Killzone Review

By Kristan Reed Published 25 November, 2004

30 seconds of pain over and over.

Version tested: PlayStation 2

Order yours now from Simply Games.

It was inevitable that at some stage Sony would recognise the hit potential of releasing a first-person shooter to take on the might of Halo - the surprise is that it's taken fully four years of the PS2's lifespan for a first party candidate to emerge. But let's not beat around the bush here: Killzone doesn't hold a candle to any of the FPS greats despite the bewildering level of hype heaped upon it in the run up to its release. Sure, it looks great in the screenshots, but just wait until you play it. You'll soon have all the evidence you need to come to the rapid conclusion that Guerrilla's efforts occasionally crawl out of the war-torn mire, only to get crushed under the rubble of their own failings.

In basic terms, Killzone is a war game where you, the ISA Regiments, are under attack by the Helghast on the planet Vekta, following a breach of the defence system. Not that you'd know why they're attacking or their motives from playing the damn thing, but the premise of Killzone is actually quite intriguing if you dig deep enough. The masked Nazi-stormtrooper-esque Helghast were actually once human themselves, having been somewhat mutated when they colonized the toxic planet of Helghan, and for reasons poorly explained have decided to go on a galaxy domination binge, starting with Vekta, the Earth-like planet that forms the basis of the game. To be fair, it may as well be Earth. It looks like Earth. They look like an advanced military force. You won't really care either way; Killzone's fairly lavish and detailed cut-scenes initially look promising, but lack the narrative hook to really endear you to any of the characters or pull you into the game.

War torn dystopia

'Killzone' Screenshot 1

Throwing you into one frantic war-torn scene after another, Killzone is, for all its future war premise, another extremely linear war-time FPS where fighting the next wave of enemies is essentially all that matters. It's Call Of Duty and Medal Of Honour in another time zone - the game mechanics have been imported more or less wholesale, although with a degree of difficulty and intelligence that might scare off fans of the sort of run and gun where enemies drop to the floor in three quick hits. Although the 'Normal' difficulty has been seriously toned down since the ferocious toughness of the fully formed preview build we got hold of back in September, it's still a game that makes you work hard for your kills, with most of your standard arsenal woefully inadequate in dealing with the Helghast masses.

It seems that someone at Sony demanded that Killzone's difficulty level was set to more sane realms, but a sweet spot has been found that still allows Guerrilla to show off some of its more impressive AI techniques that occasionally reveal the Helghast to have an uncanny knack for self preservation - making finishing off clusters of enemies a far more challenging prospect than you'd normally expect from a console shooter. Whack it up to the Hard difficulty setting and it's one of the most unforgiving shooters out there, really making you work for the right to kill thanks to a combination of high enemy hit points, weedy health on your side and some of the most underpowered weapons we've ever come across in a videogame. When one of your buddy grunts utters "We'll secure the area, you go on ahead", we truly wanted to punch his lights out. What, go on ahead and fight ten bastard-hard enemies with this popgun while you stand around having a ciggie? Genius.

But while these intense firefights provide a decent challenge, and in small doses can be a tense, even exciting snapshot into what the game was trying to achieve, it becomes overwhelmingly evident very early on that all that changes about the gameplay are the weapons and the locations. All you get to fight are Helghast masses, wearing roughly the same uniforms, with only minor differences between their weapons and insignia allowing you to tell the difference, all barking the same endlessly repetitive war cries until you're blue in the face with listening to them; providing you haven't already passed out holding your breath waiting for the game to introduce any real variety at all.

30 seconds of pain, over and over

'Killzone' Screenshot 2

Although Bungie has received a fair bit of stick for its 'thirty seconds of fun over and over' mantra that it designs its Halo games to, at least it didn't substitute 'fun' for 'pain' as we have here, and had the decency to introduce different enemies, for crying out loud. Killzone's decision to build an entire game around ostensibly the same enemies is simply a bizarre one, and not a very compelling one at that. After two hours you're certain new enemy variations will arrive to present a new challenge; maybe with new tactics and a more fearsome design. But no. Maybe they'll be dressed in white, take a bit more damage and wield a slightly better gun, but it's ostensibly more of the same until you get utterly tired of it all.

With eleven chapters to wade through (each normally broken up into about four sections) it's unlikely to last all that long; most of the first half can be cracked in under an hour on your first run through, and even the more challenging end-of-chapter sections won't hold you up for all that long. Providing you don't fall prey to the dreaded inconsiderate and inconsistent checkpoint save system that seems to only go AWOL when you really need it. The chances are you'll not be too happy to get right to the end of a chapter, cop it on the last enemy (who will probably appear out of nowhere wielding an RPG, or be manning a previously unseen machine gun turret) and be forced to backtrack through the last 20 minute's worth. If there's one thing we can't stand in FPSs it's being forced to backtrack. You wouldn't like us when we're backtracking.

As a result of a few hugely frustrating failures, you learn to be a lot more careful playing Killzone - every battle has the potential to be a Game Over screen in the making, so you find yourself tentatively backing off from every encounter until you're sure you've got it right, and retreating every time you cop a shot so that your health bar can recharge a few notches. It is tense; it can have its moments of enjoyment as a result, but let's not pretend that a dodgy checkpoint save mechanic is the future of gaming. It's a lazy way of arbitrarily upping the difficulty, and the tension only comes from the fact that you really don't want to have to go through the whole rigmarole again. It's not as if you actually want to run through another cut and paste section repeating the same fire fights for fun, only to turn the corner and find roughly the same battles awaiting you all over again.

Ctrl C, Ctrl V

'Killzone' Screenshot 3

If Guerrilla has learned anything from Bungie, it's that incomprehensibly tedious trick of cut and paste level design. At first, the shattered cityscape trench warfare doesn't reveal this, nor does the office block section or the sewers for that matter - but once you hit the shopping mall section, followed by the endlessly tedious dock environment, it starts screaming "We couldn't be arsed!" at you. At our most exasperated Captain Templar utters the immortal line: "The journey is long and arduous, yet we must press on." We couldn't help but nod at the former sentiments. Long and arduous indeed, as we stared blankly at the Nintendo DS sat awaiting our attention in front of us, neglected in order to review this. We've no doubt that years of hard work went into Killzone, and we feel for those people over at Guerrilla, but to the casual observer all they're going to see is a fairly bog standard game with repetitive levels populated by the same old enemies. How is that in any way exciting? The truth is, sadly, that it isn't.

To add to the sense of disappointment, the visuals don't even deliver anywhere near the promise that the totally misleading screenshots suggested. At first glance, the shattered landscapes look immensely detailed, but not only are they somewhat bland and grainy, the frame rate is so sluggish as to ruin any sense of immersion you might have been expecting. Turn up the heat in a big battle and the action would make pea soup set on simmer for half an hour seem like running water in its fluidity. The thing is, there's nothing standout amazing about the visuals in any case. Sure, the cut-scene facial detail is very pleasing, but that's soon spoiled by puppet lip-synching.

It's not as if the game's making use of a higher resolution than normal, packing the world with incredible detail or pulling off the kind of fancy physics tricks that would be associated with such stress. In fact, apart from water coolers copping it in a firefight, it's hard to identify anything approaching real world physics - even the death animations get caught in the scenery much of the time. But some of the worst visual crimes are reserved for the in-game facial detail, which has an amusing tendency to pop onto the characters faces at the very last moment, making them look faintly eerie as a consequence. For sure, the levels have an acceptable level of detail, but that's all it is. It's not a game you'll be wowing your friends with, showing them how far the PS2 has come. We'll probably have to wait for Criterion's Black for that.

"Get your shit together and start acting like soldiers"

'Killzone' Screenshot 4

And what of the vaunted AI? At one point one of the characters utters "Get your shit together and start acting like soldiers." We're still not sure if he was talking about us or the enemy AI. Having been massively toned down to make the game vaguely playable (a wise decision, it turns out), it manages to be simultaneously convincing and utterly dumb. One minute the Helghast are ganging up on you to tremendous effect, taking up dynamic cover points and creeping around to take you out, the next they're standing blissfully unaware that you've just sniped the guy standing next to them. If you're in line of sight the AI is remarkably reactive, but exploit their apparent inability to see anything to the side of them, coupled with slow reactions to turning to face side-on attacks and it suddenly looks very weak indeed. The potential was there, there's no doubt, but in practice it veers between the unplayably hard and the dense.

Much of the associated difficulty comes from a very poorly implemented control system that makes basic sniping a heinously sensitive chore, while even making minor adjustments to close up firefights seems to be a black art. It's something you adjust to in time, but alarming and costly mistakes are but a joypad lurch away. But while the likes of us will persist with ropey controls to get the job done, we can't imagine the casual gamer looking for the PS2's answer to Halo will. It's so crucial to make the game feel right from the off, and it's painfully evident that Killzone simply doesn't achieve this basic goal.

One of the game's potential saving graces also falls largely flat, sadly; that of allowing players to choose from one of four characters to play the game from. To kick off with you'll be controlling Captain Templar, a thoroughly generic clean cut ISA recruit with no special abilities other than being able to cop more damage than the others. Luger, the token female, comes in at Chapter 2 equipped with thermal vision and the ability to sneak through otherwise inaccessible areas, while Rico enters the scene in the chapter after that as the Heavy Weapons chap, leaving Hakha (voiced in typically biting style by Sean Pertwee) following as the runt of the litter in the fourth episode as the Helghast turncoat able to bypass enemy security. In theory, offering four ways to play each chapter ought to provide plenty of replay value, but in practice it's not as interesting as you might imagine; although playing as Rico feels like cheating, thanks to his uber death gun that minces everything in its path.

