Well, isn't that surprising. The polish gaming magazine CD-Action got an exclusive deal to be the first in the world to review Killzone 3. Images are below the post (sorry for the quality, done with my cellphone).
But in short, what did they say? (for those, who don't know polish and do not own the magazine) First - graphics, obviously. The reviewer was stunned of course and in his opinion, the other productions should not even be compared to this, even Killzone 2, which is still beatiful. The most praise goes to the jungle, which is reminescent of Avatar's vistas of Pandora, but the ice levels are also highly regarded. The dynamics of the enviroment and overall diversity during the playthrough (insane shootouts divided by some slower levels) is excellent and the game never becomes tedious or boring.
Next - the game is hard. Really hard. The reviewer, Enki is not a first timer, but his death count (edited, my mistake) was around 150 at the end of a game (on normal difficulty!). This makes the circa 7-10h game longer, but is not a disatvantage, because game is not cheating in Call of Duty grenade spam style - Hellghasts are smart and our hero, Sev, is not an Iron Man, he dies after a second or two of concentrated fire.
The next topic, multiplayer, is not reviewed in detail for obvious reasons - servers are still not publicly opened. But the reviewer played with pretty smart bots and multi is not a milestone, it's still good old Killzone 2 with great maps and some tweaks in playable classes. More details will be given after the grand premiere of the final game.
Another point, polish localisation (not so great, as always), is not important for most of us, even for me, cause I'll be playing this in english (thank god for a language selection)
The last points are about some cons, which are standard even in AAA games. One or two times, bodies get into textures, also, one or two times some High spawned from nowhere, but all in all, these are the mistakes found everywhere and they are so rare it's just a minor defect. For some, another drawback might be spawning our character after death under enemy fire, which results in another quick demise. But, as Enki, the reviewer says, Killzone is just hard and gamers have to learn to live with this.
The last photo below is the final rating: 9
Gamplay rated 9
Video 10 (well, duh. And the game was not yet tested in 3D)
audio 8 ( got one point off because of the poor polish localisation I presume )
pros:
+one of the most beatiful games in the World,
+great gameplay balance, diversity in the campaign,
+high difficulty level (yes, that a pro for the reviewer),
+good use of Move, especially with the sharpshooter (the reviewer even had a separate table to shortly say something about the gamplay with Move controller)
cons:
-The heroes are still flat as a wall
-minor bugs mentioned above
Killzone 3
Game » consists of 7 releases. Released Feb 22, 2011
Killzone 3 continues the story of the invasion of the planet Helghan by the oppressive forces of the merciless Interplanetary Strategic Alliance. The game also features an improved multiplayer progression system and refined classes.
The first review of Killzone 3 (polish magazine CD-Action)
I reeeally don't like CDA but they still seem to get most of the Polish exclusive deals/reviews.
It's kinda sad that they were an extremely anti-console and elistist PC only magazine, but then they just decided to start reviewing console games (I don't know the details though).
And yeah, Polish localizations always suck (I still laugh so hard whenever I hear some whiny white guy dubbing Rico). It's also because it's extremely hard to properly translate tons of gaming-related terms like boss, franchise etc.
(not only in games but in polish gaming media in general, a reason why I don't read the manymore).
Also almost everybody in Poland plays on a PC.
sweet appreciate you taking the time to put this up for us, one question though, how come this polish mag got the exclusive? havent the killzone devs always been tight with the official playstation mag guys since they gave them major press leading up the release of the original Killzone. i remember reading the monthly preview of the first game and having it blow my mind.
I reeeally don't like CDA but they still seem to get most of the Polish exclusive deals/reviews. It's kinda sad that they were an extremely anti-console and elistist PC only magazine, but then they just decided to start reviewing console games (I don't know the details though).Well, the editors said (I think a year ago) that since we (as in: polish gamers) are finally a proper gaming country with more and more people getting consoles, it's time to review console games. To be honest, it's just a marketing decision, reviewing PC games only wouldn't get them far and they're still have the "best selling magaine" staple in Poland, so this move from "we detest consoles, we're PC gamers since the stone age" to "we're eclectic and we like our consoles now" seems to be working.
And I still like some of those guys. Maybe I'm not religiously devoted to the Magazine itself and I'm not basing my opinions on their reviews, they've got some pretty decent writing skills.
@buft said:
" sweet appreciate you taking the time to put this up for us, one question though, how come this polish mag got the exclusive? havent the killzone devs always been tight with the official playstation mag guys since they gave them major press leading up the release of the original Killzone. i remember reading the monthly preview of the first game and having it blow my mind. "
Dunno how they got the exclusive, but CD-Action is famous for getting some sweet deals from the biggest names on the market. Not only that, they've got some nice game bundles on their DVDs every month (as you can see from the cover - DMC3 and TR; Anniversary this time). I'm not stunned by that, cause most of their cover DVDs land in some drawer never to be opened, but high selling rate of the magazine comes from the full versions added. And with high selling rate comes a better deal with developers.
I really hope this is wrong or the reviewer really does suck because 500 deaths in one playthrough sounds really annoying especially if the checkpoints are like they were in the first game.
edit. "first game" I somehow managed to ignore kz1's existance.
Only mentioned, but not tested throughly. There is a couple of sentences regarding "ressurection" by a partner (3 possible on normal difficulty), but nothing more. Reviewer played in Guerilla's HQ in Netherlands, so that might be the case. When the servers are open, there will be more detailed review of multi, including co-op." @Yoghurt: Nothing about the co op? "
@kidman
As Imsh pointed out polish gamers are not excluding console gaming. but it's obvious we're not US and our gaming community has a long history of "pc only" fascism. I'm not counting Pegasus and other NES clones as a proper console:)
@Jayross I didn't feel any awkwardness in cover system
" my only concern about KZ3 is if the controls have that deadzone that KZ2 had. The "weighty feel" that people tried to justify as a good thing back when that second game was released. "
I have played a lot of KZ2 and the KZ3 beta and I can tell you that feeling has been reduced. Imo it feels a lot more responsive and faster to play but not to the extent of COD.
@Marz:
Personally, I've liked that "weight" to your moves. Some call it realistic, some call it a bug, but no matter how you name the effect, it was less arcady than CoD shooting. The only thing that bothered me was the default control scheme, but that's because of muscle memory coming from playing too much modern warfare before KZ2. And the issue of "strange" controls is nonexistent when you can set them any way you want, even with run under R2 and shooting with X.
"I really hope this is wrong or the reviewer really does suck because 500 deaths in one playthrough sounds really annoying especially if the checkpoints are like they were in the first game. edit. "first game" I somehow managed to ignore kz1's existance. "
I think Sony would appreciate that
" @Icemael: Mechanics from KZ2 are still there, cover system is used extensively (because your character dies so easily) and improvement lies in variety of levels - the shoot shoot shoot playstyle of KZ2 is gone, Guerilla thought of a lot more imaginative ways to handle Highs. "Yes, but did he mention if the cover system had changed? The problem with 2 was that while in cover, you could neither blindfire nor move around, and if that hasn't changed, this is a bargain bin purchase for me regardless of graphics, jetpacks, difficulty and so on.
But if my memory serves me well, you could strafe side to side behind cover in KZ2. But no blindfire is a design mistake, if you include cover system, you're right. Although it would be really blind and kind of pointless if Guerilla decided to stick with first person view all the time, and getting out to third person kinda breaks the immersion. So there's probably no golden rule which can be applied here, except for "ditch the cover system in FPS", just crouching\going prone behind it is more than sufficient.
Please Log In to post.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.Comment and Save
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.
Log in to comment