is why are all the railings squared off!? You go from seeing some incredible explosions, and shells dropping out of your gun, to turn a corner to see a low polygon railing and sometimes a very low-res looking ground texture! Only every once a while. I bring this up because, its a lack of consistency. With Halo 3 for instance, it may not have the most perfect visuals to date, but it is consistent. All the textures are the same quality, and the levels are designed with this in mind. It keeps a nice, believable world in place. Killzone sometimes brings you out of the game when you see a low-resolution texture, or maybe the modeling of a button or door that looks out of place. Now this is very nit picky and most likely a lot of gamers won’t notice this.

Now as for the AI. I was originally told the AI was completely something new, and like nothing we’ve seen. I can compare the AI in this game best to the FEAR series. They appear to avoid fire, and hide behind objects but there are a few points that really are upsetting: there will be bottomless spawn points, the enemies will keep flowing in until you advance, this is really annoying and reminds me of old school games and really should no longer be implemented in current gen titles…please! And enemies can blind fire while in cover…why can’t you? Overall it doesn’t take too much away from the experience but on certain portions of the campaign it really gets old when you take out the turret just to see another guy spawn and take it over…

The multiplayer is what sets this game apart from everything on the market for the consoles. When Halo 3 came out, you saw a ranking system, quick matchmaking, and special playlists of gametypes. Very well streamlined and worked well. With Call of Duty 4 you saw a new perk system in place, and the same streamlined online play for matchmaking as Halo3. Some would argue COD4 was an advancement on the Halo3 technique of matchmaking and then more. Killzone seems to fall into place right with the Call of Duty series, but you can still pick your games from a game list, and there is no separation for ranked and unranked play, which is good, and bad. You unlock gear as you would in COD series, which is great, and really seems to be well received by the community, as opposed to just having options to spawn with, you unlock them slowly, which forces the player to spend time in each class and understand roles. I think down the road, this will lead to a more experienced player base, allowing for not only a better community, but maybe better team games, which as Left 4 Dead has proven, is very popular.  Another great addition is the clan system that is in place. You can wager points on clan matches. If you face off against another clan, you can earn or lose the in game currency, which is a great way of showing your clan’s worth. The clan membership is capped at 64 to be sure you don’t have your ranking strictly based on clan size. In short the multiplayer is shaping up to be a force to reckoned with.

Now for the much debated control issue. From my experience on FPS on the console, you generally have two types, your fast pace twitch shooters, like an Unreal Tournament, and slower more deliberate movements of a game like Rainbow Six or GRAW series. Killzone 2 falls somewhere in the middle. When you move to look, you’ll notice the movement is somewhat “accelerated” meaning, within a certain zone on the stick you will move slower, pull further out, it moves faster. Some interpreted this as “lag” but its just the slower deliberate way of moving, and is really unlike any FPS on the console. It changes the pacing of the game, and does take some time to get used to.  In larger player matches, I can’t really determine if this works for or against the game. It feels as though the sweet spot might be 4v4 or 8v8 but once you hit the 32 mark on total players, it begins to get less strategic and more spray and pray action. Again, with more time, maybe I will discover this is not the case, and I need to slow down my gameplay a bit. The whole game really lends itself to slower, more deliberate gameplay. Your ammo tends to be a little lower at the start, you can only carry one main weapon and a pistol, and the maps are fairly wide open, jumping is not a tactic used often to avoid fire either.

Ok, this preview has gone on way to long and maybe I lost some readers!! In any case, I will probably write more as I play the game, but for those of you interested, that’s my opinion! (And I do think the actual in game has surpassed that 2005 trailer)