Just your average disappointment

So, we've dealt with the thoroughly average and ultimately disappointing single-player campaign, which leaves the Battlefields multiplayer (16-player online, or offline with bots) to save the day. We certainly admire the effort Guerrilla has gone to in order to prove what the PS2 is capable of, but we're left wondering if it was all in vain. As ever there's single and team-based Deathmatch to test your itchy trigger finger, the assault-based team mode Domination (control switches around the map), a variation on Domination called Defend and Destroy (defend two key objectives while destroying your opponents) and a capture the flag variant called Supply Drop (capture containers dropped around the map). Although it's hard to knock these well established game types, they've also been done to death. If you can muster 16 players then there's the usual multiplayer fun in prospect, but next to something like Halo 2's options and offerings it looks almost embarrassingly outclassed. It's not a deal clincher, put it that way, but is admittedly one of the better PS2 Online offerings, and on the plus side 16-player support is a major bonus.

Killzone was, quite obviously, burdened with the kind of expectations that it was never likely to deliver on. But for a rapidly excitable press campaign determined to push this as a Halo-beater the game may well have been viewed in a more sensible light, but unfortunately for Sony, Guerrilla neither has the pedigree nor the design talents to really make the most of what the PS2 has to offer. The PS2 has always been the toughest machine to make standout FPSs for, and the sad fact is by the time an exceptionally talented team unlocks the true power of the machine, the bar will have been raised so far out of sight that no-one will even care; rather like the now-forgotten achievements in the latter days of the PSone. That Killzone doesn't live up to expectations shouldn't come as a major surprise to anyone; that Sony has chosen to release such a damp squib at this outrageously competitive time of year most definitely is. If you chose to ignore any of the major contenders this year, make sure it's Killzone - you won't have missed much.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

5 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (155) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • gamingdave #1 7 years ago

    5, average then, doesnt sound very good, theres going to be some fan wars on here very soon.

    /ooh and first, for the first time
    Edited by 1 at 25/11/04 @ 10:25

  • MaTTy_P #2 7 years ago

    that crap then? fantastic, saves me a couple of quid bothering even renting this.

  • Stevas mkII #3 7 years ago

    5? Seriously? A five? Like, out of ten? You realise you just signed this sites death warrant? You know that they're gonna descend on you like a -

    Uh-oh.

    Here they come.


    My day just got a whole lot more interesting...

  • dadrester #4 7 years ago

    i've only played the first level and a half and already it's major flaws are already shinning through. it looks pretty though.

  • tengu #5 7 years ago

    Going by the demo, it is pretty rubbish alright. What utter spaz actually mentioned THIS and Halo in the same sentence in the first place?

    /Spits on Killzone

  • Milk #6 7 years ago

    5. Ouch. Thats gotta hurt.

    What would it have got if there had never been Halo or Halo2 I wonder...

    Oh well, at least the hype was quite good, And the screenshots look nice.

    Who is going to be the first person to raise issue with the score?

    /silence

    /looks round

  • krudster #7 7 years ago

    I've rarely been so nonplussed with a videogame. It's digital prozac.

  • gizmo #8 7 years ago

    'Halo Killer'

    Heh.

    Was quite looking forward to this.

  • Milk #9 7 years ago

    To be fair to the developer, did they ever mention the 'other game'?

    I remember reading an early feature in Edge and they ran a mile from putting it up against halo. I bet they shat thier pants when people started making the connection...

    And if they did bring this uppon themselves, well. No sympathy from me.

  • Eighthours #10 7 years ago

    So...er....not as good as Halo then?

    (for once)

  • Dizzy #11 7 years ago

    Gamespot gave this a 6 so I guess a lot of the Killzone fans are used to low scores. EG should be ok.

    Oh and... yes.. Killzone is a bad game, amazing how people could pretend until the last minute that this game was going to rule.

  • pjmaybe #12 7 years ago

    It's just pure comedy looking at the enemy animation and AI compared to...well practically any other FPS game on any platform...

    It's like a really bad PS1 shooter dressed up in PS2 clothing.

    Peej

  • Hicksy #13 7 years ago

    Half-Life 2 is the only Halo Killer!

    and Halo is strong enough to stand by it's side!

  • Singularity #14 7 years ago

    I hope the DS makes the world bright again, Kruds. : )

  • bero #15 7 years ago

    Finishing the review copy and the game is good. Better than Halo? Wouldn't say, but I wouldn't give Halo's linear approach 'just go and shoot everythong' anything close to 9/10.

    Anyway, let's compare it like this - Halo 2 is FIFA, Killzone is PES. You can't compare them but I know what I'm playing and what's nice for my little brother and showing off the graphic quality to outsiders.

  • steven #16 7 years ago

    Killzone always seemed dull for me regardless of hype. Nice review Krudster.

  • CyberClaw #17 7 years ago

    I was expecting a gameplay quirk regarding the name (like they promissed back when they only referred it's title, and that it was a FPS, suposely a Halo killer (this was a Sony rep words I believe)). The name just refered to the pixel perfect AI headshots then... Bah...

  • Nebularhaze #18 7 years ago

    "Anyway, let's compare it like this - Halo 2 is FIFA, Killzone is PES. You can't compare them but I know what I'm playing and what's nice for my little brother and showing off the graphic quality to outsiders."

    You must be joking really..... r u?

    /wonders how people come to these conclusions

  • krudster #19 7 years ago

    I fully believe this game will pick up a dogged fanbase determined to see through its dull repetition, but, bleh, people like all sorts of rubbish for all sorts of strange unfathomable reason. I'm not right, you're not wrong. But it isn't all that.

  • toy_brain #20 7 years ago

    Having surfed a couple other gaming forums, it seems like the PS2 fanboys arn't going overboard trying to defend this game. I think most of them/us saw it coming.....

  • pjmaybe #21 7 years ago

    "EG peeps: do you think the score would be higher if it was released/reviewed a few months ago, i.e. pre-halo2, hl2 etc? Or would it need to be pre-riddick, pre-doom to start comparing better? "

    I think had it come out shortly after Edge's rather large article on it, it would have got a better score.

    It's just been superceded by so many games though, it'd be difficult to see WHY anyone would buy it tbh.

    Peej

  • dadrester #22 7 years ago

    EG peeps: do you think the score would be higher if it was released/reviewed a few months ago, i.e. pre-halo2, hl2 etc? Or would it need to be pre-riddick, pre-doom to start comparing better?

    yes pre doom it would have been very good indeed. ;)
    Edited by 1 at 25/11/04 @ 11:29

  • krudster #23 7 years ago

    Maybe a few years back it would have been a seven, maybe an eight given the multiplayer angle, but no game gets by being this repetitive. To be trying to wow us with this sort of stuff now is misguided.
    Edited by 1 at 25/11/04 @ 11:31

  • CyberClaw #24 7 years ago

    bero, that's silly. I mean, I'd even go out and agree if you said Metroid Prime and Halo are different enough to warrant "no comparison", because one is a FPS, the other is an action platformer game in the FPS perspective.

    But Killzone is in the league of Halo. It can be compared. Both are FPSs, the difference is that Halo is good, Killzone is not. And this is hardly opinion based either. Strip both games off content, and the gameplay is way more refined, detailded, and deep in halo (or halo 2 for that matter), than in killzone. Not to mention the control over the character.

    And why can't we compare FIFA and PES? They are both footy games, why shouldn't we compare them? You make no sense dude :|

  • Blerk #25 7 years ago

    Well we didn't see that one coming, did we?

    I was half interested until I saw the distinctly 'meh' E3 videos. Then I couldn't quite figure out what all the fuss was about.

    /goes back to TimeSplitters 2

  • Eighthours #26 7 years ago

    Finishing the review copy and the game is good. Better than Halo? Wouldn't say, but I wouldn't give Halo's linear approach 'just go and shoot everythong' anything close to 9/10.

    Anyway, let's compare it like this - Halo 2 is FIFA, Killzone is PES. You can't compare them but I know what I'm playing and what's nice for my little brother and showing off the graphic quality to outsiders.

    Are we being bearded? ;)

  • Tiger_Walts #27 7 years ago

    Well, the AI sounds better than Doom 3's.

  • Scoops #28 7 years ago

    I don't think either the developers or Sony ever mentioned Killzone and Halo in the same sentence unless asked by the press and as Milk says, they tried to distance themselves from any comparison.

    I played the multiplayer beta and found it quite enjoyable, a lot slower pace than most FPS but there were problems with the framerate then. It seems they just haven't got to grips with that, or the AI it seems from what I have read.

    I blame the press for building the game up so much, but then that is what they do isn't it. Now, what PS2 FPS should we be thinking is the new Halo beater now??

  • thebuzzard #29 7 years ago

    Having played both, I much prefer this to Halo, its grmier and tougher than Halo2. Over all I just prefer the look and feel of this to Halo2. Neither are fantastic games though. Id give Halo2 6/10 and this 7/10. Especially after playing HL2.

  • krudster #30 7 years ago

    Black. Watch out for it.

  • bero #31 7 years ago

    Why can't I compare PES and FIFA (halo and Killzone)? Because You cannot compare games aimed at different audiences. PES is (in my opinion) aimed at footy lovers, and FIFA is aimed at 'sunday players'. Both are VERY good at what they do. Killzone is for war-freaks and Halo is for masses.

