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Preview
Whereas the first Killzone allowed you to play as a number of Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (ISA) members over the course of the game, Killzone 2 drops you into the shoes of a gruff soldier named Sev and keeps you there for its duration. Throughout the campaign, you'll follow Sev and his similarly rough-and-tumble Alpha Squad buddies as they push deeper into the Helghast home planet in an opposite scenario of the invasion that occurred in the first game. Sev isn't the most vocal guy in the world, but you'll hear plenty of quips from teammates like jokester Dante Garza and the perpetually vulgar Rico Velasquez. Most of the story unfolds in the heat of battle via dialogue delivered from these squadmates, though occasional cutscenes give you fleeting glimpses of what's going on deep within the Helghast quarters.
One thing becomes immediately apparent when you begin Killzone 2's campaign: This is not an easy game. The first chapter, Corinth River--an area Sony has shown several times before--drops you right into a heated firefight with no shortage of heavily armed Helghast soldiers trying to take you out from scattered perches. It feels like every balcony, bridge, and window has a pair of glowing red Helghast eyes staring down at you. Starting you off like this seems like Killzone 2's way of saying that running and gunning won't cut it; you're going to learn to be patient and deliberate with your targets, and you're going to learn right away.
To do this, you'll need to become good friends with the game's cover system. It's a sticky cover mechanic where you pull L2 to snap right onto nearby walls or low barriers. From there, you have the standard move set that includes leaning into a doorway or popping up over a barricade, with the ability to look down your gun's iron sights to help you get a bit more precise. What makes this system unique and challenging is that you remain in the first-person perspective at all times, so your vision is partially obscured as you stay out of harm's way. In a third-person shooter you can see almost every target thanks to a wide camera, but here you'll need to poke your head up fast and get to shooting even faster--making that initial moment when you leave cover that much more thrilling.
Finally, with this being Killzone 2, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the graphics--or more specifically, how awesome they are. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say Killzone 2 is the best-looking console game we've seen. The use of lighting is probably the most impressive of the game's technical feats: with so much of the game taking place in demolished urban centers with gray steel, concrete, and asphalt, those moments when you're flushed with color are extremely striking. This might include an orange street lamp, the blue glow of a faulty electrical tower, or the green haze in a sewer tunnel, but the way it all reflects off nearby objects like your gun and character models looks terrific. Add in sharp textures, great smoke and explosion effects, terrific depth of field, and an ominous sky that looks like the world might cave in at any moment and you've got a combination of technical and artistic brilliance that's hard to understate. Best of all: the framerate does a good job of keeping up, with the only noticeable hitches arriving during an autosave between checkpoints.
If you were to nitpick the presentation, most people's attention would probably fall on the audio. While the sound effects and music are both great, the voice acting could give Gears of War's Delta Squad a run for its money in terms of smoldering, manly rage. In fact, it can often be difficult to separate one gruff voice from another when your vision isn't fixed on a squadmate's face. It's not exactly an abrasive fault, but it does stick out when you consider how stellar the rest of the presentation is.
Small gripes aside, we had a thoroughly enjoyable experience with Killzone 2's single-player campaign. The combat is intense, the visual aesthetics are amazing, and the level of difficulty provides a rewarding challenge. It seems that PlayStation 3 owners will have a lot to look forward to when the game is finally released. You can expect that to happen on February 17.
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