As I had mentioned in my previous blog post, Killzone is one of the two games I picked up right away for my new Playstation 4. This decision was made based on two reasons. One: I wanted to pick up at least one Playstation exclusive right away and Knack seemed entirely boring to me. Two: Battlefield is ostensibly broken right now, and I'm worn out on Call of Duty and this was the last available shooter. While it has been out for around two weeks now, I have not found the time to complete any one of the games that I have picked up on launch, so this post will be more of an impression than a traditional review.

My initial experience with Killzone is completely fine. But that's about all I can say about it. It's fine. There's nothing overly unique about it. It's not a big game-changer thats going to alter the way we think about contemporary first person shooters. The game looks very pretty, and its entirely serviceable, but there's not much in the way of substance or originality, making the overall single player experience somewhat of a slog.

One thing that is worth noting is that start up is incredibly quick. No logo builds, no nothing...Just straight into video games. This is entirely welcome, and if more games down the line, be they first part exclusives or not, plan on doing this then its time to get excited about video games again as this is one of my favourite things about this game so far.

The single player experience so far has been entirely standard and consists of your character, the orphaned Lucas Kellan, wandering open areas that seem for lack of a better term lifeless, and gunning down Helghan. This is fine, but it's nothing spectacular. It would have been nice to see the team take the world in some interesting places, perhaps opening areas up to exploration encouraging branching paths and different methods of attack. Instead the areas feel entirely linear, which isn't always a bad thing, but in the context of Shadow Fall it feels like somewhat of a missed opportunity.

Killzone sets itself apart from other shooters by the introduction of your floating mechanical cohort called the OWL. This is a small drone that is always around and is capable of providing cover fire, popping a shield, hacking electronics, stunning enemies and firing a hipline. This is interesting, but none of these attributes are ever used in any meaningful way. I have been playing for multiple hours and have not found one useful application for launching the zip line other than forcing myself to do it because its there and I wish it was more well realized. The game is also very dark and it seems like another missed opportunity that the OWL is not provided with a simple flashlight function. Instead you are left sending your little buddy out in "gun mode" and hoping it will light up the area you pointed it at. This is all handled with a swipe of the touch pad which more or less works, but the whole thing feels kind of clumsy.

The online multiplayer is, at least so far, the most fun part of the game, where modes like "Warzone" return and have you run through a cavalcade of different game modes in one match. This varies up the gameplay in a way that prevents most matches from becoming stale. If you're a fair-weather online player like myself, this might be a mode for you to check out.

All in all, Kilzone Shadow Fall is - like i said - a fine game. It's story is very obvious and even without completing the game, it's easy to see where they're going to go with it. The gameplay is par to the course, but much of it can feel like a missed opportunity at times, which is kind of the theme of the whole game. It's difficult to develop for a console that doesn't exist yet, and in that sense Killzone Shadow Fall gets a pass. Its mostly forgettable action wrapped up in a story that won't turn too many heads. At least it'll look really pretty while you're playing it though, right? And boy does it start up fast!