    I guess most of the people comenting on Killzone haven't played it so it's not really worth defending it in the face of non existing arguments, but the repetitivnes is something the real war has really much of (Halo is also quite repetitive btw.). Halo is just easier on the eye because it is much more colofull, but take a trip to Bosnia or Irak and you'll see there are only two colours to war: grey and red. And in a heated firefight there's no possible way to aim your gun with pin-point precision. You just spray. Trust me.

    So - Killzone does it for me as it's gritty, fast, frenetic and chaotic. I don't say everybody should like it. But you can't say it's bad and compare it to a walk through the dollhouse. Populated by strange aliens but the dollhouse nontheless.

  • mcmonkeyplc #32 7 years ago

    Thats nice, soooooooo when are you putting up the xbox review of pro evo 4?

    MCM

  • Blerk #33 7 years ago

    Black. Watch out for it.

    If only they'd tell us something about it!

  • markypants #34 7 years ago

    Hey Bero, what's the pay like over at Guerrilla Games? ;)

  • CyberClaw #35 7 years ago

    bero, games couldn't be compared then. Each game has it's target audience. But when games fall under a category, they can be compared. They can even be compared when they fall under different categories, but then, opinions are very relative.
    As for what you said, FIFA is a cookie cut out game, with a number in front of it. It's a franchise. PES is a football game. I don't like football games, but I enjoy PES far more than FIFA.

    And like I said, strip both games of grafics or animations (both sections where Halo comes clearly on top IMO), and Halo sole gameplay is still far superior to Killzone (this is a game afterall, and the most important thing in a game is gameplay). And yes, I played the game.

  • phAge #36 7 years ago

    Bero - not meaning to be rude here or anything, but I really couldn´t give a damn if "real war is grey and red", or "in real war you just aim and spray" (which isn´t true, incidentally). If the game has SERIOUS framerate issues (and it does), utterly crap AI (which it does), looks boring (which it does), and is unfairly hard (which it is) - it is. not. a. good. game.

    And I´m pretty sure that Konami wont take to kindly to having PES compaired to Killzone, either...

  • ralphwolfenstein #37 7 years ago

    I'd be curious to know how much bero, mr 22 posts in comments and none in the forums (hell, at least you took the trouble to register!) , has played Killzone himself seeing as it's not out yet...

    The PES/FIFA comparison is... mind bogglingly disingenuous. You can call Halo a lot of thngs, but 'for the masses' because it's 'colourful'? Halo is a thoroughbred gamers' FPS. IF it was a football game it'd be PES with the FIFA licence. Just because it has high production values doesn't mean it's for 'Sunday Drivers'

    I think Killzone's art direction is superb, and aesthetically at least is has a suitably war-torn, gritty feel to it. But it suffers technically, and gameplay wise it's positively shallow compared to Bungie's work

    But hey - better than Fire Warrior and Mace Griffin eh?


  • Peekaboo #38 7 years ago

    I actually enjoyed the demo, nothing flash, linear as hell but I liked it, hey ho, I'll let my little brother get it and then borrow it.

  • Shinzou #39 7 years ago

    Hey never mind this crap youve got a DS sitting there and you havent told us about it yet.
    GET TO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • bero #40 7 years ago

    To ralphwolfenstein: incidentaly, I write reviews and I'm finnishing the REVIEW copy (so playing in excess of 10 hours, tried all characters and most weapons and locations). I usually don't comment on forums here as I mostly agree with what the guys write but in this case I'm really annoyed with the 5/10 so I decided to comment.
    And no, Halo isn't "thoroughbred gamers' " FPS. Let's continue the comparison with PES-FIFA. PES simulates football quite accurately and that's why it's played by footy lovers. The same is with Killzone, but not Halo which just screams 'see my special effects'. (in FIFA case that would be 'see the Beckham's hairdo').

  • Dizzy #41 7 years ago

    /shoots bero in face with shotgun

    Ok.. back to work everybody!

  • BartonFink #42 7 years ago

    So as suspected it is indeed a very average shooter.
    Meh! PS2 still has no decent shooter shocker ;)

  • Ignatius_Cheese #43 7 years ago

    Meh at this... Meh at Halo 2... Slowly caresses Half-Life 2... You're okay boy... No threat soon in any way shape or form ;o)

  • Blerk #44 7 years ago

    Bloody TimeSplitters 2, Finkster! Look!

    /points

  • phAge #45 7 years ago

    Bero: Now I DO mean to be rude, but you really are full of shit. Killzone simulates real war as much as Tony Hawks simulates skateboarding.

    In real war, it doesnt take half a clip of 5.56 to put an enemy down, handgrenades are also lethal at more than 3 metres, and the enemy sure as FUCK dont stand around and look bewildered when youve just wasted 2 of his mates. To name but a few errors. Also, I seem to recall soldiers being able to JUMP in real life, but maybe things change in the future, right...?

    The ONLY difference between the "representation of real war" in Halo 1 + 2 and Killzone, is that Killzone uses high-tech weapons against a human foe, as opposed to Halo which uses sci-fi weapons against aliens.

    Get over yourself and your none-too-impressive attempts at sounding "in the know" about "real war".

    Pfft!

  • Khab #46 7 years ago

    The weird thing is that all these criticisms (except possibly that it looks boring) could as easily be levelled at Halo 2 as well. Try reading through the review and mentally substitute "Killzone" for "Halo 2", etc.

    Oh well. Seeing as I enjoyed the preview so much, I shall withhold final judgement until I've played the final game...

  • thebuzzard #47 7 years ago

    Yeh at least bero agrees with me. Killzone is much better than a lot of reviews have said. Not earth shattering but definitely one of the best console FPS shooter games.

  • BartonFink #48 7 years ago

    Bloody TimeSplitters 2, Finkster! Look!

    /points    Ye can point all ye like! Even that is relegated to the relms of meh! because of bloody floppy stick syndrome.

  • fireclown #49 7 years ago

    gestalt: 'ostensibly' means something that appears to be so, is intended to look so, and isn't actually so. Not 'obviously'.

    that's me pedant quota for the day.

  • Zero Beat #50 7 years ago

    Half-Life's pretty good with a USB mouse and keyboard. :D

  • phAge #51 7 years ago

    Khab?

    AFAIK, Halo 2 doesnt suffer from either atrocious AI, framerate problems, broken ragdoll, pathetic weapons, generic enemies or a crappy save-system?

    Maybe by "a lot of the problems", you mean "repetetive level design"?

  • thebuzzard #52 7 years ago

    Halo2 feels more like an expansion pack for Halo rather than a new game. I was bored with it before the end of level 1.

  • lemonfist #53 7 years ago

    I knew it...when Shellshock Nam was relased, I just knew gorilla was gonna fuck this up too...too bad, I kinda liked the graphical design from what I've seen from screenshots

  • CyberClaw #54 7 years ago

    Khab, I'd wholy disagree. Halo's AI is consistent through the difficulty setting (quite actually they don't change the AI, but change the hitpoints and damage, as well as spawned enemies). Gameplay is way more psiced up (vehicles, jacking, dual wielding, etc), online play is like the 2nd comming of christ... I could go on forever.

    The only thing that Killzone and Halo 2 share is being repetitive... But godamn, while in Halo 2, being repeating can become tiring, yet the fights never stop being fun, in Killzone, being repetitive becomes boring and uninteresting.

  • mingster #55 7 years ago

    Look the game was overhyped.. its distinctly 'meh'.
    Please don't bother defending it theres too many real good games to play at the moment.
    So all move along now, nothing to see.

  • mingster #56 7 years ago

    Yup and i agree Shellshock Nam was a botch job too..
    Gorilla have now seriously gone down in my developers fantasy league.
    This was their only chance for redemption after past efforts.

  • Khab #57 7 years ago

    pHage, I found the Halo 2 enemy design boring (one new enemy? And they're big bears that mindlessly run at you when they get mad? Ooooh...), the level design atrocious (I really thought Halo 2's levels were insanely boring, with the possible exception of the Earth level.), the amount of graphical pop-in and LOD problems quite disturbing, and the story generally unengaging.

    There we have Enemies, Level Design and Graphics problems, right there. Add to that the fact that while multi sure has lots of options, you never get to play what you want because there's no server browser, well...

    Anyway, I've played the preview code for Killzone (as I stated in my last post), and it was tremendous fun. Granted, I only played for an hour, but it really felt like fighting in a city, really gritty. I also prefer semi-probable enemies to big blue bears on a rampage. Anyway, all I'm saying is I want to play the game and see for myself. :)

  • thebuzzard #58 7 years ago

    If everybody liked the same thing the world would be a boring place indeed.

  • Eighthours #59 7 years ago

    To ralphwolfenstein: incidentaly, I write reviews and I'm finnishing the REVIEW copy (so playing in excess of 10 hours, tried all characters and most weapons and locations). I usually don't comment on forums here as I mostly agree with what the guys write but in this case I'm really annoyed with the 5/10 so I decided to comment.
    And no, Halo isn't "thoroughbred gamers' " FPS. Let's continue the comparison with PES-FIFA. PES simulates football quite accurately and that's why it's played by footy lovers. The same is with Killzone, but not Halo which just screams 'see my special effects'. (in FIFA case that would be 'see the Beckham's hairdo').

    Care to tell us which publication/website you do reviews for? I want to make a mental note to avoid it.

  • Swaain #60 7 years ago

    I definitely agree with a lot of the points that are raised by the reviewer, but I also think he is being unnecessarily harsh. OK, the game doesn't deliver on the hype, but the backlash this game is experienting in most internetreviews is, IMO, unwarranted.

