Single Player Review

When the first target rendering of Killzone 2 appeared at E3 in 2005 many people believed that level of graphic fidelity could not be achieved on a home gaming system. But now, in 2009, we see that the outcome of this PS3 killer app is not too far off from Sony’s visual prediction.

It may be argued that the graphics portrayed in this game are the best ever seen and I would agree. However, there are certain areas of the visuals that are uncharacteristically uneven when compared to others. Lush dynamic lighting and smoke effects contrast jarringly against low-resolution shadows on characters’ faces. A few of the clothing textures on NPC characters are a bit on the cheap side. They look like something out of a 2004 shooter instead of a state of the art 2009 blockbuster.

Screen of the 2005 target render of Killzone 2.

However, this is all just nit-picking as for the majority of the time you, the player, will bear witness to some of the best visuals available on a home console to date. The dynamic depth of field effects will blur various objects depending on the objects in your focus and the distance from you. The vortex of smoky exhaust from a friendly aircraft in front of you swirls around in a realistic manner. Vehicles explode sending shrapnel in a hundred different directions. Clouds of dust and smoke are kicked up from explosions happening all around you. Buildings catch fire and fall apart in front of you. Rarely, if ever, do any of the special effects seem out of place or produce strange physics based results when compared to contemporary games in the FPS genre.

Killzone2 runs at a resolution of 720p at a maximum of 30 frames per second, though it does dip down lower when extreme chaos is exploding around you. Your gameplay experience will be quite a smooth one, but not as silky as with Call of Duty 4′s 60 frames per second.

In the single player campaign for Killzone 2 the player takes control of Sergeant Tomas Sevchenko, or “Sev” as he is referred to by his squad mates. Sev is part of Alpha squad in the ISA (Interplanetary Strategic Alliance) military who are invading the Helghast’s home world which is named, oddly enough, Helghan.

The experience of the single player game is, for the most part, nothing special. It felt uninspired and typical in terms of shooter fare. It does what it does well, but it certainly is not anything new or different. In addition, the length of the campaign was a bit on the short side; I was surprised at how quickly that I ran through the game’s story. Your mileage may vary depending on your skill at FPS’s and the difficulty level chosen.

War has never looked sweeter.

In sharp contrast to the rest of the single-player experience, the final chapter of Killzone 2 is quite an exciting and unique scenario to experience. Without spoiling too much, the chaos of all-out war is exploding all around you, and you are just one person in this massive battle. It may be difficult to survive, but I assure you that it feels quite rewarding when you overcome the odds of this final conflict. The final battle is one of the toughest and longest challenges that I’ve fought through in a FPS, though I’ve certainly taken on more interesting bosses.

Weapons that you will come across in this game are not as unique or iconic as, say, the weapons you find in a Halo game. With some of the weaponry it is difficult to tell what the cost/benefit is from one gun to the other. The Killzone 2 universe’s shotgun is one of the best that I have come across. It has quite a decent range, and will utterly decimate an opponent at close range with just one shot. Later in the game, you will be able to pick up a super weapon off of a defeated boss and use it the rest of that level. This weapon is quite satisfying to use, and it helps that it has unlimited ammunition. I will not spoil what this weapon is however.

Sev may only arm himself with one primary weapon, and one side arm. Weapons can be swapped out from corpses and munitions stashes that you find along in your mission. Also in his inventory is a knife that can kill enemies quicker than using the melee function with your chosen weapon. Why the developers chose to have both a gun-butt melee and a knife, I’ll probably never know. They should have merely let your melee attack be with the knife by default, like in Call of Duty.

There is a cover system utilized by pressing the crouch button near a flat object like a wall or piece of debris. This allows the player to duck behind an object and either peek over, or around the side, of a protective piece of the environment and shoot from that position. The execution of the peeking feature is a bit awkward however, and I didn’t find myself using it very much during my play through.

Turn the valve Sev! You're the only soldier who has basic motor skills!

SIXAXIS controls are utilized in a few areas of Killzone 2 but never in any way that adversely from the game play experience. There are moments where you will be given the common FPS task of turning a valve. You will be prompted to “grab” the wheel with both hands by pressing on the shoulder buttons, one for each hand, and then “turn” the wheel by rotating the controller. There is some input lag with this, but it’s nothing horrible.

