The one reason to enter an actual killing zone.
Killzone 2 is the sequel to the PS2 FPS that at the time was pretty decent but quickly faded into obscurity. Besides a PSP title that was a mediocre top-down shooter game with some inventive control possibilities, the series has not been very outstanding in its own right. The story involves humans having settled various planets now for some time and the planets forming an alliance called the I.S.A. which includes a planet called Vekta. One of the planets colonized by humans hundreds of years ago was called Helghan, home of the Helghast, humans who have adjusted to the planet's harsh environment so much that they cannot survive on pure air off planet and are in all ways stronger and faster then other humans, making them feel as if they are not even human anymore. Because of this, they launch wars against the ISA, losing one war only to start another in a more violent fashion which lead to their invasion of Vekta. That was the events of the original Killzone, this game having you playing the part of an invasion fleet of Vektans launching an assault on the planet Helghan to finally put a stop to the Helghast at their home. Needless to say, the Helghast are not about to give up without a fight, their leader Vasari rallying his people to fight to the death, and as soon as the ISA arrive, they find the Helghast more then ready for them and bringing them to a deadly meat grinder of a war that is likely to cost both sides everything.
The game is your standard fair of modern FPS. You run with a squad (or just one other soldier) of AI soldiers most of the time, while the rest involves you running in solo. You have to take out waves of Helghan attack in rather slummy or industrial areas and try not to die. You lack a health bar, as is more common now at days, instead trusting in a simple system of your vision going blurred when you take too much damage and your vision and health returning if you can find some place behind cover to heal yourself. You can also make use of cover with a system that allows you to press yourself up against something when near an object to hide, and hitting a button to poke your head and weapon over or around your cover to take shots. Weapons are rather standard fair, offering the ISA rifle and the Helghan rifle as standard weapons, the main difference being that Helghan ammo is easier to find as you will be killing a lot of them, and the ISA rifle has a special aiming sight on the rifle that makes it a little easier to aim at enemies from a distance. Other then that, you have your close range SMG, grenade, sniper rifle, two types of rocket launcher, grenade launcher, and one particular stand out, the shot gun. The shot gun is rather pleasant in this game, suffering from a common problem with most shotguns in that the rate of fire is low, the range is short, and the reload time is long. What makes it stand out is that while it fires out shot, it comes out like a cone of death, killing almost anything with one shot at point-blank-range, and just a blast to use. The environments are generally dark and decrepit but luckily the Helghast have their special goggles which makes their eyes light up red, making them easier to spot. They come in various types, be it troopers, or assaulters who move fast and use SMG's, or heavy tankers who use heavy machine guns and have to be killed by destroying a fuel line in their backpacks.
The Single player mode is a little lack luster. There are many worse FPS's out there but this one is not the best either. The gritty environments reminded me far too much of Gears of War, which I was never fond of because you can only see so many shades of GREY before you get sick of it. This game suffers a bit from that, and the darkness gets a little carried away, though it's understandable as you are not going to have a lot of light to go by when its dark about. Another problem is that it's easy to loose track of enemies when they come up on you, making it easy to rush up past them or lose site when you are turning to aim at them. Those are rather minor but my biggest gripe is the fact that head shots are not that effective. The Helghast have helmets that actually protect their head, their helmets able to take a few shots before you can knock it off, and even then it takes usually more then one shot to put a Helghan down even when they take it to the head. It stinks more considering that they love to make use of cover and this is often the only part of their body exposed that you can hit. As for your cover system, it feels clunky, and it takes too long to reach out from cover and aim to hit an enemy, usually they take shots at you the moment you poke your head out and your health is low just as you get a bead on them, but the weapon climb is so high on the guns that you are going to find it difficult to hit enemies without taking aim.
But while the single player is nothing to write home about, the multi-player is definitely something that stands out in a crowd of games. The online aspect of this game has you playing as either the ISA or the Helghast in a series of maps. The maps are generally average sized with one particularly large map and one particularly small one, the rest just offering variations of the single player levels. The game combines some aspects of Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2. You always start off as a simple squadie, just a riflemen with a choice between two rifles. With each kill you make or special task you accomplish, like disarming a bomb or planting one, you earn experience points. Earn enough and you go up in rank and unlock more weapons. What is also nice is that you can also unlock character classes. They include Medic, Engineer, Tactical, Assault, Saboteur (spy), and Scout (sniper). Each other class has a primary skill and secondary skill. Normally (with the exception of the assault class), you have to perform the primary skill effectively enough in a map to earn a ribbon 8 times before you can unlock the secondary skill, then earning a ribbon with that one earns you the ability to use that secondary skill with other classes. This mix of abilities definitely helps with making the teams more varied, unlike other games where it's just varied as to who has what weapon. Performing certain other skills also awards you special bonuses once you get enough ribbons, such as getting the headshot ribbon allows you to get an extra point when you score a headshot. The game types are also varied, allowing for simple team death match, but also offering such things as capture-the-flag, capture and hold, assassination, and assault-and-defend. A typical Warzone game will have you playing all of these modes one after the other in random order to keep you running a marathon of war games, a definite fun experience.
The multi-player is fun but has its ups and downs. For one, its fun to take out opponents because the game offers you a 'chirp' sound effect every time you knock out an enemy, getting you a more elaborate sound when you take them out with a head shot. The cover system is removed but you can still crouch, allowing you to hide behind things without actively flattening your body against it, which allows for more freedom of movement and less cumbersome controls, making it actually better then the single player mode in that respect. Sometimes though, the levels can be a bit uneven. For example, the small level has the Helghast starting area in a blocked off section while the ISA start off in an open access spot. This means the Helghast have more cover near their spawn point but the ISA have ladders that offer immediate access to the core parts of the level and the higher ground from their spawn point, which almost always assures they have a much easier time in the level as they have a clear shot at the Helghast players from above and across the stage and can pin them down from the start of the level and just keep them pinned the whole match. Meanwhile another level, one set up like a soldier academy, gives the Helghast the advantage as their major points of interest have more cover and have areas suited for cross-fire that make it easy to attack ISA when they try to rush in. Another problem is that while you can lag in the game, it keeps track of your actions. So if you shoot a guy in the head and he is lagging, and to him he shoots you in the head too, you both die, just that you die second because his shot still hit even if you got him first because the game is trying to be fair to those who are moving slower due to connection speed.
The game is definitely a fun one, though it's a little unbalanced. While the single player campaign is fine, its not as good as it could be, relying on having the multiplayer picking up the slack, which luckily it does and does well. For this game I might even suggest completely ignoring the single player campaign outside of simply using it to give you the hang of controls for the multiplayer. The introduction of the squad system (which not only lets you head-set chat with your squad members more easily but also lets you spawn near your squad leader rather then back at the spawn point) is a nice touch too. I'd definitely suggest this game for multiplayer fans and people who are tired of the same old boring multiplayer gameplay of such games like Halo. And with the PS3's free online play, there is no reason not to give this game a try.