    Having finished the game a few weeks ago (on NTSC release), I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that Killzone definitely isn't the halo killer it was touted to be. However, it also is a hell of a lot better than recent EA console shooters, especially on ps2 (say, James Bond games, Medal of Honor), or Red Faction II, or...

    I think that in all fairness, and according to EG's own standards, this game should've gotten a 6, or maybe a 7. The score it has now doesn't do it justice at all, especially in comparison to other games. Actually, it seems to me that EG has just tried to please the Killzone-bashing crowd out there. I expected you to do better.
    Edited by 1 at 25/11/04 @ 13:08

  • Chris Gardiner #61 7 years ago

    'thirty seconds of fun over and over'

    Argh! I wish people would stop saying this every time Halo comes up! It doesn't *mean* anything! If it's true of Halo, how is it not true of every game ever? I don't care if a Bungie developer said it in the first place, it's bollocks. Developers are just as able to talk nonsense as any of us!

    Gah!

    / Feels better

  • speedjack #62 7 years ago

    Played the demo and was thinking of getting this - but not now.

    Must admit though it did seem a bit slow and I couldn't get used to the re-load animations where the perspective jars to the ground whilst your soldier looks at the weapon he's loading.

    I know its probably meant to highten the realism, but arn't soldiers trained to be able to reload without looking at the gun they're holding ?

  • WriterUK #63 7 years ago

    God, I'm glad I got out of SCEE before this released.

    Completely unsurprised it's a 5. A year ago, it was something special, and if it had been released then, it might have been a 7 or even an 8, at a push.

    BTW, the 'Halo-beater' quote? There's a long and convoluted history to that, but as far as I recall, C&VG said it first; then everyone else picked up on it. No-one at Guerrilla or SCE ever said it... at least not on the record.

    Of course, the phrase 'Halo-beater' was being attached to every FPS in development at one point in (about) 2002.

    Actually why am I even speculating - we have Mr C&VG here at Eurogamer now - Pat, why not end speculation? :)

  • fireclown #64 7 years ago

    CG: 'thirty seconds of fun over and over'

    'Argh! I wish people would stop saying this every time Halo comes up! It doesn't *mean* anything!'

    It's a good way to contrast with other shooters (HL2 is the current shining example) which try to offer variety of experience: more enemies or more puzzles or more jumping or more weapons or more scripted sequences or more environments... Halo (and I assume H2, haven't played, read reviews) just try to do one thing very very well.

    How much variety was there in Halo? remarkably little, but because the combat was exceptionally well implemented and because variety doesn't always imply quality, it really didn't matter. Except in the library levels, which were like karma for the rest of the game being too much fun.

  • fireclown #65 7 years ago

    ' how is it not true of every game ever'

    I'm assuming you mean every *shooter* ever. :) Unless there's a crazy ultra-fast-paced way of playing Civ or KOTOR that I missed.

  • Blerk #66 7 years ago

    we have Mr C&VG here at Eurogamer now - Pat, why not end speculation?

    Pat worked at C&VG?! :-D

    Ha ha!

    /points

  • BartonFink #67 7 years ago

    Khab wrote
    Anyway, I've played the preview code for Killzone (as I stated in my last post), and it was tremendous fun. Granted, I only played for an hour, but it really felt like fighting in a city, really gritty. I also prefer semi-probable enemies to big blue bears on a rampage. Anyway, all I'm saying is I want to play the game and see for myself. :)

    Speaks volumes that! You liked this but didn't like Halo2.
    Played the demo a good while ago and unless they have made vast improvements in the AI, environments, and controls. Then this yoke couldn't hold a candle to Halo2. Different strokes I guess.

  • ralphwolfenstein #68 7 years ago

    "people always take sides when it comes to different consoles"

    Oh I don't think they do so much on this site, at least not the regulars. The console issue is irrelevant here, if Killzone was on Xbox and was billed as a 'Halo beater' (as Mace Griffin and Riddick both were at various points) the comaprisons would still be made.

    The fact that Killzone is on PS2 adds a degree of politics to it, as the press (particularly the single format) know thay have to keep these perceived rivalries alive (and champion their own format in the case of the latter, as their sales rely on their readers not thinking there's a better console out there and juming ship) to entertain the youngsters...

    Ultimately the game was hyped, Sony never said 'Oh, don't say that please!' and the vultures move in when Killzone predictably falls far short of a pretty mediocre benchmark, let alone Halo 2's...

    And Bero's review for 'Horse and Hound' aside, the press have been rightly quick to stick the knives in

  • The-Bodybuilder #69 7 years ago

    "And in a heated firefight there's no possible way to aim your gun with pin-point precision. You just spray. Trust me."

    shut up. you don't know what the hell your talking about. just please, shut up.

    "Yes, many's the time I've switched on the news to see soldiers jumping around Iraq, n00b :p"

    call me crazy, but i'm sure soldiers have the ability to step over a plank of wood, or step up on a pavement?

    why people are defending this crap is beyond me. as gamers, we have H2, HL2, MGS3, MP2, PP: warrior within, amongst other titles to play.
    why should people punish themselves defending a crap title?

    i'm sure sony regret buying guerilla now....

  • Chris Gardiner #70 7 years ago

    "How much variety was there in Halo? remarkably little, but because the combat was exceptionally well implemented and because variety doesn't always imply quality, it really didn't matter. Except in the library levels, which were like karma for the rest of the game being too much fun."

    So which of my 30 seconds in Halo are we talking about? My beach assault into woods with two squads of marines at my side? My desperate race to escape the flood? The time I spent in a tank engaged in combat with Covenant air force? My time as a sniper protecting a base from dropped Covenant troops? My (entirely insane) warthog race through ancient ruins? My tooth-and-nails fight over a bridge, struggling for every foot of ground, while forces on an adjacent bridge kept up a hail of fire? Banshee dogfighting in the snow?

    I just can't see how "30 seconds of fun applies".

    :) = Smiley, to ensure everyone's clear this is still good-natured debate.

  • Chris Gardiner #71 7 years ago

    "I'm assuming you mean every *shooter* ever. :) Unless there's a crazy ultra-fast-paced way of playing Civ or KOTOR that I missed."

    Nope, I meant every game. After all, Civ is always clicking on build cues and looking at city stats, and KOTOR is always going from NPC A to NPC B and back, and clicking on the same combat moves and force powers each fight.

    My point is that, if the statement's true for Halo (and I don't think it is) then it's true for every other game too.

  • Dizzy #72 7 years ago

    They just keep coming don't they!

    Let it go... stop defending Killzone!!!!

  • tiddles #73 7 years ago

    I was wondering when someone would mention the mythical 'Black'. It could be the Psyclapse and Bandersnatch of this generation.

    What, will you need a 64K RAM pack to play it?

  • Swaain #74 7 years ago

    This thread is rapidly degenerating IMO : way too many people here are harping on about a game they haven't even finished. But then again, games forums wouldn't be any fun if we only talked about the games we actually checked out for ourselves - e.g., we actually bothered to play beyond the demo, or the first three, four levels...

    Why isn't it possible for an overhyped game to turn out, you know, just decent? Why the trashing? But hey, that's what gamers forums are all about, I guess.

  • patlike #75 7 years ago

    I believe Johnny Minkley first used the phrase "Halo-beater" in relation to Killzone. This was after I left Dennis to launch Xbox World at Computec Media.

    Yes, Blerk, I worked on CVG from 1999 to the end of 2002 for EMAP and Dennis. Your point? ;)

  • bero #76 7 years ago

    I guess all the arguments are out and everybody can decide. It's also true that you can't please everyone. I'm just sorry that some of the people have to rely on insults when they have nothing really constructive to say.
    I still stand on the position that Halo 2 and Killzone shouldn't be compared and that Killzone is not as bad as the reviewer thinks. As the Shellshock was also mentioned in the discussion, I must say that I liked the atmosphere and find it similar to Killzone so probably there's a point of view issue here.
    And no, I don't work for Guerilla or Sony.

  • VicViper #77 7 years ago

    I gonna try and stay netural here, the demo was alright and I seen some pretty bad graphical problems, enemies sinking into the floor, one of my teamates ending up to his neck in concrete. So I see what your aiming at here.

    I had planned on getting it but I have ,wisely in this case, changed my mind. As FPS's go this was never gonna be a halo 1 beater never mind 2 or HL2 etc,

    but it did have it's own sense of style just poorly executed I'm mean the reload animation was a nice touch, a real soilder would look while reloading I suppose and you can't go up ladders and things with a rifle in hand either, well you can but its unnecessary and difficult.

    Ah well can't win them all I suppose

  • Blerk #78 7 years ago

    Yes, Blerk, I worked on CVG from 1999 to the end of 2002 for EMAP and Dennis. Your point? ;)

    No point really. Just general mirth at C&VG, the gaming world's answer to Smash Hits. :-)

  • phAge #79 7 years ago

    "I guess all the arguments are out and everybody can decide. It's also true that you can't please everyone. I'm just sorry that some of the people have to rely on insults when they have nothing really constructive to say.
    I still stand on the position that Halo 2 and Killzone shouldn't be compared and that Killzone is not as bad as the reviewer thinks. As the Shellshock was also mentioned in the discussion, I must say that I liked the atmosphere and find it similar to Killzone so probably there's a point of view issue here.
    And no, I don't work for Guerilla or Sony."

    I didn´t insult you before you stared talking crap (the whole "I know what REAL war is REALLY about"-thing). Also, you didnt just say that you felt Killzone was better - you said that Halo was only pretty graphics and nothing more - bound to upset a few people.

