Killzone 2

Killzone 2. Where to start? in terms of technical achievement, it's unbeatable. The setup is revealed in a pretty impressive cinematic that has you pumped up and ready to take the fight to the "Helghast" - essentially intergalactic British Nazis led by fascist dictator Brian Cox and his lapdog, a smarmy git of a general who, upon speaking for the first time, will have you thinking "ooh that's thingy, what's he from again?"!

You start the game by waking up, bleary-eyed in your bunk aboard a fairly impressive spaceship at the start of yet another D-day recreation (only THIS TIME your in a spaceship and THIS time the landing craft are hovering impractical transport craft things and THIS TIME the Nazi's aren't actually Nazis, they just LOOK like future-Nazis) where the game does it's level best to impress you. As you follow your squad-mate through it's corridors, the graphics and atmosphere dazzle you immediately -the planet below looks natural and the sight of space cruisers bearing down on the hostile world below is almost breathtaking. Every detailed surface is polished and well-designed, and put through filters that make you feel like you're looking through a genuine pair of human eyeballs. This, combined with the controls and movement - which do take some getting used to - gives you an unparallelled feeling of immersion that shooters nowadays sorely lack. Your average COD fan is going to have a few problems adjusting here, as the somewhat sluggish, weighty movements of the player character and the incredibly tough, bullet-resistant Helghast mix with other game play elements to create a challenge that requires a bit more thought and skill than simple fast reflexes and an itchy trigger finger. The fights are fantastic and tactics come into play far more than in most modern-day cinematic shooters. The player can expect to be surrounded by hostile forces. Once again, a COD fan will have difficulties here, as the foes in this game will not simply run out and shoot like moving targets with guns attached, but will take cover often, distract, flank, and suppress you and your allies, making for a unique challenge. When I played through this, I was impressed as I moved through the game and eagerly did battle with any Helghast that stood in my way. But as much fun as I had with this,there is a crippling problem with this game.

As soon as you meet your squad mates (specifically Shaun Natco, voiced by Noah lee Margotts) you instantly feel like killing every last one of them for being a million times more unlikeable than any of your enemies. it doesn't stop there, either: he story has literally zero bite, giving you no reason to care. Luckily, a game can still be driven along by the atmosphere and game play itself, and this is where Killzone exceeds, so a shooter fan can have a good deal of fun with it. But how did the people behind this game end up putting so much effort into the graphics, controls and atmosphere without a single one of them thinking "oh, hang on, we forgot the coherent plot and the likable characters and the motivations behind their actions and any reason for the player to give a damn about what's going on"?

So that's Killzone 2, then. The story continues being barely a faint glimmer of motivation and reason behind the characters and events, the characters themselves, with the exception of perhaps Pertwee's Radec and Marshall's Templar, are unlikeable and 1-dimensional. I honestly became more attached to the faceless legions of generic cannon-fodder allies that were destined to die in various detailed and realistic ways, at least THOSE guys were helpful, kept their heads down and acted like real people. They, unlike the characters I was supposed to give a damn about, were mercifully freed from the idiocy of whoever wrote the story for this. Killzone 2's ambition is marred by it's failure to nail a fundamental aspect of a good game - good writing. I've heard people defend this by saying that it's "just a game" but you can look at plenty of other titles, many of them much older than this, if you want an example of a great game with great writing driving it along. Killzone 2 could have been so much more, it's intriguing premise of humanity fighting a mutated version of itself and the story of how this came to be are explained in a few brief sentences during loading screens, as well as character back stories. God, if they had this material, why didn't they actually USE it? Sure, the game play is a lot of fun, the graphics are impressive and the atmosphere immerses you, but when there's no REASON for it all, then how can the developers expect us to really get involved?

Oh, and, um, the multilayer is kinda fun. Yeah. not much to say on that.

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The day I bought Killzone 2 I wondered if it was worth getting over the Fallout 3 collectors edition, well the game had blown my mind right out of the gate. Unfortunatryl I never got that collectors edition. It may have been the best FPS released at that time, I was glad to own a PS3.