The main point that you will have to worry about the SIXAXIS controls are when you have to use the sniper rifle. When using the scope, the aim will move in accordance with not just your right analog stick, but with the tilting and movement of your controller. If you keep this in mind, it shouldn’t be a hindrance to your aim. In fact, you can use this to your advantage to tweak your aim gently with a bit of a tilt.

Things are broken up with a couple of vehicle sections; the first, a tank, controlled poorly and felt underwhelming when compared to other FPS tanks. The second, the Exo-Suit mech, controlled great and was quite fun to run around with, blowing apart both man and machine. A nice touch for the mech was the in-the-cockpit view, depicting Sev’s hands manipulating the controls in sync with your own actions. Both vehicle sections, however, were very brief. I found myself wondering why these vehicles were included in the game if they were so underutilized. I wanted to spend more time in the Exo and be provided greater combat challenges with it, but that never happened.

A common feature to be included in the modern FPS is a Co-Op mode to allow you and your friends to join up in a single player campaign. Killzone 2 does not have this feature. Though, as much as I would love for Co-Op to be included, it should not detract from the rest of the game. It may have been a feature that was left on the cutting room floor due to time constraints or quality issues. It seems like Co-Op would be a natural addition to the single player campaign due to the fact that you are almost always followed by an AI teammate. And boy do I wish those teammates were human instead.

At many points throughout the progression of the game you are joined by at least one AI controlled teammate. These teammates act independently of you and you do not issue orders to them, but they will only progress through the level if you take the lead. Your teammates are quite idiotic, stepping straight in front of turrets and rockets to get gunned down and blown up. Quite often I had AI squad members walking in front of me as I was pulling the trigger, only to have the back of their skulls have a friendly meeting with my shotgun pellets. I often had the urge to purposefully make this happen.

This will go through your mind as well.

When your squad mates are gunned down, either by enemy fire or your own (on purpose), they will not die. Similar to the revival system used in Gears of War, you can bring them back by going up to them and press the Circle button to give them a healthy zap of the all powerful and utterly ridiculous Medi-Zap device. This magical jolt of electricity, powered by the souls of orphan children no doubt, will get your friends (if you want to go so far as to call them that) back on to their two left feet. But this is only so you can repeat the process of: “teammate jumps in your way, gets shot, bitches at you for shooting him, you shoot him some more for being a little uncoordinated bitch until he’s lying on the ground, bleeding, and crying like a school girl with a skinned knee so that you have to go to them and zap them”.

And why can’t these guys find more words to use besides the gratuitous use of expletives? It’s like they’re trying to sound like junior high school kids trying to be edgy and bad ass. Or maybe the Tourettes Guy. It comes off as rather immature for a mature rated title.

Tourettes Guy would be proud.

Enemy AI, on the other hand, seem quite clever and nimble, to the point of near ridiculousness. Do not plan on being stealthy in Killzone 2 as the Enemies will almost always know where you are. When the Helghast come under fire they will intelligently run to cover to fight back. They however always seem to know when you are aiming in a particular direction, as they tend to pop out on the opposite side of an object they are behind. If you kill a turret gunner and there are more Helghast still alive in the area they will take up their dead comrade’s position at the turret and continue firing.

You may hear otherwise about this, but the controls really are not that bad. It will take a while to get used to especially for those of you coming from the Call of Duty line of shooters. I wish that more developers would allow players to re-map individual functions to each button instead of choosing from a handful of pre-chosen control schemes. I don’t see why this is a difficult concept for console developers to grasp.

There is no turning acceleration to speak of with the analog aiming. Your turning speed does not speed up the longer you hold a direction with the stick, like in other console FPS’ers. You can adjust the X and Y axis sensitivity, and you will find yourself doing this quite a lot until you find something you are comfortable with. Also, there is no aim-assist to speak of outside of Easy mode. Since many people are accustomed to these control features, it will take a bit of adjustment to get used to.

Killzone 2’s single player campaign, while repetitive and unoriginal, offers a great deal of visceral action with stunning visuals worthy of being called “next-gen”.

Click here to see the review of Killzone 2′s multiplayer!