    (And the statement "Killzone is for war-freaks and Halo is for masses" is b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t. Like I said - Killzone has fuck-all to do with real war - and so does Halo).

    Is all.

    Edited by 2 at 25/11/04 @ 15:27

  • patlike #80 7 years ago

    :)

  • IronGiant #81 7 years ago

    Best thing about Killzone is the lifesize plastic Helghast soldier i've just seen standing in the window of Game!! cool :)

  • mash the x button #82 7 years ago

    Sony should have given this to Insomniac, I'm sure they could have made a great game :)

  • fireclown #83 7 years ago

    'So which of my 30 seconds in Halo are we talking about? My beach assault into woods with two squads of marines at my side? My desperate race to escape the flood? The time I spent in a tank engaged in combat with Covenant air force? My time as a sniper protecting a base from dropped Covenant troops? My (entirely insane) warthog race through ancient ruins? My tooth-and-nails fight over a bridge, struggling for every foot of ground, while forces on an adjacent bridge kept up a hail of fire? Banshee dogfighting in the snow? '

    I remember all those except for the warthog race, which is presumably just you :) And except for the banshee dogfighting (the vehicles are a good point actually), they're all pretty similar experiences using pretty similar tactics. The 'sniper defence' devolves very quickly into a firefight, especially since you're 'sniping' with a pistol (you do mean the bit right at the beginning, no?)

    And above all there are stretches and stretches and stretches of very similar corridors and grassland and corridors, and then some corridors, full of NPCs who, bless 'em, behave in a way you come to know and love. That's the Bungie magic: set up battles in different terrain with the same set of enemy and allies, concentrate on the AI and the graphics to make each of those battles fun, don't try to do different things. And season with vehicles, true.

    wrt KOTOR and Civ - there are two differences.

    One is instant gratification. In those other games you're often doing repetitive, only faintly interesting stuff like schlepping from A to B or tweaking tax rates, for bigger fun down the line. Halo never lets you alone to do dull stuff (except explore for the door you've missed), it keeps chucking grenades at you.

    Second is strategy. In Halo you never need to think beyond a very short time frame - not quite thirty seconds in an involved fight, but not far off. You certainly don't think in terms of strategy.

    The ammo and weapons thing is telling. In DX or Unreal or HL or other excellent shooters you have six or eight weapons with different ammo types that you hoard and spend. In Halo you can only have two weapons, and you conserve ammo from moment to moment, but you can always pick up more from the bodies of your enemies. You don't need to worry so much about conserving your health and armour over time, either, because of the energy shield...which takes less than thirty seconds to regenerate.

  • countlippe #84 7 years ago

    I fell over and hurt my finger.

  • Dizzy #85 7 years ago

    >I remember all those except for the warthog race, which is presumably just you :) And except for the banshee dogfighting

    Err... that's from Halo 2 dude
    Edited by 2 at 25/11/04 @ 16:07

  • Chris Gardiner #86 7 years ago

    I thought you'd left me.

    :)

    "And except for the banshee dogfighting (the vehicles are a good point actually), they're all pretty similar experiences using pretty similar tactics."

    I disagree - I found them all very different. Some were heavy-weaponed charges, some were speed-driven evasions, some were cautious sniping. I remember a brutal sequence where my vehicle got shot out from under me and I was fighting convenant artillery, tanks, and troops, *on foot* across a frozen lake. I was very careful, changed position a lot, swapped between weapons quickly, and targetted specific enemy types while moving for position. Very different from the charge up the beach or the securing of the landing zones. Halo also has the co-op option - a very different experience of the game.

    "And above all there are stretches and stretches and stretches of very similar corridors and grassland and corridors, and then some corridors, full of NPCs who, bless 'em, behave in a way you come to know and love."

    True of all NPCs in computer games. The ninjas in HalfLife all try to sneak up and stab you, the headcrabs all jump for your face. Samey levels are hardly unique to Halo, either. I don't even think they were that much more samey than any other shooter. I remember a lot of lab corridors in HalfLife.

    "The 'sniper defence' devolves very quickly into a firefight, especially since you're 'sniping' with a pistol (you do mean the bit right at the beginning, no?) "

    I do, but I had a sniper rifle. Taken from a dead soldier, I think.

    "One is instant gratification. In those other games you're often doing repetitive, only faintly interesting stuff like schlepping from A to B or tweaking tax rates, for bigger fun down the line."

    Of course there are differences between Civ, KOTOR and Halo. But my point is only that if Halo is the same 30 seconds of fun, so are KOTOR and Civ. And everything else. How many different activities did you do in KOTOR? How many enemies demonstrated unique forms of behaviour? I certainly found KOTOR more repetitive than Halo. Talk about your endless samey corridors. :)

    "Second is strategy. In Halo you never need to think beyond a very short time frame"

    But Halo isn't a strategy game. If it gets marked down for this, then Civ gets marked down for its fights being dull. However, for a shooter, I found Halo's 2-weapon limit *did* add a nice touch of strategy - which gun is likely to be more useful in this environment? How likely am I to find ammo for it? What sort of enemies am I fighting. I remember agonising over it at some points.

    But this is getting off the point. I still hold that "30 seconds of fun over and over" is an entirely unhelpful description.

  • Chris Gardiner #87 7 years ago

    > Err... that's from Halo 2 dude

    No it wasn't - I haven't finished Halo 2 yet. :)

    I don't mean a race between 2 warthogs, I mean I was racing *on* a warthog. Against time. And, y'know, bad guys and stuff.

    There's a warthog race in Halo 2?

    Neat!

  • Eighthours #88 7 years ago

    Framerate was steady and AI was pretty good for an FPS. Can´t see why some reviewers bash the AI. Timesplitters, Halo series and especially Doom III has quite awful AI in comparison.

    Halo has worse AI than Killzone!!! :)

    What absolute unadulterated rubbish......

  • polar #89 7 years ago

    In fairness, Halo is a bit more varied an experience than the "30 seconds" comment suggests. It was great 3 years ago, but Halo 2 has ruined it for me.

    As for Killzone - surely any FPS is going to be pants with the PS2's controller.

  • Feanor #90 7 years ago

    "I've rarely been so nonplussed with a videogame. It's digital prozac."

    Umm, nonplussed means to be filled with bewilderment. So I don not understand what you are saying with the prozac reference.

  • fireclown #91 7 years ago

    I think your enthusiasm's doing you a disservice. I'm *not* 'marking down' Halo for it. I think Bungie are doing one thing exceptionally well, and it's unfair to criticise Halo for not being like DX or indeed HL2. It sounds like Killzone was trying to do something very similar, so that's a fair comparison.

    wrt samey enemies. The headcrabs all jump, but the zombies or the marines or the vortigaunts work completely differently. Not to mention the huge beastie you can't shoot at but can distract with grenades, the sharks or the landmines. Halo has three kinds of enemy who shoot at you and three kinds who try to melee you. The ones who shoot at you use cover intelligently and all that, so it's still fun.

    'I disagree - I found them all very different. Some were heavy-weaponed charges, some were speed-driven evasions, some were cautious sniping.'

    Yeah. How many *puzzles*, though? As opposed to fights? God forbid that I'm implying a game with more puzzles is necessarily better, that's patently not true, but it does mean you're doing something different more often.

    'How many different activities did you do in KOTOR? How many enemies demonstrated unique forms of behaviour?'

    All of them, but then I was also buying equipment, managing xp, talking to NPCs, talking to party members, solving puzzles, using non-combat Jedi powers, and so on.

    Look at it this way. In DX, pick a thirty-second segment of gameplay. Now pick another nine thirty-second segments of gameplay. You may find that I'm fighting or exploring a peaceful area or hacking a lock or chatting up an NPC or shopping or whatever. In Halo I'm probably doing ten lots of shooting, chucking grenades, ducking back into cover.

    The distinction between Halo and more versatile games is that you're doing the same thing, more or less, over and over again - thirty seconds of fun maybe in the versatile games, but a radically different thirty seconds of fun a lot of the time, rather than the same thirty seconds.

    The distinction between Halo and similarly focused shooters is that in Halo there's considerably more chance of it being '30 seconds of fun', not '30 seconds of *meh*', repeated over and over.

    ' I still hold that "30 seconds of fun over and over" is an entirely unhelpful description.'

    It translates to me as: we're only trying to do one thing very well, not five things quite well. It'd persuade me to buy it. :)

  • WriterUK #92 7 years ago

    No point really. Just general mirth at C&VG, the gaming world's answer to Smash Hits. :-)

    I beg to differ... when Pat was in charge, the gaming press (especially the online people) quaked in fear at what he was going to turn up next.

    Laugh if you like, but it shook a few trees back then.

    Now, on the other hand....

  • Chris Gardiner #93 7 years ago

    "wrt samey enemies. The headcrabs all jump, but the zombies or the marines or the vortigaunts work completely differently. Not to mention the huge beastie you can't shoot at but can distract with grenades, the sharks or the landmines. Halo has three kinds of enemy who shoot at you and three kinds who try to melee you."

    Hey - if you ignore everything that makes Halo's enemies different and generalise them in "melee" and "shoot" enemies, they *do* sound samey! And if you put them next to individually named enemies from Half-Life, Halo's sound even worse! I'd never noticed that!

    :)

    The jackals in Halo carry huge shields and use them for cover while shooting. The grunts are cowardly and flee whenever something doesn't go their way. The elites are quick, aggressive, and have regenerating force fields. Thats 3 "shoot" enemies with different behaviour. The "melee" types include Hunters, who have huge shields that make them immune to basic frontal weapons fire and splash-damage ranged weapons, and who do these terrifying close-range charges. The basic flood do headcrab jumping. The bulgy-mutant Flodd thingies stumble towards you and blow up.

