Killzone 2

The single-player experience is a truly enjoyable campaign across the Helghast home world that will test your skills, particularly on the higher difficulty levels, and the game simply looks phenomenal for a console shooter. But perhaps the strongest segment of the game is the extremely deep multiplayer, which gives seven basic classes with which you can create your own customized super-soldier after performing your class-specific duties. Not only did Guerrilla achieve a milestone of delivering a great exclusive title for Sony's PS3, it delivered one of the better shooters to come along in a long time. Get your hands on this game.

PRESENTATION - 10/10 Everything from the first entrance onto the battlefield to the last cut scene creates a hectic, fun and fast-paced thrill ride through a warzone where each step you take could be your last.

GRAPHICS - 10/10 Phenomenal visuals prove that Guerrilla either met or surpassed that infamous E3 trailer. Some technical issues hold it back from being a completely flawless masterpiece.

SOUND - 9/10 7.1 channel sound captures every nuance of the battlefield from gunshots to screams along with a great soundtrack. Weakly delivered, curse-filled dialog (sans Brian Cox) could have been done better.

GAMEPLAY - 9/10 You'll have to get used to the firearms as well as the AI on both sides. More turret and vehicle sections would've been great, but outside of that, the single-player campaign is fun to play through.

LASTING APPEAL - 10/10 Multiplayer is extremely deep and has the added bonus of an offline skirmish mode. This is where you'll spend the majority of your time once the credits roll.

OVERALL - 10/10

I picked this up on day of release, being quite enthusiastic after thoroughly enjoying the original on the PS2. However, since playing the original I have become a devoted Xbox360 fan and have been heavily playing titles like COD4, Halo, Bioshock etc.

When I first fired up Killzone 2 on my PS3 - only the 5th game I have ever played on it - I was initially stunned by the visuals. The opening cinematic really gets your expectations up. Stunningly rendered and awesome to behold, I became increasingly agitated with the game-play. The targeting was difficult and the FPS character movement made me feel seasick. Ever the optimist (or just insanely bloody-minded) I kept at it, hoping that my persistence would pay off.

It did! In spades. The first 2 levels are nothing special in terms of game-play (notable exception - the tank is more fun than the one in Halo 3, not to mention more powerful, more weapons a a LOT faster) but after that, the game really comes into its own.

The enemies are relentless and just keep coming. Some of the coolest weapons outside the Gears Of War franchise and epic battlefields.

Also returning are the simple "spray-and-pray" levels where you and some friends, either online or on split-screen, can simply mow down wave after wave of attacking Hellghast bots. The online multi-player may just be the best one on any game available on this platform, with enough variety to keep you coming back for more.

Killzone 2 may not be the greatest FPS of all time, but with the ferociousness of Call Of Duty 4 and the visuals that out-stun Bioshock, it's a strong contender for the title!

Killzone 2 was finally released February 2009 and was long awaited by just about all PlayStation 3 owners. It is the third installment in the Killzone franchise. The first game, Killzone was released on the PlayStation 2 and Killzone: Liberation was later released for the PlayStation Portable. Killzone 2 continues the story of the first two games having you fight as the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance against the Helghasts. This time however you take the fight to the Helghast and invade their planet, Helghan. Your goal is to stop the Helghast war machine by capturing the Helghast leader, Scolar Visari, and making him answer for his crimes.

You start the assault on Helghan from an ISA cruiser stationed high in the clouds above the planet. Your squad joins countless others that are launched from the cruiser toward Helghan. Once landed you are immediately in the fight taking on Helghast soldiers from behind walls and above on walkways and bridges. The controls were a little odd for me, but there are plenty of ways to configure them. After getting the controls to my usual layout, I began my assault. The Helghast are not a wimpy race though and it takes plenty of rounds to take one down. Even aiming for a headshot doesn't mean you are taking down that soldier. It took me on average two or three shots to the head to take one down. The first shot pops their helmet off and then depending on the level of damage he has already taken you may have to hit his head another two times. This was the most frustrating part for me, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

The Helghast are also skilled on the battlefield. They react as you would expect them to; ducking behind walls to avoid your bullets and waiting until it's all clear to come back out. They also scatter from grenades and try to flank you and your teammates. You and the ISA however aren't quite as skilled. I found my biggest disappointment in this game was the cover system. You could "attach yourself to cover," but this didn't mean you'd actually hide behind anything. I found that sometimes he wouldn't attach to cover, sometimes he would, but I'd still be getting hit and all the while your teammates are telling you to find some cover. You teammates don't follow their own advice however. Towards the end of the game my teammate would end up running into the open and be cut down quickly by enemy fire and yell for me to come save him. When he wasn't getting killed he was shooting at enemies and doing what seemed like no damage. They are mainly there for distraction; any killing you want done you have to do yourself.

