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just didn't
beef up their guns to make it one or two rounds. Needless to say,
the player is at a distinct disadvantage.
Throughout the game, other characters will be introduced. In key
junctions in the story, Templar will run across other troops: a
special op assassin (Luger), a heavy machinegun-totting regular
(Rico), and a Human Helghast operative (Hakha). When the players
meets any one of these individuals, the game will kick back to a
character select screen, allowing players to continue on with the
character they have been using or use one of the new ones, with
those not chosen left to follow the player around and form a literally
invincible mini-squad around them. The differences between the characters
are relatively minor. Each is supposed to have a specialty of sorts:
Templar has a machinegun with a longer accuracy range with a grenade
launcher as a secondary weapon; Luger uses a strong, accurate machine
gun that holds less ammo than the others, as well as nightvision
and a knife; Rico has a mounted heavy machinegun that holds 800
rounds and is heat sensitive with a rocket as a secondary attack;
and Hakha uses the standard Helghast machinegun and shotgun hybrid
rifle, as well as a knife. While it's fun to switch between characters,
the only real difference is if someone wants to start with a heavy
machinegun or night vision, because no one is more proficient with
their starting weapon than anyone else, and the standard ISA and
Helghast rifle can be picked up off the battlefield (the player
can hold three weapons of any variety at once). Also, because the
computer AI is so sensitive to what is going on, night vision and
knives are absolutely useless because a guard can hear something
two rooms away, regardless of how quiet or out of sight the player
is. I was only able to knife one enemy one time, and while it was
cool, I could've just as easily used a melee attack, which everyone
can do and requires being just as close (extremely close) to pull
off. The interaction between the four during cutscenes is somewhat
interesting, with the pressure of combat and problems with Hakha
causing strife between them - note: there is plenty of profanity
and gore, so parents, mind the M rating. The lack of differences
between them all negates much of what this could've brought to the
game, with the positives being relatively minor.
Going with a unique approach, Guerrilla adopted a Breakdown
style of camera usage. Instead of being able to jump or just going
to a ladder and pressing up or down to move accordingly, the player
is limited to what they can do by set spots of action. If a ladder
can be used or a wall jumped over, a small action icon will appear
on the screen, with the resulting animation being the camera moving
in the actual manner one's head would when doing the action. So,
going up a ladder will make the view wobble left and right, going
over a wall will have the camera show the hand reaching down and
the angle in which they jump into, etc. Sprinting, limited by a
stamina bar, results in a nice blurring effect on the screen as
well. Similarly, throwing grenades is also a bit more involved with
a few extra steps and animations. Reloading is also done with the
same amount of detail, and it comes across well, but what I didn't
like was the game automatically putting a round into the chamber
whenever a weapon was selected, which takes a few seconds and leaves
time for the enemy to get in a few good potshots due to navigation
being made difficult, what with a giant gun in the view and all.
The terrain needing to be traversed ranges from desolate city streets,
to thick jungle, to seaside ports. By looking at the screenshots,
it's easy to think that the game looks great, because, when everything
is still, it does. The art direction, aside from every futuristic
fascist regime looking snazzy, really pulled off the look of a futuristic
war-torn city and a generally gritty look. There is a great sensation
of scope in many of the settings, like battling from one half-finished
high-rise to enemies on another, shootouts in a city park and mall,
running through trenches dug in the middle of city streets, and
holding bombed-out buildings from small assaults. Aside from those
mentioned, the weapons include a Helghast heavy machine gun, a shotgun,
grenade launcher (and a smaller, single shot one), a sniper rifle
(that I found pretty much useless in lieu of the rifles that couldn't
zoom up as far but were much easier to control), pistols, and a
rocket launcher. All of these will pepper buildings with holes and
scorch marks, which also stay to show the damage a minor skirmish
can inflict - which would, I imagine, tax the PS2 pretty heavily.
Something that I definitely enjoyed was that some weapons can hold
hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and those not effected by overheating
can let all of the rounds rip with decent accuracy throughout the
entire clip. Sometimes just mowing down four of five invading mutated
soldiers with over eighty rounds just feels good. One definitely
gets the sense that they are in the middle of an invasion; it's
just a shame that the hardware doesn't seem up to delivering what
the developers had intended.
