Killzone 2

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I play a lot of Resistance 2 and COD4 & COD:WAW. Resistance for its massive battles & COD for the great graphics and super tight play. Killzone 2 is a great blend of each.

There are a lot of complaints about the controls, but none from me. The guns are weighted and recoil as you would expect. The characters move like heavily armored soldiers carrying heavy artillary might. I could see it as an issue if it wasn't equal, but everyone is playing at the same speed and after a very short amount of time, I can say without fail that I am pretty quick with the M82 and plenty of online players that are far superior to me will light you up as quick as any game of Halo or COD.

As far as the graphics, online there is no dropoff compared to the single player. This is the best looking game I can remember playing. I had a difficult time going back to Resistance because it looked terrible after KZ2.

The single player game is ...about like every other signle player FPS that I can remember. Follow a line shoot guys, etc. I only played for a couple of hours to get familiar with the controls before playing online so I can't really speak as an authority on the single player.

The online game has all of the usual suspects as far as game modes go. The new exception is being able to string any of the five together that plays as single game. If you have a squad that you enjoy playing with, this is great. If you jump into a 25 minute game and get stuck with a team of half-tards, prepare to be frustrated that you have to wait 25 minutes to get credited with your experience. It's also worth noting that KZ2 has a similiar level up / xp system that unlocks various items like COD 4. It's about what you'd expect.The battles are awesome and where KZ2 really takes the cake for me is the whole package with 30 people at a time. My biggest complaint with COD4 is 12 player battles on medium sized maps. It is too easy for people to camp and the middle of the screen remain empty for extended periods especially in hardcore modes where you are playing 1 shot kills.

Killzone 2 doesn't reinvent the wheel and doesn't really offer anything new in terms of gameplay. A similiar thing has happened with the fighter genre. You can only "play guns" in so many different ways, so the next logical step is perfecting the genre, and right now, Killzone 2 is at the top of the heap.

UPDATED:

I purchased the downloadable map packs, Titanium & Steel. One takes place on a moving train, the other in the cruiser shown at the opening of the game. The train is a sight to behold and a snipers dream come true as the action funnels to visible choke points and the map is very narrow. The Vekta cruiser is multi-leveled and circular in shape. It's a stark contrast to the rest of Killzone with bright lighting and vibrant colors. The pack cost $6.00 and both are fun to play. The only problem is not many people appear to have purchased. It is common to find lobbies with the new map pack OR the originals. They're great to see in motion, espcially the train, but not a mandatory purchase at all.

I have such a problem with connection, that I've found myself going back to COD4 & WAW despite preferring Killzone 2's gameplay. Not only am I frequently disconnected, but it logs the PS3 offline and occassionaly locks up the system and requires a hard restart. I've even found myself having to restart my router becuase it locks everything up and I have to reboot my connection. It is exceptionally frustrating to play partial matches and get kicked (especially the longer games) and pop in COD or Resistance and have no issues.

Finally Clan battles. Ugh. Oddly enough, COD felt like you had to be in a clan to enjoy the game. In fact, it's almost mandatory (log into a match with just a bunch of guys versus a party and get ready to die...a lot, no level balancing). KZ seems to be the opposite. Clan battles have rampant cheating and cheapness you just don't see in the big open matches. I played in a couple clan matches and virtually every negative I'd heard about them was evident(not respawning in deathmatch, hiding the the radio in your base, etc.). I've had a much better time just going from game to game until I find a group that is competitive on both sides. The good rooms are typically set to automatically balance, so a room with a few good players on both sides can be as much fun as any clan battle.

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Pros

+Amazing Graphics. Probably the best to date.

+Very smooth running game. Always looks and runs great.

+Fun factor is very high. Up there with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Game of the Year.

+The Perfect DTS sound will blow you away.

+Solid level design keeps you aching to see what lurks around the next corner.

Cons

-The Controls are slightly cumbersome at first. But I've seen much much worse. Sometimes doing "actions" takes a second to line up. Like jumping or climbing over something/through a window. But after you get use to it, shouldn't be too much of a problem at all. Just like any game, the controls may take a while to get use to.

