As apurely PC gamer for the majority of my life, Ilooked upon the advent of the First Person Shooter genre on the consoles with scorn and indifference. Sure, Ienjoyed the occasional Halo with my friends, but there was nothing exclusively for the consoles that made me say "I need to play that." Then, at E3 2005, the infamous CG trailer of Killzone 2 piqued my interest. Icouldn't believe the quality of the presentation and level of activity happening on screen. Iwas askeptic, until the E3 2007 reveal. Since then, I've been following the game like few others, intrigued at finding out what Guerilla Games can dogiven the PS3's limited (now 2-year-old) hardware. The demo was my first hands-on with the game. My impressions?

For agame to truly amaze me and leave amark in my mind, it has to immerse me in its world. More often than not, shooters set in epic universes filled with grand battles fail to implant me in their universe due to the developer's fear of or inability to set up epic set pieces and scripted events. While Ithoroughly enjoy the open-world freedom of choice available in games like Crysis, there will always be asmall place in my heart for linear, fast-paced experiences. Up to this point, the Call of Duty franchise has come closest to offering gigantic, pulse-pounding experiences that make me feel as if I'm on achaotic, authentic battlefield. Judging from the demo, Killzone 2 looks like it'll finally capture the same feeling in the sci-fi genre.

From the start, you're thrown into ahigh-risk troop landing on aHelghan beach (Call of Duty veterans and World War II aficionados might glean the parallels between this and acertain historical battle involving aFrench coast). Flak is exploding in the air, your fellow soldiers are yelling, allied dropships are being blasted apart, and screaming soldiers flash past as your landing craft dives in for acrash landing. This first-person "cutscene" ends quickly and hands over the controls to you. As players advance along the beach, they'll notice the extreme amount of detail and activity that Guerilla put into the battlefield. Medics run up to assist wounded comrades and scattered dropships zoom by overhead while an unfortunate soldier screams and flails as fire spreads over his uniform. In the meantime, Helghast troopers are coolly firing down from high positions.
For aPlaystation 3 game, the technical attributes of the visuals are truly impressive. Motion blur, lens flare, and film grain add up to make afilm-like experience that expertly hides some of the limited aspects (like environmental textures and aliasing issues) that PC gamers with experience playing games like Crysis and Empire: Total War might notice and nitpick about. However, for players who stick primarily to consoles, Killzone 2 is the closest they will see video games get to quality pre-rendered CGI for the near future.

So, Killzone 2 looks great, but how does it play? If the demo is any indication, pretty damn well. The movement controls have astrange feeling of "lag" that results in slower-than average movement that ramps up abit the longer you hold the stick in aspecific direction. This adds asense of weight rarely seen in other shooters that further adds to the immersion: no longer are you afloating gun in the game world, you are areal soldier who has the added weight of his armor and weapons to deal with when moving around the battlefield.

Gameplay-wise, the demo doesn't seem to doanything particularly innovative, but seems to polish standard shooter conventions almost beyond afault. Gameplay is methodical, and so punishes run-and-gunners. Like Gears of War or Rainbow Six, you'll have to advance carefully through acombat zone, sticking to walls using the first-person cover mechanic. Firing from the hip is authentically inaccurate, encouraging the use of sights like few have before. The Helghast, even on the demo's sole Soldier difficulty setting, are intelligent enemies that use cover, grenades, and flanking tactics to flush out both you and your AI-controlled allies. All of these aspects added together mean that Killzone 2 is less arcadey than what the majority of dev teams are pulling off. Seeing such an unabashedly hardcore game as abig-budget console exclusive is quite awelcome change.

There are some minor complaints: namely, the dialogue of certain characters (I think Iheard less swear words uttered in Gears of War than Idid in this one demo level) and the abruptness with which the demo ends. The latter isn't really aproblem with the final game, but the former might put off alot of players who are looking for ashooter that takes itself seriously and doesn't resort to lowly tactics to increase its "badass" factor. However, these complaints seem rather tame in comparison to the quality and fun level already present.

First impressions are usually the most telling. And from experience that the demo provides, it seems like Killzone 2 just might be the triple-A shooter that Sony needs to compete with Microsoft's big guns.