So I played through the first level now.
It starts exactly where the demo starts. Let's get start with the good things. Though some of it will be regurgitations of my demo impressions.
The weapons feel fantastic. And since I found a control scheme which suits me pretty well in the demo, you really get a good feel for the heavy shots, the recoil and the weight of actually firing off for you people who've been around real firearms before (I've used AG3 and MP5 before irl.)
I played through it on normal since I'm kinda sludgy in the head after not sleeping properly last night, but the Helghast seem to have gotten an intelligence injection since the demo. That was my main gripe about it was that they didn't cover properly and were completely confused when you ran up to melee them which was pretty easy since they seemed oblivious to where you were skulking about to. It seems alot harder to get up close to them and now they'll actually fight back or scamper off.
The end of the level shows off some an awesome teaser of the huge scale battles I'm hoping for with a somewhat open space where you're pinned down against a wall and getting fired at by rifles and missile launchers from the ground and on towers. I really hope there's more areas like this.
Trophy implementation is pretty clever for the people who are into those. Stuff like getting three dudes with one burst from your rifle, finding secret intel or getting headshots is bound to give this some great replay value or an ulterior goal to play differently. Alas I have invested way too much time and effort into Achievement points to really get worked up about Trophies, but that's my deficiency, not the game's.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the sweet production values. Everybody's gonna jerk off to how amazing the graphics are, but it's the sound design and the epic as fuck musical score which is the real standout for me. It's on par, if not better than Dead Space, which I think has been the pinnacle of this generation when it comes to sound design. I wish I had a real surround system.
The overall style of the game is fantastic, from the Helghast, to your rifle, to even Sev's fauxhawk. It feels oddly familiar yet updated and with a brand new coat of paint to it. Sure it's space marines talking trash to eachother all over again, but it feels fresh. I can't quite describe it.
But every rose has it's thorn, just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song.
The dialogue and voice acting is atrocious. And there's barely any backstory or briefing about why this shit is happening or why you're doing this stuff in the game other than a sweet opening movie. If I hadn't brushed up on my Killzone lore before playing this then I might as well be fighting a bunch of Darth Vader lookalikes with a World War 1 fetish. Hopefully that will be remedied later in the game with some briefing in an on site tent or a Helghast stronghold we've taken. I doubt I'll be back up on the huge spaceship/station that brought us here. And as stupid as the thingies you fly around in are (Seriously, have a little cover. They're almost as stupid as the derricks in Gears Of War 2) they look cool as hell.
As great as the enemy AI has become, your teammates are absolute dumbasses. They'll run headfirst into fire. They'll decide to stand in front of you while you're firing at someone and just decide to take some weird alternate route when you're confronted with plenty of pillars to strategically move between to get closer to the enemy. I hope this won't affect my enjoyment of playing this game cautiously and strategically. This ain't no run and gun game folks, gotta use your mind grapes.
Even with my control set up the way best suited for me (Setup 2, with almost full sensitivity and Y axis inverted) the triggers are still a threat. It's way to easy to suddenly throw a grenade when you're trying to fire your rifle. The covering mechanic is still kinda cumbersome, but I'm used to it after going through the demo a few times. It's just a little bad at showing you that "yes, you are crouching and hiding behind this thing" since you seem kinda far away from it when you should be have your nose pressed up against it. The Sixaxis part is obnoxious as hell though. I really hope it doesn't show up that much.
I'm having a real disconnect with how short Sev is compared to everybody else. It's not that noticeable when you're up close to the Helghast, but when you're standing next to your teammates it's kinda weird. But as a pretty short dude myself, it is nice to be represented in a game. It's an exremely minor thing, but it's pretty noticeaable when you've played a shitload of FPS.
I've really not got any real complaints and as you see they're all pretty minor things which either don't matter or will become second nature.
I mean, your team AI are dumbasses in most games. The backstory can easily be found and is pretty interesting. And the controls just taking used to seeing as this is the first FPS I'm playing with the DualShock 3 (I hate those triggers!). Very impressed so far.
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