    Halo's enemies are just as diverse as Half-Life's.

    And now I'm arguing that Halo is great, which isn't my point. I *do* like it, but that's not my issue. I don't think it's the best shooter ever.

    "Yeah. How many *puzzles*, though? As opposed to fights? God forbid that I'm implying a game with more puzzles is necessarily better, that's patently not true, but it does mean you're doing something different more often. "

    Fair enough. Halo doesn't do puzzles. But Half-Life (and lots of other shooters) don't have vehicles.

    Let's try and cut to the wotsit. You get thirty seconds of Halo on foot with marines, thirty seconds alone in a tank, thirty seconds being gunner in a warthog, and thirty alone in a locked room against a hundred Flood.

    Do you consider these four things the same gameplay experience? If you don't think that's varied enough to count as anything other than "the same 30 seconds of fun over and over", then fairy nuff. We've got different definitions of "same" and are unlikely to cross the divide.

    Although, if you do, then I still don't understand how any other shooter (leave HL2 out of it, if you'd be so good - firstly I've not played it and so
    can't usefully comment, and secondly it has the advantage of having been out last week, and is based on newer, more advanced tech than Halo, which is what? 3 years old? I'm not sure the comparison is fair. Especially, as I understand it, HL2 is the Game of Games) can be excused from the same complaint.

    I'd argue that the same can be said of any other game, shooter or not, since, f'rex, I don't see that clicking on dialogue options and clicking on a limited set of combat moves in KOTOR represents more diverse gameplay than Halo's weapons, varying situations, and vehicles. Since we lack any means of quantifying this, I guess you could take either side. What's important, though is that I'm right.

    "look at it this way. In DX, pick a thirty-second segment of gameplay. Now pick another nine thirty-second segments of gameplay. You may find that I'm fighting or exploring a peaceful area or hacking a lock or chatting up an NPC or shopping or whatever. In Halo I'm probably doing ten lots of shooting, chucking grenades, ducking back into cover. "

    What you won't be doing in DE, though, is taking to the skies in a banshee, driving a tank, or doing a timed escape in a jeep through an exploding spaceship. Same in KOTOR, where your interaction with the world is (a) clicking a dialogue option, or (b) clicking an attack ability.

    Halo is more focussed in the activities you undertake, sure, but the plus side of that is that you get more of them. It's just that they're all combat-based.

    I guess if your definition of different requires you have noncombat stuff, fair enough. But the downside of *that* is you lose vehicles, or squad battles, or different tactical objectives, or whatever.

  • IronGiant #94 7 years ago

    Good god..

    /hands out awards for longest replies

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #95 7 years ago

    No point really. Just general mirth at C&VG, the gaming world's answer to Smash Hits. :-)

    I beg to differ... when Pat was in charge, the gaming press (especially the online people) quaked in fear at what he was going to turn up next.

    It's true.

    I wonder if they are ever going to hire a replacement.

    Edit: This site needs an html help guide ;)
    Edited by 1 at 25/11/04 @ 18:34

  • Freek #96 7 years ago

    OHHH, best comment section since GTA!
    This'll be good. :D
    I must say, have lost respect for the the dutch press though. They're usually the first ones to ripp into the shitty games dutch developers try to putt out there but now they were aperently blinded by the nice screenshots.
    Power Unlimeted even dared to say "No, we're not marking it up becuase it's dutch, it's just that good!"
    -8.9
    And everywhere you look, one negative review after the other, even IGN slagged it off.
    Credibitlity minus a 100.
    Edited by 1 at 25/11/04 @ 19:01

  • bungalooBunny #97 7 years ago

    Feanor: nonplussed means 'not to have words to express'. I think what it was trying to say was the game is... Meh.

    I played through it with Rico because I couldn't be bothered repeating the levels endlessly with the other characters (they die too quickly). The characters could have been used much better, mainly Hacka could have cloaking skills or something like that.

    The AI is the most pathetic I've seen recently, the gameplay overall is really repetitive and the frame rate sucks but the graphics are really good.

    If they had tried to do something like the original Medal of Honour on th PS1 it would suit the game really well, unfortunately they went for the 'shoot everything on screen' approach and even that isn't done that great.

    Maybe an extra point wouldn't hurt though..

  • O-Fox #98 7 years ago

    Res Corr, I take it you HAVE played (and completed) a final build of the game? Or are you just defending it because OP2M told you to defend it?

  • krudster #99 7 years ago

    A nice reply to Ress Cor:

    First of all it would have been nice if you had "died laughing" and saved us more Killzone thread pain.

    "You did not review the final build" Yep, boxed copy, right here. Want proof? I also played the preview build for the first four chapters, so am in a good position to see how things have changed.

    "You're too poor to own a good TV" Erm, sorry dude. 50" Tosh Plasma not good enough for you?

    "Angry at playing a hard game" Erm, no level took more than an hour, most took about 40 mins.

    And you have a personal invite to come round my house and kick my arse!

  • ssuellid #100 7 years ago

    If you have a router you should be able to just plug the xbox network cable into the back of the router. If it is a router it normally will have 4 or so ethernet type sockets. Many routers have a DMZ option that you can use to tell the router to turn off all the fiddly security stuff like NAT and allow a direct connection - not recommended for the PC connection tho.

    edit - just looked at the BT site - it only has one ethernet connection. BT say its suitable for games consoles so there should be a way of disabling NAT etc.

    BTW if you post this question on the eurogamer forum - link on the menu above, then someone else might be able to help you out.
    Edited by 2 at 25/11/04 @ 21:11

  • patlike #101 7 years ago

    I beg to differ... when Pat was in charge, the gaming press (especially the online people) quaked in fear at what he was going to turn up next.

    Very flattering, thank you. I could tell you lot a few stories... :)

    Pat

  • The-Bodybuilder #102 7 years ago

    I almost died laughing-ress cor

    why must u tease us GOD? u should have finished the job. :)

    this comment section is better than both GTA:SA and the both halo 1 & 2

  • urban #103 7 years ago

    got hyped way beyond what it ever could be, and because it flew past its halo 2 competitor release date, pointless waste of hype.

  • patlike #104 7 years ago

    Kris, look: "You can't even write!" I wish you'd learn... ;)

    Pat

  • krudster #105 7 years ago

    I know. How I get away with it is amazing. ;)

  • Blerk #106 7 years ago

    Did someone write that post for you?

  • Lutz #107 7 years ago

    Digiz, are you real? Halo2 has by far the best FPS graphics on a console to date. The pop up is an issue, granted, but just look at the detail in the game.

    And I've not seen the AI fuck up at all. Admittedly it doesn't have the scope to work with like it did in a lot of the places in Halo1, but still...

  • onyxbox #108 7 years ago

    ps2 just can't seem to do it. MOH, Bond and the many others just have crappy AI where they just stand prone shooting at you till you gun them down, maybe ducking sometimes.

    BTW: Those games are just as bad on all the other systems.

    ‘Metal Arms: Glitch in the system’ has Halo’ish AI IMO and large open battle environments that shows it off. Half Life also available on PS2 is another that springs to mind.

    I think most games don't have "good AI" Halo just happens to be one of the very few that does and it happens to be on Xbox. The differences between the XBox hardware and the PS2 has little to do with it IMO and I bet if Bungie wrote an FPS for PS2 the AI would be ok.

  • Royal Fool #109 7 years ago

    The AI would obviously be better on the PS2 - Emotion Engine, anyone? :o

    EDIT: Damn typos.
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/04 @ 10:08

  • ssuellid #110 7 years ago

    Les, if you shoot your team mates in single player mode they do react - they moan at you and move out of the firing line - or die.

  • Lutz #111 7 years ago

    Les: If you shoot a marine he'll moan at you, as it's probably as accident. Try shooting about half of a squad of marine on purpose... The others should return fire then.

    Well, that's what it did in Halo1.

  • Virvel #112 7 years ago

    Guys, try this game, it is pretty good! The gameplay sort of reminds me of Doom:

    - Difficult to survive
    - You cant just save the game anywhere, like in real life
    - Mind your ammo at alle times, it actually takes time to reload and you have to reload manually
    - You cant just storm into a room and kill everything you see, you actually have to plan your moves.

    But, just to make things clear:

    KillZone is not a shiny movie-like well directed first-person game like HalfLife, Halo etc. Its sort of different. Simple design and repetetive action. So, If you are spoiled with a great PC and all the best PC FPS titles, KillZone has few or little surprises for you. But, I would definitely say it is worth a rental.

    It is nice online too, although its just the old formula of deathmatch. But, it IS different in many aspects.

    I am pretty sure this title will sell very well on the PS2. To understand why, consider this:

    The average PS2 owner is not spoiled with the latest PC-technology. He does not have a top notch PC with the latest graphics card. He has a TV and a black box where he put the games. He does not know about XBox or Halo. He will be thrilled with this game!

    That said, he is not on these forums either, none of you reading these posts are the average PS2 owner :)


  • Virvel #113 7 years ago

    I would like to add that mr. Reed, who wrote this review sort of lost is credibility after giving KillZone 5 of 10. Im not saying its a 9 or 10, but
    as a Playstation2 title, KillZone is worth a 7 or 8 definitely.

    Isnt that how reviews are supposed to work? When a new game appears, a considerable amount of rating should amount from what already exists on a platform. Not from what already exists on other systems. Most console owners only has a PS2!

