Beautiful both artisticly and technicaly. Get ready to be blown away.
User Rating: 9 | Killzone 2 PS3
Killzone 2 is an amazing game with a rare mix of beauty, complexity and immersion but has a few rough edges that hold it back from touching the stars. It's hard not to start with Killzones visuals, so I will. They are mind blowingingly beautiful in every way both technically amazing and artisticly staggering, but probably the most immpressive parts of the visuals also make the visual issues more apparent. There arn't many visuals problems, but there are a few, and they add up. First, resesitation beam looks dreadful, as does flame-thower. Secondly, load times can be a bit lengthy, but very manageable. Third, game chugs at checkpoints. Lastly, I have had the game slow-down about 3 times quite badly and I have had killzone freeze on me once, (online) and I had to turn off my system and start it back up. These might sound quite bad, but have you seen this game? It's just too good looking for these issues to hurt the game much. Sound is top-notch both pertaining to sound effects and music. Sound effects thump and bang very nice. Noise when you get a kill online makes me happy. Music is very immpressive and fits the action perfectly. Voice acting is largely terrible and curse filled, but visari's moments are amazing. Controls took me a long long time to get used to, I don't know if it's just me or what, but I have played dozens and dozens of FPS games and KZ2 is by far the most difficult for me to get used to, due to a fairly sluggish feeling throughout, but it isn't bad, just different. Everything has a very heavy and weighted feeling. Gameplay is fast paced but also tactical. Killzone has it's highlight moments, such as a tank fight and mech-suit, both are very very fun and control very nicely, although both sections are too short. The guns is KZ2 are a mixed bag. Most of the guns are generic, although very detailed and beautiful. One gun does stick out however, which is the arch-gun, or lightning-gun if you prefer, which is now my favourite gun of all time, excluding half-lifes gravity-gun. Length of KZ2 is short, but it seems like every FPS seems to be going this direction, which is sad. It took me about 7 hours to complete KZ2 on normal but left me feeling good and not ripped off due to the games compact and very viseral feeling. KZ2 may be short but you will want to play though at least 2 times because of hidden suit-cases and shootable helgast symbols and 3 difficulties and one unlockable one. One last little thing to mention about gameplay, you can hide behind cover, gears of war style, although you never leave first-person view ( I like this), and works very well. This brings me to the oddest part of KZ2, cover is a big big part of the single-player, but you can't even do it online, yes, a hugh part of KZ2's offline strategy isn't even included online, but instead online is more fast paced because of it. This is good or bad depending on your pereference. I like the pickup in speed of gameplay. Online is class based, but you have to unlock the different classes over time, which is weird. Online is great and clocks 32 players, but has very few maps which would be a problem if each and every level wearn't amazing, but they are.KZ2 dosen't have co-op however....of any kind, this is quite a missed opertunity because you are never alone in the single-player and it works perfectly with the story....sad this didn't happen. Killzone 2 is a really fantastic game with a few quirks/problems, but it is a game that everyone should own.
