Some of you may remember E3 2005. Both Sony and Microsoft debued their new consoles the very first time, and showed off some need trailers and footage that supposed to be ingame. One of these trailers was the infamous Killzone 2 CG one. Although Sony claimed that everything seen was real-time rendered on a Playstation 3 console, some months later a scottish company stated that everything in that trailer was pre-rendered. Of course everybody thought the PS3 could never reach the standarts set by the trailer, and Killzone 2 was praised to be an epic fail for Sony.
Now, almost 4 years later the final version of Killzone 2 has arrived, and it exceeds all expections in every way possible.
Story
Killzone 2 picks up a couple of months after the PSP title Killtone: Liberation. The Interplanetary Strategic Alliance, or short ISA, succesfully defended their homeplanet Vecter against the evil Helghast, and their great leader dictator Scolar Visari. Now it's the ISA's turn to strike back at the Helghast's homeplanet Helghan and end the war once and for all.
During the full scale invasion Helghan's you find yourself in the boots of Sergeant Thomas "Sev" Sevchenko, member of the four men elite unit Alpha Squad. His squadleader is Sergeant Rico Velasques, who should be a familiar face for everyone who played any Killzone game before. The protagonist of Killzone 1, Jean Templar, sits in the commanding chair this time, acting as the commander of all ISA forces taking part in the Invasion.
Your primary goal is to track down and capture Emperor Visari, and with that end the whole conflict.
The story is pretty well done, giving you a reason to shoot yourself through hundrets of Helghast forces. It features some melodrama, questions about freindships and a brief insigh about the psychology of war. But a too thin background and poor character development keep it from being the next level of video game story telling.
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Value
The game's single player campaign can be finished in about 8 to 10 hours, which is fairly decent compared to other recent first person shooters, but still very short when compared to the big hype the game was promoted with and made up to. But fortunately, these 10 hours are extremely fun and great designed. Most of the time you will be fighting against red eyed Helghast Soldiers in open urban enviroments, and sometimes in vast open landscapes. The leveldesign here is totaly on the point and the pasing is absolutely perfect. One time you will fight your way through tight street corners, and when you turn around the next house you will find yourself in an epic fight for one of the many squares in the Helghan capitol, and the various enemy types will ensure that you never get bored. Beside the standart Helghast soldier, you will encounter light scout troops, who will rush at you and more often than not trying to knife you, the so called heavys, which are double the size of an average human and take a lot of punishment, and even Snipers with a cloak ability, which makes them all the more deadly.
In between these shooting sequences you will find yourself maning an anti aircraft turret, driving a tank and even controlling an extremely powerfull exo-skelleton. These levels are also realy fun to play and as well designed as all the other parts in the game. Bossfights are rare but when they come around you won't be dissapointed.
The other big part of Killzone 2 is it's 32 player multiplayer mode. Here you will join either the ISA or Helghast army and fight in 16on16 competetive matches. What makes it so special however is the inovative gamemode switch system. While you're playing Killzone 2 online you cannot filter for different gametypes, because one single match contains them all! The flow of a multiplayer match basicaly goes like this: The game starts of with Bodycount (which is Team Deathmatch), and once one team has killed enough enemys they gain a point and suddenly a VIP in your team is selected, who has to be protected a certain amount of time. After that's done a capture and hold (basicaly King of the Hill) round will start. All these sudden objective changes make the game feel realy dynamic and extremely fun to play, and all these changes are fluid, meaning the game will not pause or restart.The game comtains 10 maps, and each of them is just perfectly siuted for every single gamemode, which is a monument of how exelent the mapdesign and layout is developed.
Additionaly Killzone 2 features a full fletched level and ranking system. Every time you kill somebody or complete an objective you gain experience points, which will then level you up as soon as you got enough. This then unlocks new abilitys for your classes, or entire new classes will be unlocked. You also gain medals and ribbons after every match for completing certain objective. Revive 10 players in a single match as a medic gains you the Revival Ribbon. Get it 8 times and you will get medpacks for your medic class. The system is extremely rewarding and deep, ensuring you won't stop playing Killzone 2 online for a long time, and when you dont play online you have the option to play with bots. A coop feature would have been nice, but it's fair to say that Killzone 2's Multiplayer is the best the Playstation Network has to offer at the moment.