    Mr. Reed, I think your review is a result of bitter/moaning dissapointment regarding the supposed(proved?) hype of Sony mixed with a your mind being spoiled by the great FPS blockbuster semi-movies on PC.

    Dont take this personally Reed, take it to your boss and ask him wether reviews of a game on a particular platform should be compared with what exists on other platforms
    Edited by 2 at 26/11/04 @ 10:52

  • CaptainBinky #114 7 years ago

    Hmmm...

    Agreed with the points on the control system, but I really, really, really, loved this game. Thought it was bloody splendid for a PS2. Don't think it's very fair to compare Killzone with PC or X-Box FPSs like Halo cos you're bound to be able to push more with those types of machines.

    However, for a PS2 I thought it was great. Graphically, the only thing missing was real-time shadows. The physics wasn't real-time either - those water canisters in the mall were set-piece anims, not physics. But frankly, who cares. It looked great, the atmosphere was cool, and the bad guys with the glowing orange eyes were ace.

    So there. ;o)

  • SteveB #115 7 years ago

    Krudster, if I really enjoyed the demo would I like like this ? or was the demo not a true reflection of the final game.

  • The-Bodybuilder #116 7 years ago

    "You cant just save the game anywhere, like in real life"-vivid

    like i said before, please don't bring real life situations into a game.
    if you want the game to be realistic, then you should only be able to die once. and once you die, the dvd self-destructs and your never allowed to play again.

    "I personally think that there are maybe 20 console titles with better graphics than Halo 2."-digiz

    name them.

    seriously, you can't make a claim like that without backing it up. i want to see the list of 20 games on all consoles.

  • Lutz #117 7 years ago

    The only game that I would say is on the same par, graphically, as Halo2, is Chronicles of Riddick.

  • Lutz #118 7 years ago

    Completely subject I agree, but FFX?! Are you KIDDING me?

  • elvenearth #119 7 years ago

    this is the lowest review from any site I have seen, so the score is probably unfair

  • krudster #120 7 years ago

    Sorry to break it to you KZ fans, but we review *games* not platforms, and as such scores have to be judged not in terms of whether it's "good for a PS2" or such like, but in the context of other games. I'm sure movie reviewers don't upscale their ratings because it looks good on their 14" portable versus the multiplex cinema.

    A game is a game is a game. We're platform agnostic and really have no bias or favouritism to one or the other, no matter what anybody might think. We're gaming fans and if something like HL2 comes out and redefines the benchmark then the also rans suffer proportionately. Yep, 6 months ago this might have been a six or seven, but I was so bored playing it that even though I could see that technically it was "good for a PS2" and looked like a six or seven but the boredom and tedium factor chipped away at the score until we hit 5. The more you play this game the less you like it. I actually thought it was great for about 10 minutes. But then you do literally the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over. Usually in copy/paste levels....BEGONE! We deserve better!

  • CaptainBinky #121 7 years ago

    Fair point about it being ultimately about the game, and rightly so. It's the graphical arguments that get me. Like Riddick for example. True, it looks lovely, but it's the lighting, the bump maps, the shadows etc which make it look lovely - things which can be done on a PC and XBox easily, but much harder (or impossible) to do on PS2. It's those kind of comparisons which are unfair. Graphically, I thought Killzone did a hell of a job, but rightly graphics alone should never mean a high score.

    But I did enjoy the set pieces. And I didn't get bored after 10 mins. But that's the subjective bit.

    :o)

  • bungalooBunny #122 7 years ago

    The graphics are great but you have to take into account the louse framerate, the texture pop-ups and the repetitive level design - As Krudster said many times they look like copy-paste.

    But in the end it's the boring gameplay that ruins the game, so who cares about the pretty graphics?

    It got an average of 74% in GamesRankings so most reviews go along the same lines...

  • Les #123 7 years ago

    So if I understand you correctly, krudster, Halo 2 would have received at least a point less, had it been released after Half-Life 2 ? ;-)

  • The-Bodybuilder #124 7 years ago

    "Well, you asked for it. 20 console games I think are more pleasing to the eye."

    where do u start.
    i can't argue with you, simply becuase you used the "subjective" card on me. and it is near impossible to argue with another persons opinion.

    however, we are not talking about art direction here. we are talking about overall graphics. some of those games you listed thier, you pust them thier simply based on your preferance to the art direction (F-X anyone?)

    "So if I understand you correctly, krudster, Halo 2 would have received at least a point less, had it been released after Half-Life 2 ? ;-)"

    possibly.
    but then again, HL2 has come before a game in the future that will most definately be better than HL2. Does that mean HL2 should be marked down now?

    face the facts. killzone is a poor mans H2/HL2.

  • ChocNut #125 7 years ago

    The vast majority of negative comments on this review come from people who havent played the game, dont have ps2 online and quite frankly dont know what theyre talking about.
    As for the review, Im a bit surprised. I dont mind harsh reviews but this is not a 5/10 game unless you take away a point out of 10 every time a loading screen appears.
    Call me insane, but I during this weekend have had the opportunity to play Half-Life 2 on a savage PC or the above game. I've been playing both, but believe it or not I've been playing this more!
    This is a fairly meaty multiplayer FPS that works very well and I dont know what everyone has against it - even taking into consideration the other popular FPS choices.
    It may not be a long-standing classic, but it without a doubt merits at least 6/10.
    IMO

  • Les #126 7 years ago

    "however, we are not talking about art direction here. we are talking about overall graphics. some of those games you listed thier, you pust them thier simply based on your preferance to the art direction (F-X anyone?)"

    I think art direction is the most important part of overall graphics. You can have a model of a million polygons in high-res, but if the model is ugly, I don't care how many polygons are in it.

    I do not like the style of Halo (or Halo 2) with all the colors, plastic look and the model of Master Chief (probably the dumbest name for a video game character outside of the Megaman games) and so it's hard to enjoy the thousands of polygons the game-engine is moving each second.

    I do like the style of Killzone though. The screenshots are beautiful: dark and realistic. But if it's really not very playable because of the glitches, then it's not much of a game.

  • phAge #127 7 years ago

    Where did bero go - "back to the jungle"?

  • phAge #128 7 years ago

    "You have to be fucking joking me. Eurogamer.net just lost all of its credibility. This site is now officially a joke".

    Nownow - that 5 might a be a bit on the high side, but surely that is no reason for such an outburst...

  • medulla oblongata #129 7 years ago

    Hahahaha!

    Good one Phage, very stuff!

  • blueseagull #130 7 years ago

    > Best thing about Killzone is the lifesize plastic Helghast soldier i've just seen standing in the window of Game!! cool

    Helghast soldiers often stand motionless in the actual game too. ;-)

    I think 5/10 is harsh. Comparing it to MoH rather than the almighty Halo puts a different spin on it.

  • tiddles #131 7 years ago

    heh - I'm likely to be the subject of ridicule for saying this, but I'm really enjoying it.

    Think of it as the missing link between Medal of Honor and Halo - in structure and style it's closest to the former, but the intensity of the fights recalls Halo's greatness. The environments are the best thing about it - I find them incredibly atmospheric and well-constructed, although they're not immune from cut'n'paste (Kristan rightly points the finger at the dock level for this). In this respect I think they actually out-do Halo 2, whose environments (imho) are often quite bland and unconvincing.

    You do need a tolerance for a dodgy frame-rates (although it's hardly worse than GTA:SA), and it needs more restart points. There ARE different types of enemy, but they just don't have the variety of behaviour that makes Halo's combat so compelling. And don't get me started on the extremely limited range of voice samples - sometimes you can hear the same sample four or five times in a row...

    But in spite of all this, it's kept me playing. The slow-burning intensity of the fire-fights has a unique character, and I've enjoyed both this and Halo equally - Halo is obviously the more polished and solid product, but I've been more gripped by Killzone's atmosphere and drama. IGN's 7.5 score seems about right to me.

  • Donkey81 #132 7 years ago

    Tiddles: can you show your technique of argument and pursuasion to all the people who are saying "KZ is gud so ther!!!!1!" please?

  • SteveB #133 7 years ago

    Well I was almost put off this game after reading this review, but I enjoyed the demo so bought it anyway. Glad I did as it's rather good. Tiddles post above sums up the pros and cons perfectly and I agree with him/her that despite it's obvious flaws it's still great fun. 7/10 or 8/10 if you only own the PS2.

    Off topic, but EG's reviews seem very inconsistent. How can KZ get 5/10 and in the same week the far more generic Call of Duty get 7/10 ? Maybe it's time EG adopted Edge's policy of reviewing games as 'Edge' (EG in this case) rather than having individual named reviewers ? It would improve reviewing consistency across the site.

  • Donkey81 #134 7 years ago

    SteveB: Erm, no it wouldn't. It'd improve the shallowest illusion of consistency, but it wouldn't actually affect it at all, if you actually think about it.

    On a side-note, it's already been pointed out here that to rate a game higher because, 'well, it's on the PS2, and if that's all you have then it's good' is preposterous. A game is a game, regardless of the platform. It's akin to saying 'Wolfenstein 3D is better than Half-Life 2 because it was released twelve years earlier.' It's sheer irrelevance.

  • Donkey81 #135 7 years ago

    Big Bad Blonde: What, so because a few people disagree, Kristan should just conveniently change his mind? So if he pretends to like it, will that make you happy? Because that's all that matters, isn't it. ¬_¬

  • tiddles #136 7 years ago

    On a side-note, it's already been pointed out here that to rate a game higher because, 'well, it's on the PS2, and if that's all you have then it's good' is preposterous. A game is a game, regardless of the platform. It's akin to saying 'Wolfenstein 3D is better than Half-Life 2 because it was released twelve years earlier.' It's sheer irrelevance.

