So I've come to the realization that Killzone has become a flagship franchise for the PS3 and I applaud them for it. Sony has been losing exclusives left and right for quite some time now, and I'm glad they are fighting back. This whole console war between the 360 and PS3 is like watching your kids fight, you want them both to put up a fight, but you don't want either of them to lose. I'm not a fanboy, or a hater as some would love to put it. I don't hate the Wii for that matter. I've always loved games, growing up, and having discovered this ugly underbelly of the video game industry, makes me think sometimes I should have taken the blue pill. It's very depressing, watching these flame wars and people's fake Internet personas clash over stupid shit. When did this even start? Either way, I'm done trying to tell everyone games kickass no matter what but I'll probably be called a fanboy carebear, or whatever word has been coined for the week.
But enough ranting, I'm here to talk about Killzone 2 - The Halo Killer!!! (see what I did there?). I completed Killzone 1 back when it launched not because it was dubbed "The Halo Killer" but because it caught my interest. I actually liked the gameplay and whatever story there was to offer. Which brings me to the K2 demo. Was it awesome? You bet! Is it perfect? Well no.
My only gripe with the Killzone games is the controls. I have to admit it doesn't help when you come off COD and keep meleeing or throwing grenades when all you wanna do is aim. But they have a control style for just such a person! And I found that to be genuine of them, to acknowledge that there are different FPS games out there. But that's not my complaint. I found the sensitivity to need some major tweaking.
Games like COD and Halo or even Gears for that matter, have the controls figured out. You don't get frustrated when you see a guy and couldn't kill him because the controls didn't let you, and that's what Killzone did to me a few times. I feel like maybe an aim-assist wouldn't hurt, but getting the controls right would be better. FPS's suffer from really bad controls. You feel disconnected because your connection to the game is the controller and if that's not working, the game is going to get pretty annoying.
Killzone 2's controls aren't as bad as I thought they were going to be. With some tweaking to the controller sensitivity I was ready to murder some Helghast! I ran through the demo 3 times trying out new tactics and strategies. "Strategies you say?" Indeed, K2 has you taking cover and staying in first person view, which also isn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. It feels like Time Crisis but way cooler since the setting is darker and more visceral. So I found myself testing out different tactics. Throwing grenades instead of rushing right in. Running around to knife a Helghast while he thought I was still in cover instead of having a fire fight with him. And all these worked out, I couldn't really exploit much from the A.I. so I was happy. After that all I had to do was take in the pretty lighting and amazing gameplay.
The K2 demo rushes you into battle, after you've just crash landed. You find yourself in the middle of a warzone and have no other choice but to fight back. So off you go shooting, and sprinting to cover. You pick up a rocket launcher and blow up some explosives on the bridge. This moment is what practically sold me. The particle effects and animation to this game are insane. They really did come close to that video they showed us a while back. I couldn't get over how pretty this game is. The sky and the ocean look so beautiful and alive. You continue down the path where real-time events are occurring and it's just so seamless. A squad gets dropped off in front of you and it's perfectly executed. You've played FPS's before, you know how this plays out, but K2 does it better. As a matter of fact K2 doesn't really do anything shooters haven't done before, but it does everything a little bit better. I'm not saying it does Halo better than Halo, but it looks, feels, and smells like what a shooter should do.
I didn't want the demo to end. Sadly, it's one of the shortest demos I've ever played but wow, what a great 10 minutes. I have no doubts this game will have trouble selling. If you've already purchases Warhawk, Uncharted, and MGS4, then add one more to the list because Killzone 2 is the shooter for the PS3.
-Frank
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