Gameplay
Of course all these inovations and good leveldesign mean nothing when the gameplay is fucked up. This is not the case with Killzone 2. Also in this area it exceeds all expectations, with the big feature being the first person cover system. When you stand next to an object you can press and hold the L2 button at any time to glue yourself to the surface and with that protect yourself from incoming Helghan bullets. In that position you can then lean left, right or above whatever you're behind and pop out to shoot your gun. Whether you like it or not, you have to make use of this function basicaly in every firefight if you want to survive longer than 10 seconds. This slows done the pase a bit but on the other hand it's a great addition to the other gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately this feature is dropped in the game's multiplayer mode.
Another big part of the gameplay are the weapons. Despite the standard arsenal of Assault Rifles, Shotguns and Rocket Launchers you get your hands on some more experimental armory, such as the Boltgun, which litteraly nails the enemys on the walls, or the Electropulse Rifle, which can be described as the most powerful weapon in a first person shooter this generation of gaming. It will kill every enemy at your range in about 2 seconds, and has infinite ammo. Its everything put overpowered though, since it's range can be compared to the one of a shotgun.
But besides all these gameplay goodies, there are some elements that can drive you crazy, like the game's difficulty. The game can be ridicolously brutal at times, making you try one sequence about 20 times before you finaly master it, and that on the normal difficulty level! The harder ones are practicly imposible at times. Another annoyence about Killzone 2 is the default sensitivity of the analog sticks, it's pretty much ass. Whether you prefere high or low sensitivity the default setings there are just unacceptable. They will ruin your aim, thats for sure. Fortunately you can adjust that in the games options.
Despite these 2 points there is hardly anything bad to say about the game's Gameplay. It is simply a blast to play.
Graphics
By far, this is the best looking video game ever created, sharing the number one spot with Crysis alone. Nearly everything in the game is polished, technicly maximised and pushes the Playstation3 hardware to it's limits, and it all runs buttery smooth at 60 frames per second, without any dips. I really don't know where to begin with. The dynamic lighting is just excelent, with every little thing being a real light source such as the Helghast's eyes or the fire of your gun. The level of detail is just incredible. You can see differences on surface's structure, 3D rendered dust effects and thousands of little and big objects at once on the screen and, again, it runs sooooo smooth. The character models, weapon models and all the meshes seem to have a quadrilian polygons pumped in them and look absolutely stunning. Fire and Water look also gorgeous and the overall technical achievement of this game is just perfect. When you play this game on an HDTV, there is nothing quite like it.
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Artistical Design
When you walk up the stairs to the Visari palace and see red banners hang down the sides it is easy to accidently think you're playing the Reichstag level of Call of Duty: World at War. The game shows it's influences clearly and with that create a realy thick atmosphere. The game's art design is just a perfect melting of the 3rd Reich's dictatorship, the high massproduction level of China, and middle eastern enviroment design. The whole Killzone universe is very believable and the Helghan dictatorship is a perfect resamble of how Nazi Germany could look like in a futuristic setting.
Sound
Last but no least Killzone 2's sounddesign is just amazing. The sounds of the weapons are totaly on point, giving you a heavy sense of impact. The same goes for all sounds related to explosions or anything hitting the surface with high speed. Enviroment sounds also sound completely natural and add even more believability to the Helghan plaanet.
Voicework is generaly good, exept some voices of ISA soldiers, which sound like they've been recorded by the developers themselves.
The whole sound presentation is rounded up by an outstansing original score, kicking in at all the right moments to support your fight against the Helghast.
So, is there anything left to be said about Killzone 2? The graphics, the gameplay the multiplayer, everything is just outstanding and nails everything an epic first person shooter needs. The Single player campaign may be a bit short, but the incredibly fun and rewarding online mode makes up for the buy.
If you own a Playstation 3 there is absolutely no excuse to not own a copy of Killzone 2, NO EXCUSE!
Story 8,5
Value 9,5
Gameplay 9,7
Graphics 10
Artistical Design 10
Sound 9,5
9,5