For starters, this is by far the smoothest running game I have ever played. The game just flows. Everything from loading a level to switching from an in-game-movie to game-play are seamless. I was amazed by the graphics. The lighting and the texture detail left me speechless. Everything from the control to the menu style was very well thought out.

The crisp DTS sound shakes the house and really puts you in the action. It sounds great on my Onkyo 7.1 system. Character dialog is also well done. Not cheesy at all.

The in-game-movies run great and look amazing. Facial features and expressions are really cool.

The characters really have fun personalities. This is NOT one of those flat feeling games which try to give each character life but fail. This game pulls it off perfectly. I think the AI is great. Probably the best I've ever seen in a game.

The level design is pretty good. Very solid and keeps you wanting to know what is around the next corner. It is the type of game that you have to make yourself stop playing. I'm a huge fan of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Game of the Year and this game ranks pretty close to it.

The fun factor is high. I love playing this game. There is a perfect balance of action, story, and just plain fun game-play. If you own a PS3, do yourself a favor and at least check this out. You won't be sorry.

P.S. Just a suggestion from gamer to gamer, those RealTriggers for your PS3 controller are well worth the $4.99. For a fast paced action game like this, they really come in handy.

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Does this live up to the hype? Yes. Does this game deliver on all fronts? Yes. Is it fun? Oh hell yes.

Killzone 2 tells the story of Alpha squad, who are tasked with taking down Visari, who is a Helghast leader. The game opens up with a speech of him and clips of war-time chaos. The intro is simply perfect, what else can I say? You play as a soldier named Sev, who is part of Alpha squad. You hit the Planet Helgan in a beach invasion, and the game begins.

The first thing you will notice is the Graphics. They are STUNNING. This shows amazing textures, lighting, and animations, all with a little to no lag. Who knew war could look so beautiful?

The sound design is another strong point. Men are dying around you, bullets are hitting your cover, the Helghast and screaming orders to each other. Its simply a treat for the ears.

Cover plays a huge roll in Killzone. If you are up in the middle of combat, you will most likely die. When you press and hold L2, you stick to the surface of your choice. From there, you can lean to pop out and take shots, and then duck back in. It works extremely well.

The Helghast soldiers are simply remarkable. They are a force to be feared. Their attire reminds me of a 1940's Nazi uniform, and they are smart to boot. They take cover, flank, and throw grenades quite frequently.

My only gripe can be adjusted in a few seconds. Do yourself a favor and go into the options and adjust the X and Y axis sensitivity. A grenade indicator would have been nice, but it's perfectly fine without it. But one thing just puzzles me. Why would a game built so firmly around Squad combat not have coop? You usually always have a friendly NPC with you, so this just makes no sense. But like I said, the game is perfectly fine without it.

But where the fatal flaw of Six-axis usually falls into play, Killzone skips right past it in favor of what it was intended for in the first place. Killzone realizes that you don't risk the playability of a game on a gimic, let alone one that might not work, and the game has been created with this thinking in mind. For example, when you would usually press a button to turn a valve, Killzone has you holding the L1 and R1 Trigger (Much like your left and right hands if you will) and continually cranking the controller in a circular motion, all the while letting go to do it again. This is not only very realistic, it doesen't jeapordize gameplay in the slightest, and works so well that it's just plain fun. Other cool features like arming explosives (With the right hand, R1 Button) have you tilting the controller to the left and right. One of my favorites is the sniping, which has you actually holding the controller steady to line up that perfect kill. It works, and I can't really see anybody wanting to turn it off.

The online is frantic fun. It's just simply indescribeable how much time I have spent playing the online portion of Killzone.. and this is the launch day! The gametype is called Warzone, which has every great multiplayer mode you can think of, crammed into one. One minute you will be capturing points, and the next the Helghast (Or ISA) will be calling in an assassination attempt on one of your team mates. It really does keep you moving and constantly alert, but it also makes adjusting to the different game types fast and easy.

If you own a PS3, Killzone should be a part of your collection. Pick this one up, and dive into the chaos.

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This game propelled me forward with thunderous excitement from start to finish. Fundamentally similar to other first person shooters like COD4, Black, and Resistance, it may not be the most innovative game in the category but it is absolutely solid. It was a tremendous joy to play; epic in its scale, filled with intricate detail, and highly polished.

