It’s dark and mostly gray. And it has a familiar, popular flavor that increased my heart rate for reasons good and bad. This is my kind of, sort of “Killzone 2” campaign review.
“Killzone 2” is a PS3- exclusive first-person shooter from Guerilla Games with a cover mechanic and a great-to-hate sci-fi version of the Nazis. It has graphics that should provoke a debate about whether a game can look too good for its own good. It has a campaign that took me nine hours, 15 minutes, 45 seconds and an almost-devilish 667 killed enemies to beat.
It’s got multiplayer I have not played, an exciting score, obligatory motion control gimmicks, obligatory vehicle missions, and obligatory supporting character death as a plot device.
You’ve played this game before.
It’s got a train level, a bridge level, a section where you wield an unstoppable weapon, a clipped ending and other elements that make it advisable to not play this game immediately after one plays “Resistance 2,” “Gears of War,” “Gears of War 2,” “Call of Duty IV: Modern Warfare,” “Half-Life 2,” “Halo 2.” And there are other games it reminds me of, but to name them would be to spoil other elements of “Killzone 2″ that you don’t want to know about in advance.
At its best, “Killzone 2″’s campaign has you advancing down that bridge or through a palace courtyard, gaining inches against the Helghast. You fire at them through the smoke, when you see the orange of their eyes. During those best moments, dozens of soldiers advance behind and beside you and — like none of those games mentioned above — you are made to feel as if you control not just a gun but the morale of fighting men.
The game is at its worst at its ends, dull in the beginning hour and infuriating during a final battle that punishes the player for employing the combat strategies taught in the rest of the campaign. The developer that rewards a trophy for beating that final boss in under 20 minutes is the developer who must admit something went wrong.
A year from now few will discuss how this game played: smoothly, heav
ily, with lumbering guns and uncommonly helpful allies. A year from now people will still discuss the graphics: how good they do look.
Let a friend play and enjoy the show. There are so many characters on the screen, such detailed ruins of the Helghan planet. The rubble, the tanks, the explosions, the electrical storms and the wind — oh, the wind. You can see it. Red dust blows. Gray smoke billows. Light tries to rip through. Bullets do. Shadows stretch, as enemies bark from somewhere that a stereo sound system will not specify. If you play and your friend watches, he will see Hollywood. You will feel confusion, oppression. You’ll wonder if that wind makes for a better game or if all that dust - and the many Guerilla Games engineers and artists who labored to make it — did your friend a favor, but you the gamer a pain.
Unless you like the panic.
Then you’ll cheer and bellow at the intensity amplified by the orchestral strings as showdown after showdown feels thrilling and desperate enough to be a big budget finale.
The enemies are smart, the script less so. This game tells you nothing that video games haven’t already suggested about war. Your squadmates make no fresh jokes and curse in only the old ways. There is one bold writing decision. An armed ally makes a bad choice, one that would normally get him written out of the game: killed or turned evil. Instead, he sticks to our side, an annoyance so unusual for a game character that it’s welcome. We fight with someone we hate. That’s new. But the real stars of the game aren’t your hero or his allies. It’s those smart space-Nazi enemies. They are ferocious, thick with armor and cloaks. They all but goosestep to battle beneath the broadcasted battlecries of their wicked leader. The game makes icons of them, the chief visual fetish rendered on screen.
“Killzone 2″ is a linear war to be fought from cover at four difficulty levels, or contested in multiplayer skirmishes of up to 32 players, different classes and custom classes activated and crafted by earning experience in various match types. I can assess little more about the multiplayer until I play it, with access to it limited until the game’s release on February 27.
I can say little more about this PS3 exclusive’s relevance to system owners than what I’ve described above. Lacking co-op, it technically has less content than “Resistance 2,” offering a package more of the scale of the modern classic “Call of Duty IV.” Its middle will excite; its ending will enrage.
“Killzone 2″ is first at nothing but among the best in its stab at many familiar setpieces and technical achievements. Its bridge level is better. Its train level is better. Its graphics are better. Its enemies are better. It’s a good game in a crowded genre.
Unlike, say “Flower,” it’s the kind of game hardcore gamers ask for. You’ll enjoy it if your appetite for such flavors hasn’t been exhausted over the years or even over the last few months.
“Killzone 2″ will be out in North America on February 27. A demo of the game should be available on the PS3’s PlayStation Network the day before.