OK, AI is hard to create, but you did it with the enemy why not do it with the good guys too? Aside from that the story was decent and the landscape and characters were beautifully done, even if they aren't in the full resolution of 1080p. The scripting wasn't bad for a video game, but the timing and triggering of the conversation was slow and low pauses happened in the middle of conversations and sometimes the dialogue would be cut off before they finished their sentence.

This game was fun though and the multiplayer maps are very well designed so that each team has a balanced area to work with. If you like FPS and want a short campaign to play through before you go pop the top of your friends online then I highly recommend this game. If you aren't an online gamer then I still think you should try this time, but don't buy it just go rent it. I give Killzone 2 three downed teammates out of five.

Written by Sam for www.overcranked.net

The day I bought Killzone 2 I wondered if it was worth getting over the Fallout 3 collectors edition, well the game had blown my mind right out of the gate. Unfortunatryl I never got that collectors edition. It may have been the best FPS released at that time, I was glad to own a PS3.

The Game: Lets start with the presentation. Back when this was released it had the best graphics possible, I was stunned at the dark and gritty environments, it looked incredible. The sound design was better than any other fps I could think, both this and Killzone 3 have the best sound for any shooter, period. The soundtrack is easily in the top ten best original scores for video games, it is still incredible to listen to till this day. I personally think this game looks and sounds better than Uncharted 2 which came out the same year.

Game play: People like to complain about the sluggish controls, I personally like it, it gives the game it's own unique feel. I think there is around ten guns to use throughout the single player campaign, the electricity gun you get in the refinery was pretty fun to use. I like the Helghast weapons more than the ISA ones. My biggest complaint is that L1 is mêlée, I would have preferred it to be R3, but instead aiming down the sights is R3.

The campaign: I've played between 25 and 30 hours on the single player story, yeah I enjoyed it that much. I personally hated the mission on the ISA ship, the rest was great. The urban combat was about as good as it could get in a video game, take note other developers this is how you do it. It definitely still holds it's own, it felt more realistic than Killzone 3. Killzone 3 had too many goofy action scenes, it just felt weird, like how Dead Space three just feels weird. I didn't play the multi-player enough to review it. The skirmish game mode was really fun, I played a lot of that.

Killzone 2 is definitely a must play shooter, it's a cut above most of the kid friendly garbage we get for shooters today.

I have to say that this is a really fun and enjoyable game. I'm not a huge fan of the fps games, but I've been waiting for this one ever since I saw the very first trailer back in 2005 I think it was. This game has just about everything that an fps game should have, I think, because once again, I'm not that familiar with the genre. I've only played Halo 1 & 2 (not mine, just my buddies and I didn't like them at all), 007: Goldeneye (Best FPS EVER!!!!), Resistance 1 & 2 (only own no. 2 which is amazing, but I've played 1 which is good), Call of Duty 3 & 4 (own both; 3 for PS2, and 4 for PS3; Modern Warfare is great, but I'm to slow at it LOL), Battlefield 2 & Bad Company (loved Bad Company more and it's amazing to blow stuff up), Black (amazing), etc. You get my point that I'm trying to make. I'm not that great at them, but that doesn't mean that I can't have fun with them. And Killzone 2 is that kind of game where I can just jump in at anytime and blow up whatever I want. The best part about it are the vehicles, though short, but fun as all HELL, especially when you get to be in that robot thing and just go crazy on the Higs. The story is lacking, as they pull things from other war/action films and use clichéd lines such as "Don't die on me yet," "it's cold..." (mind you I'm paraphrasing there, but you get the idea). The music is catchy as I often hum it when there's nobody around of course LOL. I think that they could have done a bit more work on the menu design, not that there's anything wrong with it, because it is cool, it's just that the colours remind me of MGS 2 with the grays and red. I don't know, maybe it's just me. Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about the sound, which is pretty F UCKING AMAZING!!!! I have my PS3 hooked up to my surround sound and my big screen TV and oh my God. The visuals are pretty breathtaking, which is weird because it's about an apocalyptic war where a lot of people die... duh... obviously... but it's still visually stunning and almost life like in a way. Now I haven't played that much of online because well... I suck at it, but from what I've seen it's just as great as the campaign, if not better. You can pretty much read about the online play on any other game review website such as ign, or just watch it on youtube. Anyways my overall score for this kick-ass game is a solid 10/10 stars as it's not only for the hardcore fans out there of the fps genre, but for everyone too. You just pick up and go basically.