DETAILED REVIEW: While beautiful, Killzone 2 lacks the substance to propel it into 'instant classic' territory.
AN OUTSTANDING SINGLE PLAYER EXPERIENCE:
The single player portion of this game is fantastic. The story, while following many poor action movie cliches, is set in an engaging universe that references our real world in many ways to the point that all of its short comings are easily overlooked by the player. The Helghast bear a strong resemblance at their core to many of the fascist nations that propelled World War II. All of the firearms in this game, while purely science fiction, were pieced together from many modern firearms. Everything about the Killzone 2 universe, therefore, is both alien and familiar and it works excellently for the game. As far as the actual gameplay goes, it flows very well and I will even go as far to say that it plays better than the Call of Duty games where the player simply 'moves the ball forward' in the face of a constantly spawning wave of enemy AI. The AI in Killzone 2 is smart; it knows when you are shooting at it (or have it in your crosshairs) and will effectively use cover to avoid death. The variety of enemy types is also excellent, Helghast officers will rush you with submachineguns blazing, snipers and rocket troops will keep their distance while attempting to pop off killshots, and my favorite enemy, the badass Helghast Special Op, will basically stop at absolutely nothing in an effort to flank and destroy you.
With smart AI it pays to keep your head down, and thankfully Killzone 2 has an excellent cover mechanic that allows you to snap to cover by holding down the crouch button while close to these surfaces. This cover system is done entirely in the first person and difficulties with this prospect are dealt with by allowing you to see a limited degree above the object you are hiding behind so you can still effectively pop out and deliver fire onto your enemies. The firearms in this game all work well, every weapon has a purpose, from the ISA M82 Assault Rifle with its green-tinted laser dot scope perfect for lining up headshots to the ridiculously fun to use rail gun which knocks enemies off their feet, pins them to the wall and then throws them into the air when the rail detonates- every weapon feels like a useful tool rather than a tacked on addition. Each of these firearms packs the proper punch and is augmented by a solid sound design which brings the intensity of firefights right into your eardrums.
The single player is broken up nicely by a series of moments when you get your hands on an ISA Tank, mount yourself in a gunwell aboard an ISA Cruiser and gun down incoming Helghast fighters, and most impressively, when you jump into an ISA Mech and utterly tear apart everything in front of you. However, the most memorable moment in this game is when the player gets his hands on the electricity gun from a fallen Helghast ArcTrooper that makes the rest of that level unfold like the end of Half-Life 2; every enemy in your path is laid to waste and you have an absolutely ridiculous amount of fun during that time. Basically, even if you fall into the category of people who despises Killzone 2's controls, you will have a blast playing the single player campaign and there is enough in the way of trophies and variations in difficulty to keep you occupied for a while there.
By far the most disappointing aspect of this game is a complete lack of story mode cooperative play, either split-screen or online. This hurts the replayability of the single player greatly and really prevents the game from entering the hallowed hall of classic shooters, specifically because in this age of 'next-generation' shooters split-screen or online cooperative play has really become a part of the standard package.
MULTIPLAYER- A GOOD BUT SHORT RUN:
Killzone 2 has an impressive and initially daunting multiplayer component. Multiplayer games in Killzone 2 (without host modification) are continuous and involve all of the various gametypes to create a chaotic battlefield where players are constantly moving and firing to complete objectives, be it emplacing a bomb in the enemy base, holding a checkpoint on the map, or your standard deathmatch. This variation on popular shooter gametypes is enhanced nicely by the inclusion of several classes each with its own unique primary and unlockable secondary abilities. All of the various classes are unlocked as you advance in rank, and you will not have access to the full compliment of classes until you have reached the final rank of General. In terms of abilities, medics revive fallen teammates before they bleed out and have to respawn, snipers can temporarily turn invisible when stationary until they fire a killshot, saboteurs can disguise themselves as a member of the enemy team until they have fired off a certain number of rounds, and the standard rifleman can use almost every firearm in the game with a few obvious exceptions. The classes are all well balanced, with exception being the assault class which seems as though it were tacked on and thrown in at the last minute in an effort to make the game more diverse.
