Killzone 2 may have taken 5 years to get here but it was well worth the wait.
Killzone had the difficult job of having to compete with Halo 2 when it was released in November of 2004. As a result, most gamers found that its confusing plotline and jumpy controls made it a mediocre game in the Playstation 2 library. With the PS3 only two years away, development of Killzone 2 was underway by Guerrilla and Sony Europe. The 2005 tech demo wowed us all in thinking that it would be a launch title for the system, when in fact; gamers would have to wait till 2009 to bring the fight back to the Helghast. Does Killzone 2 finally get the credit it deserves or does it get over shadowed by yet another Halo game?
Story:
The last game left off with Jan Templar and his crew, saving the earth reinforcements from destruction at the hands of a traitor. With Vekta secure, the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (ISA) prepares to bring the war back to the Helghast by invading Helghan. Players step into the boots of Sgt. Sev as he leads Alpha team in the second wave of the assault on the capital.
Killzone 2 does little to help clear up the confusion about its back story. The only way find out is by going to the games website and reading about it. This worked for Halo as the back story was told by veteran sci-fi writer Eric Nyland. The back story about what happened to Earth and how the Helghast came to being is barely mentioned on the site. The history behind the story is not really need to understand its basic overarch, it just would have been nice.
The games story is very basic and straight forward, kill the Helghast. Jan Templar makes his cameo as Colonel of the New Sun and Brian Cox returns to play the charismatic leader of the Helghast, Visari. The voice acting is what one would expect from a first person shooter, lots of swearing and screaming of orders. Almost every character in the game is flat and unnecessary except for Visari. Cox gives an impressive performance in the few monologues that he has and if they gave an Oscar for voice acting, he would be easily nominated.
With a few twist and turns along the way, the story ends on a cliffhanger. This has to be the worst sin to make story wise in a video game as one feels no accomplishment for sinking time into the game. The single player is also extremely short and can be finished over a weekend. Overall, the story is passable but could have been so much more.
Gameplay:
Killzone 2 is a First-Person shooter and because of that is judged heavily based on innovation and controls. Killzone 2 brings a new way of gunplay to the table in a first-person cover mechanic. Unlike games such as Rainbow Six Vegas where the camera switches to Third-Person view, Killzone 2 keeps the action placed in the eyes of Sev. At first, this seems a little weird and uncomfortable. It takes getting used to, but after a few tense firefights, players will be thanking God for the new cover system. In the game, the cover you find isn't always perfect so it leaves a sense of uneasiness to the gun play.
Another angle that the developers added has been used before. Sev can only carry one heavy weapon and his sidearm. As always, most situations can be tackled with a standard assault rifle. Sadly a light tank or flying sensory drone are heavily armored and require Sev to grab a rocket launcher. To help meditate this problem, players have unlimited ammo with pistols which pack quite a punch close up.
The reason why the new cover system is great is because it doesn't just help you avoid death, but leads to extremely tactical and nerve racking gun duels. Like the last game, the Helghast are extremely tolerant to bullets in low doses. It takes in some cases half a clip to bring down these guys. Your foes will also be using cover as well, while sending knife welding commandos to flank you. Instead of the Call of Duty infinite enemy spawning, enemies in Killzone 2 are limited, but attack as a whole.
Once you get towards the end of the game you will be seriously questioning why more games don't challenge players like this. Not once did I scream in anger when I was killed as it was own fault when I died. While most games tend to give players less health in higher difficulties, Killzone 2 just makes the enemies smarter. Almost everything about the Gameplay of Killzone 2 is a breath of fresh air, and they brought this over to multiplayer as well.
Players will only start with assault rifles and have to earn the other weapons in the game by proving they can become effect killing machines. The cover system from the single player is taken away in exchange for a new type of multiplayer. In the past, players joined games that had one objective. In Killzone 2, once one teams wins, the next objective starts immediately. Players can go from defending a bomb to running and gunning as they are the target for assassination. Also ammo in primary weapons is limited to two clips, so cover fire has to work the first time or expect to go Dirty Harry on people with your revolver.
The guns players get to wield in both modes are the standard assortment of assault rifles, shotguns, SMG's, Sniper rifle and light Machine Guns. All the guns look like they could technically work in real life. The weapons that stick out the most would have to be the elemental weapons, the trusty flamethrower and the experimental lighting gun. Both are a riot to use, but sadly don't make an appearance in multiplayer.
The game does have issues such as near useless AI partners and an odd lack of co-op as almost every mission has you paired up with another team mate. These however are minor issues that can be quickly over looked. At the end of the day, Killzone 2 is the game that Sony needed after the extremely poor performance of last years holiday season. The Halo expansion and Halo Wars may out sell Killzone 2, but they can never claim to be as innovative or as interesting.
Presentation:
To say that this game needs to be played on a High Definition TV is an understatement. Killzone 2 is almost required to be played on 1080p screens as it is a technical powerhouse. An extreme amount of time has been spent to make sure this game looks and sounds amazing. The sad part is that since the game is so dark and gray most people will miss this detail.
If you get the chance to see this game in action, the attention to detail will shock you. Almost everything is rendered perfectly and games frame rate is stable even during the most hectic moments. The fact that this game has no install is also amazing as all this information is stored on the Blu-ray disc. The systems 8 processor cores are hard at work during this game as the fans kick on as soon as the game starts.
The sound not only sucks players into the game, but is down right scary in how accurately it mimics how these weapons should sound. Explosions are great as well as ticking of grenades clinging off walls and floors. Killzone 2 proves like Metal Gear Solid 4 before it that the PS3 is graphically superior to the XBOX 360.
Overall:
Sony took a huge risk making a sequel to a game that was widely regarded as a failed attempt to dethrone Halo. This was evident in the February release date and years of tweaking and working. This also hits during an economic recession when gamers were saving there money for a sure thing like Resident Evil 5. Killzone 2 is by far one of the best shooters I've played in a long time. It wasn't punishing hard, but kept me on my toes and impressed me with its daring new style of Gameplay. Its multiplayer is an improved version of Call of Duty and it caters to both FPS masters and new players alike. Rejoice Sony fan boys and girls, your Halo killer has finally arrived!