If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Killzone 3 Multiplayer Beta

Beta the devil you know.

Finally, Turbine Concourse SE-6 is both the most gimmicky of the arenas and the slowest burner. A gutted and partially dismantled factory, by the looks of it, the sickly green lighting is caused by a central chunk of malfunctioning machinery that goes off every few minutes taking your radar with it. (More importantly, it makes a fabulously cool noise at the same time, which I assume Guerrilla can only have captured by recording two Boeing 747s having sexual intercourse.)

It's filled with secrets, from twitching robot arms that whir away in the background drawing your attention (often fatally), to a series of puddle-filled trenches, which bring a fitting touch of World War I to Killzone's grimy conflict.

Turbine's just great for popping enemies in the face as they tool around a corner with no radar, and it's the only map that currently supports jetpacks. Under Guerrilla's careful handling these are so short on juice they only give you a quick boost into the air, and they're so quick to recharge you can bound across the landscape like a deadly metallic frog. One more of my lifetime ambitions to cross off the list, then. Like Gatsby, my count of enchanted objects has been diminished by one.

The game types ensure you'll get the most out of the maps. Guerrilla Warfare is a pleasantly straightforward take on standard deathmatches while Warzone, which has been imported from Killzone 2, is already my favourite this time around.

The regular rotation of objectives makes for exciting battles – one minute you're all huddled together protecting an ally who's been singled out for assassination, the next you're rushing across the map to capture distant points. With its fairly regular flow of experience points, it's ideal for unlocks grinding.

Operations is an interesting middle-ground, providing a briefer, more controlled experience as you switch through a range of objectives based around either attacking or defending. It will be fascinating to see how Guerrilla builds upon it with the final game.

On top of all this is a muddle of classes and rewards. The classes are fairly standard, offering you variations on medics, engineers, snipers, and such like, with the Infiltrator being the most immediately enjoyable in my book. With a lovely scoped-shotgun as standard and a skill that allows you to disguise yourself as a rival team member right out of the box, it's built for deadly mischief.

Other classes' skills are equally entertaining, however, including standards like healing, turret-building and invisibility. The long game involves earning unlock points as you level up. There's a decent range of perks to bring online and level and some nice extra weapons, including a machine pistol that has a truly terrific bite to it and a shotgun pistol that's absolutely as brilliant as it sounds.

With clan support and those nasty melee finishers that have been all over YouTube in their throat-cutting and eye-gouging glory, Killzone 3's multiplayer is in thoroughly good shape. When it comes to grimy visuals and brutal metallic audio, Guerrilla can't be beaten: with decent maps, swift-moving game types and improved weapon handling, the studio's latest game is going to be a lot of fun.