However, this discussion brings us to one of the primary weak points of Killzone 2's multiplayer- its longevity. When you have finally unlocked the sniper upon reaching the last rank in the game (which the average player can do after playing the game for roughly ten to twelve hours) you have little left to do in the game but improve your statistics and unlock the secondary abilities of the various classes which you can then add to any other class that has its secondary ability unlocked to create a somewhat unique combined class. The downside of this is that it takes a significant amount of playtime to unlock multiple secondary abilties, about 8 games or so if you can complete objectives perfectly. Furthermore the secondary abilities of most of the classes are nowhere near as interesting as the primary abilities, so being a sniper that can dispense medpacs or repair mounted turrets and ammo dispensers isn't that much of a perk. The ease with which the player will unlock all of the multiplayer content, as well as the lack of a wide range of content, makes the game grow stale rather quickly.
The limited number of ranks and class abilties combined with the very limited number of weapons (and the lack of ability to customize any of these weapons with scopes, silencers, etc.) combine to make the multiplayer component of Killzone 2 pale in comparison to other recent shooters. However, for what it is worth, the weapons in Killzone 2 hold up incredibly well, I cannot image a Call of Duty game containing only 2 assault rifles, 1 submachinegun, 1 shotgun, 1 sniper rifle, and 2 light machineguns and keeping a multiplayer community as entertained as Killzone 2's has been.
Also, the maps in Killzone 2 are excellent. Almost every map is epic in size and works surprisingly well for every single gametype that Killzone 2's multiplayer can throw at you. The only disappointment here is the limited number of maps, there are only 8, and to progress at all in multiplayer you will be playing them a lot, therefore, the maps, like the weapons and classes, will get old after you have killed, and been killed, all over them countless times.
FINALLY, THE CONTROLS- 'SLOPPY' OR 'DIFFERENT'?
The most controversial aspect of reviewing Killzone 2 has to be addressing its aiming mechanics. Aiming in Killzone 2 is different than just about every shooter made before it simply because it is extremely loose regardless of the player looking down the sight or not. The player will have to turn the look sensitivity way down to aim with any precision at all. Furthermore, the player's field of vision is blurred everytime he looks left or right. These control issues have caused many players to deem the controls 'sloppy' and writing the game off as a failure altogether after playing it for a few minutes. However, this isn't even addressing the actual shooting that goes on in the game. Killzone 2 was clearly influenced by the Call of Duty series, easily seen in the way the player can draw up his iron sights (or scope) to take more precise shots at his enemies. However, in the multiplayer portion of this game, the shots fired while looking down the sights of a gun are far from pinpoint accurate; succinctly speaking, shooting down the sight is slightly more accurate than shooting from the hip and ridiculously less effective at close ranges. Moreover, firing while crouching is by far more accurate without using the iron sights than any other mode of aiming, an aspect that has drawn in many former Counterstrike players. Any shots to the head at all, from anywhere, are an instant kill. This means that a precisely aiming player can be killed by one stray shot from a player running around spraying bullets at him, or even by an errant shot from a sentry bot. Essentially, these facts combine to make Killzone 2 less like Call of Duty than any other game done in this style.
Also compounding this issue are player health and movement speed. In Killzone 2 players start with a lot of health, only half of which regenerates. Players also move extremely fast, especially when sprinting, to the point where firing at a player running laterally across your field of view is essentially useless. What this all means is that players can absorb a lot of damage and run away without dying, precisely aiming at them will not always yield results, and these facts combine to make a situation that many players cannot deal with. An easy (and obvious) solution to this is either to increase weapon damage so the shots that do hit enemies have an effect, or to reduce player movement speed so that players can no longer run rampant around levels firing haphazardly until they achieve kills.
Regardless, Killzone 2 is a game that every Playstation 3 owner needs to give a look, even if it means a short look, the experience is well worth it, be it multiplayer or singleplayer. The game is very well polished, and even if it can be devoured relatively quickly compared to many other shooters, it still is a solid entry in the genre at its core. In terms of a long-lasting purchase, Killzone 2 lacks the longevity other shooters like the Call of Duty series have set a high standard for, while possessing way too much controversiality to keep it spinning in many players' PS3s for very long, how developer Guerilla chooses to respond to this, be it gameplay tweaks or downloadable content remains to be seen. Play this game, but lower your expectations.