The Game: Lets start with the presentation. Back when this was released it had the best graphics possible, I was stunned at the dark and gritty environments, it looked incredible. The sound design was better than any other fps I could think, both this and Killzone 3 have the best sound for any shooter, period. The soundtrack is easily in the top ten best original scores for video games, it is still incredible to listen to till this day. I personally think this game looks and sounds better than Uncharted 2 which came out the same year.

Game play: People like to complain about the sluggish controls, I personally like it, it gives the game it's own unique feel. I think there is around ten guns to use throughout the single player campaign, the electricity gun you get in the refinery was pretty fun to use. I like the Helghast weapons more than the ISA ones. My biggest complaint is that L1 is mêlée, I would have preferred it to be R3, but instead aiming down the sights is R3.

The campaign: I've played between 25 and 30 hours on the single player story, yeah I enjoyed it that much. I personally hated the mission on the ISA ship, the rest was great. The urban combat was about as good as it could get in a video game, take note other developers this is how you do it. It definitely still holds it's own, it felt more realistic than Killzone 3. Killzone 3 had too many goofy action scenes, it just felt weird, like how Dead Space three just feels weird. I didn't play the multi-player enough to review it. The skirmish game mode was really fun, I played a lot of that.

Killzone 2 is definitely a must play shooter, it's a cut above most of the kid friendly garbage we get for shooters today.

Killzone 2 was finally released February 2009 and was long awaited by just about all PlayStation 3 owners. It is the third installment in the Killzone franchise. The first game, Killzone was released on the PlayStation 2 and Killzone: Liberation was later released for the PlayStation Portable. Killzone 2 continues the story of the first two games having you fight as the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance against the Helghasts. This time however you take the fight to the Helghast and invade their planet, Helghan. Your goal is to stop the Helghast war machine by capturing the Helghast leader, Scolar Visari, and making him answer for his crimes.

You start the assault on Helghan from an ISA cruiser stationed high in the clouds above the planet. Your squad joins countless others that are launched from the cruiser toward Helghan. Once landed you are immediately in the fight taking on Helghast soldiers from behind walls and above on walkways and bridges. The controls were a little odd for me, but there are plenty of ways to configure them. After getting the controls to my usual layout, I began my assault. The Helghast are not a wimpy race though and it takes plenty of rounds to take one down. Even aiming for a headshot doesn't mean you are taking down that soldier. It took me on average two or three shots to the head to take one down. The first shot pops their helmet off and then depending on the level of damage he has already taken you may have to hit his head another two times. This was the most frustrating part for me, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

The Helghast are also skilled on the battlefield. They react as you would expect them to; ducking behind walls to avoid your bullets and waiting until it's all clear to come back out. They also scatter from grenades and try to flank you and your teammates. You and the ISA however aren't quite as skilled. I found my biggest disappointment in this game was the cover system. You could "attach yourself to cover," but this didn't mean you'd actually hide behind anything. I found that sometimes he wouldn't attach to cover, sometimes he would, but I'd still be getting hit and all the while your teammates are telling you to find some cover. You teammates don't follow their own advice however. Towards the end of the game my teammate would end up running into the open and be cut down quickly by enemy fire and yell for me to come save him. When he wasn't getting killed he was shooting at enemies and doing what seemed like no damage. They are mainly there for distraction; any killing you want done you have to do yourself.

OK, AI is hard to create, but you did it with the enemy why not do it with the good guys too? Aside from that the story was decent and the landscape and characters were beautifully done, even if they aren't in the full resolution of 1080p. The scripting wasn't bad for a video game, but the timing and triggering of the conversation was slow and low pauses happened in the middle of conversations and sometimes the dialogue would be cut off before they finished their sentence.

This game was fun though and the multiplayer maps are very well designed so that each team has a balanced area to work with. If you like FPS and want a short campaign to play through before you go pop the top of your friends online then I highly recommend this game. If you aren't an online gamer then I still think you should try this time, but don't buy it just go rent it. I give Killzone 2 three downed teammates out of five.

