Killzone

Killzone has to be one of the finer first person shooter games of 2004. It is in my book. You start off as Templar, a Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) member, and later on in the game you gain a shadow marshal, an ISA regular, and a field operative, whose names are Luger, Rico, and Hakha. You can choose to play as any one of those four people. Your enemies are the nasty Helghasts. I must admit, the game does start off kind of slow, and I wanted to put the controller down because I thought it was boring, but I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did. It gets so much better. The story mode is awesome, the graphics are excellent, and so is the gameplay. Or, if you just wanna kill for fun, you can do the multiplayer mode (offline or online). The offline mode lets you add up to 14 computer controlled bots. My ranking for this game? 9.5/10.

I wonder who started that "Halo Killer" phrase and just what they were thinking. I imagine that person has gained the disgust of Halo and Killzone fans alike. I also imagine that this person has gotten over it now since this is 2008 after all.

Anywho, the game. Killzone for whatever reason was hailed the aforementioned nickname. And it really didn't deliver. I believe part of it was caused by the hardware itself. This game is arguably one of the better looking games on the PS2. And that's just it. This game looked great and I don't think the PS2's hardware could take it. Now if it was released for the Gamecube or Xbox. Things probably would have been different. Obviously, Killzone 2 shouldn't suffer from this problem.

Through a few hours worth of play I noticed that there is some frame rate issues and the artificial intelligence seems to not be intelligent at all a lot of the time. The multi-player I wouldn't even bother with. It felt kinda slow at times and is of no comparison to what the first Halo had to offer, let alone Halo 2. The bugs people talked about are clearly evident too. Environment and even enemy pop-ups do occur. I even seen one guy fall through a flight of stairs as I was about to hit him. And so far, i've ran into a couple of types of enemies. And by couple I mean about 2 maybe even 3. If your going to live to the that stupid nickname "Halo Killer", you damn sure better have a good variety of enemies.

What this game does have is a pretty decent story. Yes, its another one of those "humanity is at war with a fairly superior opponent" games. But what they do with that concept, they do reasonably well. I also like the guns for each side. The point of view is cool. I even liked when the guy climbed up a ladder. Seriously, I don't believe I have ever seen that in a FPS. I mean I seen them go up ladders. But that's just it, they go up. They don't climb up. Reloading was kinda neat too. Took a little while but that's how you would probably reload in real life under those conditions. The only problem I found with that is when you shoot someone with like say the shotgun underneath the helghast primary machine gun. If you have an extra shotgun round it reloads automatically. Which can sometimes screw you over. I hate that, its not needed and for a game that puts quite a bit of emphasis on realism it should not be that way at all. The sound was exceptional. Only some of the characters voices bugged me. But the music and the sounds of guns blazing were awesome.

Killzone doesn't have the AI, multi-player, and frame rate that Halo had. Not to mention all the bugs. That's why it's no "Halo Killer". What Killzone did though is get a bunch of little things right and that was enough to get by. With Killzone 2, Guerrilla will be able to live up to the hype.

After I finished Killzone I was really surprised by low rating the game got in most gaming literature. But lets start from beginning.

Story sets in future where human race is in war with Helghasts - human descendants who colonized the planet Helghan many generations ago.The player takes control of Captain Jan Templar, fighting off the Helghast invasion - OK, nothing special but decent story for one FPS told in good directed animations with shaky camera - nice.

Controls are very natural and easy to learn but what is special is game's physique. When you begin to play you'll notice (or maybe even complain) that your character is too slow, shooting not accurate and when you sprint there is gauge that allows you 10 sec sprint - exactly how it is supposed to happen when you carry 60 lbs of military gear and not a superman or heavily doped when shooting. Perhaps it takes s little time to get used to it but it's definitely worth it - very unique gaming experience.

Other fabulous element of Killzone is game play and key word is cover. Forget mindless assaults - only way to breakthrough is taking cover and destroying enemies one by one.

AI is also on high level. Enemy takes cover, alerts and avoids your grenades and attacks in groups. Your comrades are actually helping you, nice refreshing after few games where they were more obstacle than help. Also, as story develops you can choose between more characters you can take control of (balanced Templar, sniper "elegance" Luger,heavy armored Rico and spy Hakha) - although it does not have big influence it's nice refreshment.

Graphic is very good, among best on PS2, but even more important game engine doesn't twitch and textures do not burst in distance. Level design is excellent - leading you from open battlefields where it's important to save your head to urban confrontations where you can break your way with sniper riffles. Dark-gray color dominates through game and creates good atmosphere.

Also, huge plus is duration of the game - it will take you about 35 hours to finish it. These days when average FPS single player lasts about 10 hours this means a lot.

There are few things that could be better, of course (e.g. more types of enemies)but are not significant. I also red that many didn't like online mode but since I didn't played it I can't be judge of that.

Killzone is, by my opinion, the best FPS for PS2, even would dare to say that it's one of the best ever. It's shame that Guerrilla Games didn't get deserved credit for their work. Hopefully, that will be changed with Killzone 2, everyone who played beta knows what I'm talking about. In meantime, if you'd like to know how it all started you know what to do.

Killzone is definitely must-play title.

Killzone is one of the best games i have ever played for the ps2. The movements in this game are real looking but there was one problem with the movements, you cant jump. The weapons are cool except for the sniper rifle which is hard to aim but the helghast gun is really powerful. I was surprised with how great the graphics were in this game ever though it was for the ps2. The really stupid part about the game is that it takes about 5 head shots just to kill one of the helghast and all they really say is " Kill Him" or "attack". otherwise this is one of the greatest games for the ps2. This game is about equal to halo 2. I would definitely recommend this game its awesome!!!

I gotta say, when the game came out, I ignored it completely. I was a huge Halo fan at the time and any game claiming to be a superior I felt should be destined to fail and die a failures death. Christmas of 2005 me and my bro saw it for 20 bucks, so we said "what the hell" split the price, and bought it. God damn was I blown away for a while. I dug that intro where the bad guy gives the speech, it really pumped me up and got me ready for carnage. The first level started. I wasn't impressed. The pre-level cinema looked cheesy with the shaky cam and the voices sound like they weren't even serious. I passed the first level and then I started to see the true beauty. The game took a really artful approach, and it ways I found it superior to Halo, and even Halo 2. I love the grainy filter and the Bleached out, destroyed world look, it made for a really involving atmosphere and makes you think "WTF? this place really got f'ed up", and I REALLY LOVED the animations. The way you reload your gun and climb up and slide down ladders, the way you hop over small ledges. KillZone, in terms of atmosphere and animation, was a truly beautiful work of art. Each battle gave me the feeling that I was really in a war, and I hoped this continued through the rest of the game. It didn't. The game quickly became uninteresting and I simply stopped playing. Its sad too because the game had so much potential. If the sequel keeps with the feeling from the first one, then we may have a masterpiece on our hands.

I give the game a 6 out of 10 as a game. But I give the game a 9 out of 10 as art.