The problems start immediately. For starters, there the framerate
drops regularly, there are polygon seams everywhere, severe draw-in
and fog are common, and, on something somewhat technically related,
many buildings and settings are reused, giving off a Halo
Library effect. The framerate won't drop to five frames or anything,
but it is significant enough to affect aim, which is difficult enough
by virtue of the PlayStation 2 controller itself, which has to be
one of the worst - and most painful - controllers to use for first-person
shooters. By going with the gritty look, much of the game is dark,
and this becomes a two-fold problem: one, it makes the black-clad
Helghast harder to see (sometimes almost impossible until they shoot),
and another is that it makes polygon seams very apparent, often
making rooms look like they are falling apart. The fog that graced
Turok on the N64 is back, and is strikingly similar: in both
cases the fog helped to create a sense of atmosphere - in Turok
it fit with the jungle and in Killzone it often comes across
as a cloud of debris from the destruction - but it's also evident
that it masks a system not being able to keep up, and that is especially
the case here with entire buildings forming out of nowhere. There
are also times when the player can see no detail, then everything
at once: I looked at the ground, saw nothing, then turned to the
left and watched an entire section of grass form with detail and
all, and this also happened on a character model as well, with a
face being a black and peach splotch until I got close enough for
the detail to kick in and the mouth, nose and eyes suddenly popping
in place. The sense of immersion created by the art and design is
mauled by all of these problems.
I'm not sure if it was due to limitations or if the developers just
ran out of things to say, but the in-combat chatter consists of
just a handful of phrases. The cutscene voice-overs are done very
well with good synching, but during combat the raspy Helghast and
the Human ISA soldiers become distracting as they repeat their lines
ad nauseam, often at inappropriate times - nothing like hearing
a command to take cover when no one is around or to move quietly
when the enemy will be alerted no matter what. The music is used
in menus and more dramatic parts, but was wisely toned down in the
levels themselves, with nice sound effects being used effectively.
The enemy AI is just as uneven as the rest of the game: it will
display cunning covering tactics, complete with appropriate voice
commands, or sit there and get shot. There were several times when
an enemy would put up a good fight, then just forget I was there
and turn and check out another direction. In contrast, I encountered
some computer-controlled enemies in the Battlefield portion of the
game - Killzone's off- and on-line multiplayer component,
with, (yes, Bungie) bots - that were absolutely lethal on normal;
oddly enough, other times, on the same level, the enemy seemed lost
as to what was going on. Apparently the game hates consistency.
The Battlefield portion might sway some, but the technical problems
make smooth aiming and movement just as hard online as it is off.
Consisting of around five very solid maps, up to two players (for
offline) can play with teams of seven bots in Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch,
Supply Drop (getting supplies and returning them to base), Domination
(capturing 5 beacons), Assault, Search and Destroy (destroy generators
while protecting your team's). The time limit and spawn count can
be adjusted, as well as how much the points are worth. Online play
also features stat tracking and a buddy list. It's nice that Battlefield
is as robust as it is, but I don't see myself playing it after this,
as I have better alternatives.
Overall: 6/10
At times coming off like a true
contender amongst some of the best of the genre, but often coming
off like a mediocre, forgettable offering, Killzone is what
happens when a developer's ambition overreaches the capabilities
of their system of choice. Of course, my statement of it being a
true contender is pure conjecture as the game could easily be worse
without the gameplay-distracting technical hurdles, but I cannot
deny that the feeling of something special emerging is definitely
there - it just never comes through. The problems resulting from
technical issues are rather severe for any game, much less one released
in a timeframe that has seen the release of Doom 3, Halo
2, and Half-Life 2. However, if you are a PlayStation
2-only gamer, you can certainly do far worse than Guerrilla's offering.
I did have some fun with the game, but it is no match for its competition.
However, if that competition is limited to the PS2 for you, then
it could make for a solid weekend rental.
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