Actual Killzone 2 First Impressions

Even though there is a picture of cake heading this article, these are indeed my actual first impressions of the PS3′s latest, brownest, “best-ever” game. Oh, and the cake is much more relevant than you may think.

Cake. Chocolate Fudge Cake to be precise. It’s dark, heavy, delicious and best eaten by yourself, alone and gradually. It leaves you wanting to gorge yourself like a child even though you know full well that if you have just one more slice, your insides will form a committee to decide how to make you feel like crap. Killzone 2 is basically the gaming equivalent. Not everybody likes it, but those that do come away with a chocolate covered grin.

The game opens with a stunning cinematic showing you everything you need to know. There is a bad guy, you are a space marine, everything is dirty and war is going on between you and the iconic, orange eyed, helmet wearing, British Space Nazis, the Helghast. You are Sev, a marine with a bad haircut and you and your military buddies are heading to the Helghast their home world, Helghan, to kick some teeth in.

The cumbersome browns that make up the majority of the first few levels of Killzone 2 are paired with the washed out blues that seem to exist only to startle your eyes as you emerge from the rubble of some unnamed, half demolished Helghast building. The levels themselves, although feeling a touch unoriginal, are straightforward yet never feel completely linear (even though for the most part they are). I’m only playing on my standard-def TV (which is hurting) but I can imagine my socks would be truly rocked in HD.

I found myself sometimes being confused as to where to go, but a quick tap on the d-pad helps me out. There is also an unnecessary number of gimmicky sixaxis “pretend you’re opening a valve” sequences, but they are usually over fairly quick.

From the audio perspective you could have told me John Williams had done the audio and I would believe you. The voice actors are also surprisingly good. Any cockney Helghast soldier that says “I shit you not” gets points in my book. I just wish my colleagues wouldn’t need to fucking swear all the fucking time.

To bring the topic back onto cake (Chocolate Fudge Cake to be precise), the game feels very heavy in a number of ways. The pace never lets up for one. It seems designed to force you to have to stop yourself when you have had enough. Through nearly every door lies a room or street filled with dozens of hidden, smart Helghast at the ready to relentlessly hound you until you have killed every single one.

The controls are also very bulky. They have taken the Gears approach to being a marine and made you feel like you’re in a diving suit. Gone is any form of twitch combat, aim assist or accurate weapons. You are slow and annoyingly inaccurate. The game forces you to really concentrate on every kill. Like cake.

In my limited experience with the multiplayer it seems just as taxing as the campaign, only with 31 more idiots running around on two teams. The maps range in size massively and games can frequently feel horribly unfair, something not helped by asymmetrical objective based missions. Each game lasts a set number of rounds and each round is a specific game type. Deathmatch, VIP, one-flag ctf and territory type missions are all present and the constantly changing dynamics keep the relatively long sessions feeling interesting.

There is, as with the rest of the game, an awful lot of depth in the multiplayer and I can easily see people spending inordinate hours of their lives playing it. If you really want to know about the class system I suggest talking to somebody more knowledgeable than me.

Killzone 2 is clearly a great game, but one that demands stamina from its players. The weight of the game is hard to get use too, but when you do, it’s like eating the best Chocolate Fudge Cake this generation has offered gamers yet. An excellent game, as long as you like chocolate.