I now only have the last mission left in the retail version of Killzone 2 so I think this is a good time to summarize my ride to get there in the Single Player campaign. Originally I didn´t want to turn this into another Quake 2 comparison but this is going to partly be a Quake 2 comparison anyway. Lets just start by saying that Guerrilla has designed this game in a similar way to how ID software makes their games. There´s loads of stuff in Killzone 2 that feels handpicked from the shooter philosofy of ID. And by my standards this is the best score you can give to a shooter designer. Level layouts, weapondesigns, monster encounters, textures and general narrative. Killzone 2 is the equal to Quake 2 in 1996 and this means that ID Software themselves will have a hard time beating the single player experience of Killzone 2.
I´m gonna continue these impressions by just listing the more or less exact similarities between the 2nd best Single Player shooter ever created, Quake 2, and Killzone 2.

• Both games share the exact same story that follows the first game´s story the same way aswell. Humanitys revenge on the race that tried to take their planet in the first game which takes them to this industrial planet. You are the space marine that needs to get it done.
• The enviroments are pretty much identic in both games. The industrial "built for war" planet feels very similar and the general graphic style and atmosphere Guerrilla is going for feels like an HD version of Stroggos from Quake 2.
• Enemies feels very alike. Strogg´s are machines mixed with human flesh and Helghast´s are genetically changed humans but when you fight them they feel, and most importantly SOUND alike.
• Leveldesign and mission structure. The way rooms are tied together and mixed with outdoor enviroments and how you go from industrial plants to warehouses. The mission structure is very straight on objective based in both steering you to a big objective that often revolves around taking out an important part of the enemy warmachine.
• The impact of weapons are totally awesome. Quake 2 was mindblowing in 96 when you could feel and see the impact of your weapons on the enemy and their deathanimations was lightyears above the competition. Killzone 2 raises this bar like Q2 did back then.
• The overall colorpalette. A brownish, grey very metallic palette of a hostile planet. Stroggos or Helghan, pretty much the same planet.
• Intros in both games are about the same. Eventually crashlanding you in the middle of enemy territory.

The thing I want to say here is not that this is a copy of Quake 2. This is what Quake 4 should have been a couple of years ago. Quake 4 was given to Raven Software and the work they did with Quake 4 was not bad but it was nowhere near the ID Software games. When playing through Killzone 2 I feel like I´m playing the real Quake 4. This is a top notch shooter with the ID Software mentality burning fiercly behind the scenes. I salute Guerrilla for the work they´ve put into the KZ2 Single Player.  It builds up over the course of the missions and throws very enjoyable enemy encounters and awesome weapons (Lightning gun and Bolt gun...yeeeeea baby!!!) your way. The narrative takes a backseat to the action just like it should in a game of this type and the difficulty only strikes me as imbalanced in a very select few occasions.

By now I come to accept the controls but I still don´t like them. I´ve gotten used to them and I can understand the designchoices behind them but man...the slow speed combined with the annoying acceleration really makes you feel like way to much of a tank sometimes and that will never click with an old Quake 3 Arena, PC shooter, progamer guy like me.
There´s also some other minor but very annoying things that starts to eat away at you when you´re playing such an otherwise polished games for hours and hours. First of the music could have used way more work. The generic epic tunes works well but gets old very fast, especially when there´s only like 2 or 3 tracks looping. This game should have looked back on Quake 2 again and thrown in at least a few more adrenalinepumping tracks like this one. I swear, if that track from Quake 2 would have started playing during a firefight in Killzone 2 it would have heightened the feel of the firefights 10 fold. But as it stands now that real adrenaline never kicks in for real due to the music thats just chugging along in the background and never says "alright listen to THIS and kick some ass". The more I play the game the more I enjoy the silence when the music is not playing.
Graphics are amazing..yea, you already know how amazing they are. Shadows on the other hand..looks awful. No other word can describe the often jagged AND flickering shadows of KZ2. This stands out alot when the game looks so insanely good.

I have one last mission left in the sinple player and I´m really looking forward to the grand finale, it should be very cool. I´m generally not very interested with console shooter multiplayer so i´ll see if I´ll jump in on that or not.

But let me recap here. Killzone 2 starts out strong and builds from there to become the Quake 2 of 2009. Its a milestone shooter and I´m really feeling for the guys at ID right now that´s working hard on Rage.. will it surpass this? If you would have asked me a month ago I would have said "of course". Now..i´ll just say "maybe".