The sound of gunfire is almost deafening as it drowns out the cries of your fallen comrades. You face insurmountable odds – fighting on their turf, their terms. The air grows thick with smoke and ash, and the crimson eyes of your adversaries continue to grow in number. One grenade left, two and a half magazines of ammo, but how long will your cover hold? The sky screams with the sound of incoming artillery – it’s now or never. Leaping over the sandbags with guns ablaze, you run bullets-first into the fiery chaos. Welcome to the Killzone, soldier.
Originally hyped during E3 2005 when developer Guerrilla Games revealed their ambitious target render for the title, Killzone 2 has since become a flagship game in Sony’s Playstation 3 library. Following the events that transpired in the original Killzone for the Playstation 2, Killzone 2 takes place on the planet Helghan, home-world to the Helghast people. In retaliation for the assault on the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (ISA) colony of Vekta, the ISA have set their sights on capturing Scolar Visari, leader of the Helghast army. Assuming the role of Sergeant Tomas “Sev” Sevchenko, a battle-hardened veteran and member of an elite special forces squad known as Alpha Team, you will embark on a mission to dismantle the Helghast war machine.
But none of that really matters. The storyline in Killzone 2 is weak and entirely forgettable. It has its moments, but it’s clear that it wasn’t a priority during development. In fact, most of the chapters in the game could be played in random order with little detriment to the plot. But when engaged in one of the games many overwhelming fire-fights, the plot is going to be the furthest thing from your mind.
The gun battles in Killzone 2 are unlike anything I have seen before in a video game. The level of immersion is unparalleled, and the raw intensity gets your heart pounding. Using the slogan “war perfected” in their advertising campaigns, Killzone 2 has achieved just that. With a staggering amount of activity occurring on-screen at once, each encounter feels like it’s part of a much bigger war. Wounded soldiers litter the battlefield, crying for help. Missiles and tracers from anti-aircraft artillery soar overhead, attempting to stave off the oncoming invasion. Buildings crumble, mobile armour explodes, and aircraft fall from the sky in a ball of fire. The atmosphere is almost dizzying, and the Helghast use it to their advantage. Fighting on their turf, their planet, the Helghast will almost always have the upper hand in battle. Pinning you down with mounted gun batteries, flanking you from unexpected angles, the Helghast army will do their best to keep you on your toes. The odds may seem impossible at times, but keeping a level head will keep you alive. It’s moments like these that define a soldier!
Unfortunately, as immersive as the battles can be, the controls can be quick to snap you back to reality. Character movement and aiming can feel really sluggish, and the button-mapping can be awkward and impractical. The sensitivity of the analog sticks can be increased, reducing the sluggish response time to a degree, but it will still take some time to get used to. However, the button configuration remained a point of frustration for me throughout the entire experience. Killzone 2 offers a handful of available button layouts to choose from, but would have greatly benefited from allowing custom configurations. While some of the available layouts were better than others, none of them were perfect. The one I eventually settled on required me to press and hold a button to enter and remain in cover, then press and hold a direction to peek out of cover, then press and hold another button to look down my iron sights, then press another button to fire. That’s three buttons held and one direction pressed every time I wanted to return fire while in cover. I understand that war is hell, but the controls shouldn’t be.
War shouldn’t be beautiful either, but this one is. Coming remarkably close to their famous E3 target render, Guerrilla Games have created a shining example of the Playstation 3’s graphical prowess. The environments are highly detailed, providing a very believable war-torn setting. Buildings are peppered with bullet holes, burning wreckage spews thick billows of black smoke into the sky, and bullet casings lay scattered about the floor. The turbulent winds of Helghan blow smoke and sand throughout the battlefield and send untied tarp and cloth fluttering through the air. The environmental lighting casts stark shadows, and can create an almost surreal atmosphere as beams of light pour through airborne dust and sand. It is truly a sight to behold, and makes the planet of Helghan as much of a character, if not more so, than those that inhabit it. The character models hold up their end of the bargain as well. Each buckle, belt and strap carefully rendered, the models are loaded with realistic details. The weapons have been designed with great care, each looking like the evolution of a real-world counterpart. Every time I reloaded, I found myself staring at the weapon models, marvelling at how realistic they looked. But of all the graphical touches found in Killzone 2, the crimson eyes of the Helghast steal the show. Eerily illuminating dark hallways and penetrating through thick smoke, those eyes make the approach of incoming enemies all the more intimidating.
Not to be outdone by the visuals, the sound design in Killzone 2 definitely has its moments. Featuring a full orchestral score, the music delivered during the epic battles and cutscenes is reminiscent of big budget, science fiction films. Cueing up when the action gets hot, the music is the icing on an already beautiful, intense cake. Unfortunately, the voice acting isn’t quite up to par. With the exception of an outstanding performance by Brian Cox, who provides the voice of the Helghan leader, Scolar Visari, most of the dialogue in the game will make you cringe. The Helghan voices are fine, if not a little repetitive, but the voices and dialogue of your allied soldiers can be painful to listen to. Littered with an unnecessary amount of obscenities, your allies and AI partners insist on shouting horribly clichéd lines at every opportunity. They’re not too difficult to ignore, but they’ll make you appreciate the few scenarios in which you travel alone. That aside, the general sound design is great. Fire-fights assault you with a cacophony of explosions, distant screams and gunfire, and it can all be enjoyed in 7.1 digital surround sound.
After you have fought your way through the relatively short single-player campaign – a task that will take between six to eight hours – there is a rather extensive multiplayer component waiting for you. Called Warzone, the online multiplayer in Killzone 2 supports up to 32 players competing in a variety of game modes. The modes are typical fare for the first-person shooter genre, with Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and control-based modes being given names like Body Count, Search and Retrieve, and Capture and Hold. Players start as a common soldier when they begin their career in Warzone, but earn experience points throughout matches for getting kills and completing objectives. If your team wins a match, you’ll receive a multiplier of 1.5 on all experience points earned during that match. As you earn more points you will be promoted in rank, beginning as a lowly private and peaking as a general.
As you achieve these higher ranks, you will also unlock special character classes. There are six classes in all, each of which come with two unique ability badges. A medic, for instance, has a badge that allows him to revive fallen players, and another that allows him to deploy medkits. However, the Saboteur class can disguise themselves as a member of the other team and is capable of planting proximity mines. The more time you spend playing as a specific class, the more badges you’ll unlock for that class. And when you finally master one of the classes, you’ll be granted the ability to use badges from other classes. Want to play as a medic that deploys proximity mines instead of medkits? It’s only a matter of time.
While Killzone 2 fails to deliver on all its promises, it remains worthy of the flagship status that Sony has bestowed upon it. The intensity of the action is unparalleled, and the visuals are amongst the best to date on a console. And when the single-player campaign is completed, the multiplayer component will offer limitless hours of gameplay for online enthusiasts. Unfortunately, the awkward controls are hard to ignore, and the voice-acting places an unsightly blemish on the otherwise polished presentation. Regardless, Killzone 2 is a triumph for the Playstation 3, and a game that will be enjoyed for years to come.