Throughout the single-player campaign I destroyed bridges, felled hundreds of enemy soldiers, fought sometimes large and other times lightning fast bosses. While I'd heard that Killzone 2 would be slower and more methodical than the average shooter, I had more trouble getting myself to stop playing than making progress. The game was flexible in its approach to almost every situation. Sometimes I'd snipe enemies from afar, popping their helmets into the air; sometimes I'd rush an enemy and unload a barrage of close quarters fire.

The controls were weighty, never allowing me to jump too quickly from target to target. At first I tried to increase the sensitivity of the joysticks, thinking I'd be able to swivel faster. Because the heft comes more at the end of a motion than throughout the motion, I found that increasing the sensitivity didn't help. I ended up turning the sensitivity back down and simply got used to the experience, which actually felt really good after the initial unfamiliarity passed.

It is the immersive nature of Killzone 2 that makes it really shine. I simply couldn't seem to absorb enough of the detail at any one moment. Over time you feel like you are a part of the world and one with your movements within it. You can feel the grit in the air and the cold metal of your rifle. It was a wonderfully compelling experience that I can't wait to replay.

The story of Killzone 2 was just fine I have no major complaints. It was good enough that I felt grounded in the situations at hand, and I'll be interested in seeing what happens next. That was enough for me.

I've only spent a couple hours on the multiplayer, which feels strong but not incredible. My only complaint is that the multiplayer requires you to play a good number of rounds before you start to unlock new weapons and other classes, like the medic class and the engineer. While this may train a lot of people to play, I would have preferred to jump into more variety sooner than have to earn it. Still, I have high hopes for the continued multiplayer experience, and even if it were completely absent, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this game purely based on the campaign.

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I first heard about Killzone 2 about a year or so ago, but never thought too much of it until the past 2 months or so, once all the hype was made. Even then, it still didn't phase me, as hype is hype. I looked into some of the gameplay videos, and some of the behind the scenes videos and became a bit more interested. It wasn't until my friend told me how much he enjoyed the beta that I really realized how quickly I was pulled into the hype of the game. I signed up for a European PSN account to try out the demo, and thought it was good, but very short, and the controls seemed like they would be very difficult to get used to. I decided to go out and pre-order the game and hope for the best.

Once I picked it up, I started by playing the single player campaign for about 2 1/2 hours. I play on the medium setting, so it's not too easy or too hard. Obviously the first thing you notice is how stellar the graphics are. It's like nothing I have ever seen in a video game, and I play a lot of games. Once the gameplay started, I remembered right away what my gripe about the controls were, so I went online and quickly for there are a lot of people with these complaints also, but luckily the settings can be adjusted, making the game a tremendous amount more comfortable to play. Getting back into the action, the next thing I noticed is how intelligent the enemies are. As someone said before, this is one of the first game that you actually get the feeling that the bad guys are real, as they are scared of grenades by them, hide from gunfire, and seem to work together to try and get you. There is constant action, never slows down, and that's not really something you see too often.

Next I got into the multiplayer for an hour or so, and even though I don't completely understand about ranking up and what not yet, I still had a lot of fun exploring the levels, and trying not to get killed, the whole time, getting quite a few kills myself.

So for an initial review, the game is pretty much what everyone said it'd be. Fun, action packed, beautiful, and dark. Reccomended to anyone who enjoys FPS.

*****UPDATE*****

After playing for many more hours and completing 60-70% of the campaign, it is now that I find it fair to consider this one of the best, if not THE BEST, game I have ever played. Every level brings you deeper and deeper into the story. There is constant action, and you will eventually HATE the Helghast. They are relentless, and the AI is top notch. This is one of the first games that the enemies were so smart that they set up ambushes on me, tricked me into going down a corrider where I found out there were more of them waiting for me. All in all, I can't wait to finish the game just so I can play it on the highest difficulty setting, and beat it again.

Multiplayer is great in itslef also. I don;t think the ranking up is as well developed as Call of Duty, but the gameplay is better. There is a ton of ribbons and badges to get that this game will keep you occupied for a VERY long time.