I've tried to come up with a roundabout way to say this, but eh... I don't think this is a very good game. Graphically, it's a stunning show-pony. The lighting, the textures, the vistas, and the sheer amount of action on the screen are all very impressive. The frame rate is pretty consistent as well, and it does look like an actual Hollywood blockbuster. However, I find it just about average on everything else.

First and foremost, I can't get over how stupid the story is. The thought of giving away half of one's planet (and half of the planet's main city too, no less, because blunt Berlin Wall references are important!) to a race of literal space Nazis who have attempted to commit genocide on such said planet's peoples twice in twenty years just seems very short-sighted. I almost appreciated the game trying to throw a monkey wrench into things by having the Helghast lament sharing a world with the "people who destroyed our planet and killed a billion of our citizens," but then I went online and read the plot synopsis of Killzone 3. Helghan was destroyed... by a bunch of chemical that the Helghast were going to use to exterminate all life on the planet Vekta before the whole plan was sabotaged. I don't... understand how I'm supposed to feel sorry for space Nazis whose genocidal payload backfired on them. That they also kill your dad in the first ten minutes of the game doesn't really help either. Oh, and they look like space Nazis. I feel like blurring the factions is a moot point when one of them is so clearly, and physically, the evil "other."

I thought the gameplay could make me forget the plot, but it really doesn't. I move like molasses when not running, am already tired of having to use my drone to stop endless troop waves by hacking security centers, sigh in bemusement at teleporting space Nazis in ponchos with sniper rifles, and find myself staring incredulously at the screen during some of the missions. "Plod slowly through a forest to survivors, then plod back into the forest and up a rock wall to stick C4 (the future!) on artillery, and then plod back through such said forest to take out a communication tower before plodding back again through the..."

I've kept going after that mission, if only to justify my purchase, and I'm rather worried that this experience won't get any better. If anything, I'm pretty sure being the super-solider messiah Shadow Warden just gets more grating and bland as time progresses and the visual sparkle loses its touch. Am I wrong? Please feel free to lie to me, or tell me that the game is only 8 hours long and I'm 1/3rd of the way to never having to look at it again. I'll take either. :-P

I found the combat to be fine in the first half of the game, especially the forest sequence you mentioned, but neither it nor the story get better as the game goes on. I would even say that the combat gets substantially worse in the back half of the game.

It's weird. The back half of the game has you take control of a giant Godzilla mech. And you pretty much just stomp around knocking shit down and rebuilding it with rainbow eye beams. You have to eat soldiers to charge your eye beams, but if you accidentally eat a civilian your rainbow beam meter decreases a little bit until the next checkpoint.

Oh sorry, I probably should have spoiler tagged that.

I'm curious how bad the ending gets, considering how down on it Jeff was. Anyone?

I don't find the campaign particularly good, but you actually sound outright hostile about it. And about all first-person shooters based upon the specifics of your complaints. I'm not sure what you want out of a game like this.

It doesn't get any better. Move on to the multiplayer.

In terms of plot the Helghan people were exiled to Helghast out of their beautiful paradise planet because corporations and money. So I don't know if that will make you feel sorry for them but they were the first to get massively wronged - I mean they evicted an entire planet to a chemical wind infested shithole, causing the helghast to actually mutate in order to survive. It's kind of understandable they've got a chip on their shoulder and an axe to grind with the IFA.

I thought it got a little better, but not by much. I can see people saying it even gets worse. Pretty big disappointment, in all honesty. Ended up trading it in when Gamestop was offering $40 which I've done like twice.

Hasn't Killzone always kinda been the B-side FPS on Sony systems? (Not that they have an A-side FPS...) I pretty much got exactly what I wanted and expected out of it, which is a beautiful FPS with mediocre game play. Hell, I don't like shooters in the first place, so I really just wanted to play it for the PS4 eye candy. I don't think it's anything more or less than middling, kinda like a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

I'll be honest, I barely paid attention to the story and had only a loose understanding of what was happening. I think Killzone's fiction is cool in concept but rather trite in practice. It always just seems so incidental to the game that it may as well not be there. I liked the story the most in the original, but that's because back then it was a bit different to everything else.

That said, I still really enjoyed the campaign in Shadow Fall, much more than most people it seems. It's hardly revolutionary or even outstanding in any one way, but I think the controls feel tight, the shooting feels good, and the game world just looks so damn cool that I like being in it. I've also really always liked their big, mutli-sectioned missions, too. I don't really get what Jeff was saying was so terrible about the last level or two. I think I know what part he's talking about, where you walk into a big room and have to fight off like 50 guys on your own, but I managed that in two tries. The entire game is pretty simple, especially when you use all the tools available to you.

To directly answer your question, yes, I think the mission design gets better as the game goes along. It's varied as far as standard FPS gameplay goes, but it's not something you just HAVE to experience. I had fun with it and it didn't take more than 8 or 10 hours to get through.

I got to I'm guessing halfway through the campaign? It's been a lot of Helghan industrial type level design, is there anything like the forest level later on? Or is that (the first level of the game) the best part of it all? I stopped playing a while ago but I want to know if I should go back anytime soon.

I play very few FPS games, typically one or fewer a year, and for me that tends to be Killzone games. I don't like "modern military shooter" as a setting, so basically anything that isn't Resistance or Killzone is not on my radar.

I haven't touched the MP at all yet, but I am liking the campaign so far. The addition of the OWL adds a lot I think, Ive found all 4 of the abilities useful in the right situations. It took me a while to get used to, since the game is hard enough/you die fast enough that proper use of the OWL is pretty integral. Can't tell you how many times I died in that forest til I realized how important the OWL is.

Game is just boring tbh. I've been trying to play it, but it's not appealing to me at all.

Killzone is life-sappingly bland.

I've played a lot of games in my 34 years. I've played Night Trap and Sherlock Holmes. I've played Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens Colonial Marines. This is the most boring experience I've ever had. 90 minutes in and I'm done. When I pick-up Titanfall, I'll trade this one in towards Metal Gear.

I legitimately enjoyed the game up until the halfway point (When you glide into the ruins of the Helgan planet). At this point the game got noticeably worse and stayed that way until the end. I had fun with it as a launch title and thought it looked visually gorgeous, so in that respect I don't regret my purchase, but I can't say I'd recommend it in any other context.

Same story here as above, pretty much. A really kick-ass platformer would've been a great way to start-up PS4. Though in regards of platforming...I was probably better off buying this than Knack.

That (the sequence and gameplay requirement) almost sounds silly.

That's exactly where it lost me as well. I had fun up until this point, then that mission was where it all turned to crap and never recovered.

As a Killzone fan, this isn't a good Killzone game. I'm the only weirdo that enjoys the multiplayer, but the single player campaign was forgettable. I may get rid of it while it's still selling locally for $40 used and put it towards Infamous. But that leaves me without a multiplayer shooter.