(Only played single player on hard)
Killzone introduces the gamer to a dark and interesting future with infinite potential to enthrall, but then refuses to explain anymore of the settings intricacies and robs most of your interest with it's dull story telling. As the title suggests the plot goes downhill immediately after the pre-menu cutscene, for you are then thrown into a world of cliche characters and dialogue made worse through they're bland voice acting. You're fed a cutscene at the beginning and end of each level (occasionally in between) to assure their is a reason for your actions, but the aforementioned cliche dialogue and meh voice acting coupled with a lack of real drama and plot twists (except for one that's painfully obvious) make each one largely forgettable. I hate to continuously reuse a word but utterly cliche is the only way to describe every main or supporting character, it seemed as though the developers chose every character from the book of action movie archetypes and slapped them in the game without any personal touches. To be honest though through out the course of the game those unoriginal heroes started to grow on me, and despite their banality I was oddly curious about the futures of each once the game concluded (though to be fair I'd probably feel that way about most characters after 10 or so dedicated hours).
I am as dedicated a gamer there is but first and foremost I am a story junkie, so once I discovered that the story of the game was going to be bland and uneventful throughout my heart sunk. Initially I was underwhelmed by the mechanics but as the game progressed I was sucked into its ceaseless simplistic pleasure. Yes I'm a sucker for good ol' simple combat no puzzle solving, no backtracking, just eyes ahead pointing and shooting and by the end of Killzone you will have pointed at, shot, and elminiated hundreds if not thousands of Helghast. Though their aren't an overabundance of weapons, each tool of destruction feels great and besides the knife are useful (which is saying a lot considering all the throwaway weapons you typically find in shooters). Every map is varied and keeps your gameplay fresh by introducing multiple strategic possibles every couple of yard, and keeps you on your toes. You have four reasonably different characters to choose from and each will be presented different (not drastically) approaches and dialogue (sometimes even cutscenes) that'll give you some incentive to replay the levels once you finish the game. The Helghast have good AI, brutal accuracy, and diverse classes of units and vehicles with varying weaponry that will force you to stay alert to their movement and your surroundings, cautious of your health, and effectively aggressive to keep them from crushing you. The voice of the Helghast troopers are the best in the game and though their chatter is incessantly reused it never gets old to hear their ranting and screams of terror; yes, for some reason extinguishing the life of space faring Nazi's is incredibly gratifying every single time, maybe this is owed to their hardiness and the strategy/patience it takes to orchestrate their demise.
At the beginning I was determined to show Killzone no mercy for its weak plot and characters and its complete failure to remotely realize the setting's potential, but after I moved from battlefield to battlefield I fell for its simple but simultaneously strategic gun play and novel worthy universe. Even though its story is unremarkable Killzone is a good enjoyable game that I would recommend to any FPS fan, and thankfully the guys at Guerrila Games were allowed to put their ambition in one more shot and created one of Sony's most highly received and popular franchises.