    It wouldn't be irrelevant if all you had was a PS2 though, would it? EG is a multiformat site, so yes they should be comparing games across formats, but it's also true that a lot of people out only own PS2s and don't have Xboxes (or Cubes).

    I don't think EG should have to take this account when scoring games, but I do think many people who hadn't played or didn't have access to Halo would be more than satisfied by Killzone... It's not as good as Halo, but it does have at least some of the elements that make Halo great - much more so than Medal Of Honor, for example.

  • Scoops #137 7 years ago

    Tiddles is quite right...

    Imagine:

    PS2 Owner: Yes, I think I get Killzone.
    Website Review: Don't bother, it sucks.
    PS2 Owner: Really? I looked in a magazine and they said it was great, plus the graphics on the back of the box look good.
    Website Review: Yes well, I am telling you don't do it - play Halo instead.
    PS2 Owner: Oh right, haven't really heard of that, in fact haven't seen it in the shops.
    Website Review: Well, you need to look in the Xbox section.
    PS2 Owner: But I don't have one of those, what else can I play instead?
    Website Review: Half-Life 2 is excellent, even better than Halo.
    PS2 Owner: Right. Is that available on Playstation then?
    Website Review: Er.. No. You need a PC for that.
    PS2 Owner: Look, I have a PS2 - what is the best FPS for it?
    Website Review: Erm.. Killzone it is then.

    Comparing games over different formats for the majority of gamers out there is irrelevant.

  • Nillsens #138 7 years ago

    Brutal!

    But the verdict sounds fair to me.
    Shame though, was kinda hoping it would be good.

    I always wonder what happens to the playtesters for this kind of game...

    "So what's your impression Bill?".
    "Erm... it is kinda repetetive,".
    "Get them out of here, take care of him, prepare for pre-release hype purgatory,".

  • Mirkan #139 7 years ago

    HL2 gets 10 and this gets 5? In two strokes of utter insanity EG has alienated me completely from their scoring capabilities. Good god.

  • MaChao #140 7 years ago

    hmm 5/10 i realy dont get it,thats just fucking stupid.

    I have the game and ive recently finished it and overall i felt quite pleased with it.The graphics are realy nice and the game play aint too bad,if i was reviewing it id give it a 8 or 9 but 5,thats realy stupid.

    Oh and am i right in saying that officail PS2 mag gave this 9/10?

  • MaChao #141 7 years ago

    oh by the way the ending went there will proably be a Killzone 2

  • Lothar Hex #142 7 years ago

    MaChao an official magazine giving a much hyped game a high score is nothing to be proud about. They would have given Killzone a 9 even if it was the worst game ever. Just like the official Xbox mag would have given Halo 2 a 10 no matter how good or bad it was.

    Saying an official mag gave this game a high score is like looking out the window, seeing rain and saying "it's raining".

  • mash the x button #143 7 years ago

    "Saying an official mag gave this game a high score is like looking out the window, seeing rain and saying "it's raining".

    Ha ha top comment ! Check the oscars for that pile of shite Titanic and wonder why...

    /Mr cynic mode off

  • UltraViolet #144 7 years ago

    5/10 is an average score, for a game which is clearly better than average, just not realy a great one

  • MaChao #145 7 years ago

    Ok you got a good point,

    But 5/10 abit harsh. look at all the other games that got 5/10,killzone is way better then them.

  • Mashum #146 7 years ago

    It's not bad at all. Hampered a bit by the PS2 and perhaps a bit too hard on it's default difficulty but playing it through on easy is quite fun.

  • Mirkan #147 7 years ago

    "But 5/10 abit harsh. look at all the other games that got 5/10,killzone is way better then them."

    Exactly!

    That's the insaneness of it.

    So this doesn't tickle your post Half Life 2 banana? Apparently Halo 2 doesn't either. (which regardless is a fantastic shooter that people will keep coming back to years from now for the single player/AI combat and story alone, judging by Halo 1) Even so, on PS2 Killzone is the undeniable winner among shooters, and even holds appeal for someone like me who've played HL2 and Halo 2 through.

    This isn't even an opinion matter, KZ deserves more than 5/10 on its gameplay and art direction merits alone.

  • Tippytappy #148 7 years ago

    "IMHO, Killzone is the best FPS on the PS2."

    Touche, the game has it's problems but it is also enjoyable at the same time. I look forward to future installments, two are already in the pipeline as Sony have registered the domains.

    Killzone 2 PS2, PSP or PS3? I hope it's for the PS3.


    Killzone 3 - defintely on PS3

    http://www.register.com/

    killzone2game.com
    killzone3game.com
    Edited by 2 at 18/12/04 @ 10:50

  • robo_1 #149 7 years ago

    I loved it. For some reason I've enjoyed it more than Halo 2, which just gathers dust after one meh inspired run through. The tactical play of hide, shoot, sprint is perfectly executed in KillZone, and I sincerely hope more people check it out. It's got a terrific atmosphere and some stunning set pieces. Fighting troops up stream and descending on Fire bases has been great fun, plenty of variation and action. Fingers crossed for a sequel.

  • drumbaby #150 7 years ago

    Hope to pick this up cheap in the post Xmas sales. I really want to take this game online.

    S'funny the reviews seem to be panning it, but its riding quite high in Game Stats popularity charts (above Halo 2) and just you try getting a cheap version of this on Ebay....People still willing to pay top dollar...grrrr.

  • Ravenlore #151 7 years ago

    This is a good game just finished it. I liked it better than Halo or Halo2.

    WHY???

    You see Halo is a childish game to me. All the bright colors, Jumping like a frog on a hot platter is just not my style. If I wanted something fake TimeSpliters is perferable.

    Killzone is more slow more like an slower paced game with lots of action happening all around. There are several things different from halo

    1. Hidding places= there are plentyof places to take cover behind.
    2. Aiming = different guns have different aiming and kick (when shooting thegun.

    All and all this game was fun and great to play. If you liked TS, halo, Tribs, UC. then this game may not be for you. But if you like a slower more realistic game then this could be the game for you.

  • #152 7 years ago

    remember what they all said killzone its a halo beater! hold on people i will be right back HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH thats better.

  • EVERYGAMER #153 7 years ago

    Just picked this up today and I'm on the "docks level" I think as far as FPS' on the PS2 go, this game is pretty good along with Timesplitters 2. It can't hold a candle to Halo or Halo 2 but I still found it to be enjoyable and no more of a grind than Halo 2 (which is just not as much fun to play as Halo) The main problem is the PS2 just can't cope with giving the gamer a solid game world, half the levels feel like sets and that the walls would fall over if you ran into them. Fortunately this is only noticable on some levels and the game forces you on at a steady pace so you don't have much time to stare at the scenery. It give it a higher mark, but only if you don't have another console or PC and are into your FPS's

  • PSPFANBOY #154 7 years ago

    As with most things it falls down to personal opinon its like some people like indian some like chinese some like Halo some like killzone

  • Les #155 5 years ago

    Picked this up the other day and must say I like it. After Quake 2 and the first Unreal I grew kind of tired of FPS games. I did try Unreal Tournament 2004 but it wasn’t really my kind of game. I guess I’m not into the running and bunny hopping. Might also explain why, besides the terrible art direction and pointless leveling up system, I don’t like Oblivion’s game mechanics much either. On the consoles I did enjoy Time Splitters 2 but mainly because playing splitscreen multiplayer is always fun.

    Recently I started playing the Resistance demo that I downloaded from the PSN and I liked it (while The Darknes did little to me and I can’t get myself to actually booting up the GRAW2 demo), so I decided to give the FPS genre another try. With Killzone being the cheapest FPS available that I can play on the PS3, I decided to pick it up and I don’t regret it.

    I like the more deliberate pacing of this game: going gung-ho is sure to get you killed in seconds. Despite the SF setting, the game is quite realistic: No strange jumps, reloading takes quite some time (which enemies exploit but you can exploit as well), human-like enemies and no carrying 10 or so guns around. Framerate isn’t very impressive but it certainly is playable. Art direction is great. Have no issues with the controls TBH but might be due to my limited exposure to console FPSs. I’m only halfway through the second chapter so maybe by the end I’ll grow tired of the Helghast enemies.

    Other than it being an FPS, it’s not got much in common with Halo. Because of the more realistic approach it baffles me that this was ever marketed as a Halo-beater. This game is less accessible and will probably appeal to a more limited audience than Halo. I hope they’ll not dumb down Killzone 2 to make it more accessible because that would destroy it’s appeal to me.

  • seedaripper #156 3 years ago

    bloody rubbish!

  • blighty76 #157 2 years ago

    Well it's 2010 and I'm collecting PS2 games like mad before they get "retro cool" and the price begins to inflate. I picked this up pre-owned for 2 quid at my local Blockbuster. Whoever had it before me got bored pretty quick as my copy is mint and looks unused. I have to say I played it through to the end and quite enjoyed it. Here you have a nice looking game with loads of atmosphere and really beefy weapons. Some of the levels get a bit repetitive, such as the docks and the jungle (the latter of which almost prompted me to lose interest). Having slogged through these though, it got better toward the end. Some big names on the voice acting as well, such as Brian Cox and that most under-appreciated of British character/voice actors, Sean Pertwee. If you can find it for mere pennies like I did, Killzone is definitely worth a blast.