Written by Sam for www.overcranked.net

I have to say that this is a really fun and enjoyable game. I'm not a huge fan of the fps games, but I've been waiting for this one ever since I saw the very first trailer back in 2005 I think it was. This game has just about everything that an fps game should have, I think, because once again, I'm not that familiar with the genre. I've only played Halo 1 & 2 (not mine, just my buddies and I didn't like them at all), 007: Goldeneye (Best FPS EVER!!!!), Resistance 1 & 2 (only own no. 2 which is amazing, but I've played 1 which is good), Call of Duty 3 & 4 (own both; 3 for PS2, and 4 for PS3; Modern Warfare is great, but I'm to slow at it LOL), Battlefield 2 & Bad Company (loved Bad Company more and it's amazing to blow stuff up), Black (amazing), etc. You get my point that I'm trying to make. I'm not that great at them, but that doesn't mean that I can't have fun with them. And Killzone 2 is that kind of game where I can just jump in at anytime and blow up whatever I want. The best part about it are the vehicles, though short, but fun as all HELL, especially when you get to be in that robot thing and just go crazy on the Higs. The story is lacking, as they pull things from other war/action films and use clichéd lines such as "Don't die on me yet," "it's cold..." (mind you I'm paraphrasing there, but you get the idea). The music is catchy as I often hum it when there's nobody around of course LOL. I think that they could have done a bit more work on the menu design, not that there's anything wrong with it, because it is cool, it's just that the colours remind me of MGS 2 with the grays and red. I don't know, maybe it's just me. Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about the sound, which is pretty F UCKING AMAZING!!!! I have my PS3 hooked up to my surround sound and my big screen TV and oh my God. The visuals are pretty breathtaking, which is weird because it's about an apocalyptic war where a lot of people die... duh... obviously... but it's still visually stunning and almost life like in a way. Now I haven't played that much of online because well... I suck at it, but from what I've seen it's just as great as the campaign, if not better. You can pretty much read about the online play on any other game review website such as ign, or just watch it on youtube. Anyways my overall score for this kick-ass game is a solid 10/10 stars as it's not only for the hardcore fans out there of the fps genre, but for everyone too. You just pick up and go basically.

When I first bought Killzone 2 about a week and a half ago, just after the lagging issue was fixed and started playing it, I didn't like it at first, and I felt sure I was going to end up regretting getting the game. The gameplay was bad, and the controls felt awkward. But then I changed the controls to the Alternate 2 setting, where the controls are very similar to that of Call of Duty 4, and I have had a blast ever since.

There have been many complaints about the targeting in this game, but I find it to be fine. Not as good as Call of Duty 4, but it's very good. Of course it's not going to target the enemies for you. That makes the game much too easy. You need to use your own accuracy and gun down the enemies with precision.

Another thing I think people overlook in this game is the element of strategy. All the guns are unique in their own way. For example, the standard M82 Assault Rifle is great for zooming on enemies, the STA52 Assault Rifle fires stronger than the M82 but zooming is not as good. The LS13 Shotgun can kill enemies with one well placed shot to the chest or head region, but reloading takes ages. There are also lots of other weapons to choose from including a flamethrower and the ever-fun Boltgun. So to condense it all, you have to think about what guns you are choosing, because you can't carry two primary weapons at once. Only one primary gun and one secondary gun in your pistol.

This game also has a great cover system, and it also falls into the element of strategy. You have to pick your spots when in a shootout, and you have to find the best angle to flank them from. If you take cover behind a wall on the side, the enemy will often flank you and get at close range with you, especially on the higher difficulty settings. So you have to watch out from all directions at all times.

All the characters are unique and you either love them or hate them. The loudmouthed Natko was always my favorite, but Rico was rather annoying at times. Evelyn was cool as well, and Radec and Visari were both good villains. I would have liked to see them exposed more throughout the story, though.

My biggest complain with this game is turning. When an enemy is attacking you from behind or from the side and you have to turn to shoot them down, your character turn very slowly, and this gives the enemy time to fire more while you turn around, and often times, kill you before you can even face them. When they flank you from behind, it takes a full second to turn around 180 degrees, and this is very frustrating by the time you reach the later missions.

But if you can battle through the slow turning, which isn't a HUGE issue, and you don't mind lots of foul language, you have a very enjoyable game in Killzone 2.