Can You Survive in the Killzone?
WARNING:
May contain Spoilers and/or Bad Language!
Now, I never played the first Killzone. In my opinion, it's because the DualShock 2 isn't designed to play FPS games (having used the Xbox controller for Halo). I watched my brother played it and he said it wasn't that great but the A.I. bots were good. Anyways, 4 years and a lot of hype later - we have Killzone 2. Here's what I thought of the game:
Overall, Killzone 2 isn't the PlayStation 3's Halo-killer. It's biggest downfall was no co-op. We live in an era where co-op is king. it could also be because of the time and stage of game development and design we are in now --- a LOT has changed in 4 years. Maybe it would've been awesome if it was released earlier when gaming didn't have Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War 2 and other highly acclaimed shooters?
May contain Spoilers and/or Bad Language!
Now, I never played the first Killzone. In my opinion, it's because the DualShock 2 isn't designed to play FPS games (having used the Xbox controller for Halo). I watched my brother played it and he said it wasn't that great but the A.I. bots were good. Anyways, 4 years and a lot of hype later - we have Killzone 2. Here's what I thought of the game:
- You play as Sev, one of the marines of the ISA Special Forces Alpha Team. You and your team take the fight to the Helghast planet and defeat once and for all. There is hardly any character development, making you not care for your teammates.
- The campaign itself is good until the end, where you fight the end boss - where you WILL be tempted to throw or break your controller due to the stupidly hard boss (read more about this later). I played the campaign on Normal and was stuck on this last boss.
- The campaign A.I. sucks. When they say that they're going to back you up, they're lying. You see them taking cover, running out in the open like retards or just shooting at walls. Later on in the campaign, your side-kick Rico gets taken out so many times, there is no point reviving him. Also, during the campaign, the A.I. tends to stay back and follow you. I'd rather they run in and be the decoy, leaving me to clean up. This is why co-op is the way to go for team-based shooters.
- There could be more controls layouts. Most of the controls are copied from Call of Duty 4. The annoying thing about using the DualShock 3 for a FPS are the 2 analogs being side-by-side, in the middle. But, that's just me not use to using a DS3 for FPS games. Aiming is either too fast or too slow for me, and I tried adjusting this several times. It'll take you about 5 minutes or so to adjust the sensitivity of both the X and Y axis. There is support for SIXAXIS and this works both ways. In campaign, you rotate the DS3 to plant charges and turn valves. This is pretty cool. However, in Multiplayer, this will mess up your sniping! Unless you can teach yourself to use this "skill", it'll mess you up.
- There are a nice assortment of weapons. I particular like the energy/electric gun - they target multiple enemies and has infinite ammo! I also like the semi-auto hand-gun you can replace with your magnum. However, most of the weapons (besides the sniper) have crap accuracy (unless you are up close to the enemy). The rate of fire could be faster (even with me mashing on R1).
- You inventory consists of your main weapon (any weapon), your handgun (magnum or semi-auto pistol), grenades and a knife (which, I don't think I've ever used). There has been times when I would like to trade my handgun for another main weapon but the handgun does offer infinite ammo. But even with that, what is the point on the knife?!
- Bosses in shooters, they DO NOT work.. This is where developers go wrong. Bungie did this with Halo 2 and it definately made me dislike the game. DO NOT implement bosses in first-person or third-person shooters! In this case, you fight one of those big flying machines and Radec - the main enemy - at the end of the campaign. The Radec fight is the most frustrating part of the entire campaign. He can cloak himself and teleport! WTF?! And he usually teleports behind you and with 2 stabs, you're dead. Fucking bullshit. Your teammate Rico, doesn't do shit but say "Watch your back Sev!"
- The multiplayer is great. I enjoyed the dynamic match types. Like when you're playing slayer, you get a message from your team telling you that the game has changed and will change to Search and Destroy or Capture and Hold. Normally, I don't enjoy class-based multiplayer due to the weapon limitations but with the special abilities that each class has (with a secondary that can be unlocked), it definately makes you want to play certain classes for certain situations. You can also enter a custom game with bots to test your skills. Only bad thing about the classes is that you have to work to unlock other classes and their secondary abilities, which could take more time than what casual players will spend.
- The music I didn't really notice much because of all the shooting and dialogue. The dialogue could've been better though.
Overall, Killzone 2 isn't the PlayStation 3's Halo-killer. It's biggest downfall was no co-op. We live in an era where co-op is king. it could also be because of the time and stage of game development and design we are in now --- a LOT has changed in 4 years. Maybe it would've been awesome if it was released earlier when gaming didn't have Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War 2 and other highly acclaimed shooters?
