Halt in the name of the Combine, damn it, I mean Helghan

As I sit down to write this review I’m reminded of an excellent Far Side cartoon that features a cow lying on a couch in a psychiatrists office saying, ‘Maybe it’s not me you know, maybe the rest of the herd has gone insane’. That’s how I feel after playing right the way through the campaign in Killzone 2, I can’t in my right mind tow the line of comments and feedback for this game so far. If Killzone 2 is remembered for anything in ten years, it will be the massive over reaction to its release.

But lets talk about the good first. Killzone 2 is the best game available right now on the PS3; it’s the best quality exclusive the console has seen and is likely to see this year unless Uncharted 2 seriously blows minds. Know this and take comfort PS3 owners, it is a great game. The grit, violence and atmosphere reeks of war; skies choked with smoke, the whole game is cast in a dirty light. If it wasn’t for all the science fiction elements Helghan could be Berlin circa 1945. The action in feels very real; enemies stagger and collapse when shot and you'll be shooting blindly as you run for your life through most of the game. The physics and animations for each enemy and ally are impressive, although you rarely get a chance to appreciate it as much as the ‘ballet of the death’ video at the end of the demo, every once in a while you’ll see an enemy cart wheel through the air from an explosion and nod slightly in silent appreciation.

Sev, He might be a short ass, but he's the last chance we have

The environments themselves look great and blow up pretty damn good too. While environmental damage isn’t anything new in a shooter game Killzone 2 does it exceptionally well. Watching pillars and stone structures fall to bits under gunfire is very nice. The actual explosions and flames are some of the best you’ll ever see and you’ll be clinging to your flame thrower for just that reason long after you should have traded it in for a rifle. On that subject the guns in Killzone 2 are surprisingly low tech and the World War 2 comparisons are even more apt with the arsenal available in the first few levels. It might sound like a negative but it adds to the overall atmosphere of the campaign. The weapons have weight and realistic accuracy issues and it may take some time for you to choose a favourite ‘go to’ weapon. The real stars of the campaign are the Helghan themselves. These red eyed space nazi’s with strangely British accents are smart. They flank, they cover each other, they melee you whenever you try and rush them. They are just about, bar a few AI glitches, the most intelligent enemies you have ever faced. Be wary.

Now I warned about this previously, but here’s a second warning for the faithful. We’re entering the negative portion of the review. So if you’re a card carrying Sony Defence League member you might want to skip ahead. Killzone 2 is almost criminally lacking in any sort of innovation, aside from its first person cover system which is essentially a better way to duck behind things. There is nothing in the game that genuinely makes you say ‘oh’; plenty of ‘wow’ moments, a few ‘so cool’ moments; but nothing that just makes you go ‘oh’. There’s nothing new to the game to get excited about. A few vehicle moments break up the running and gunning but at times Killzone 2 comes dangerously close to being a bog standard corridor shooter with little to keep you playing. At times like these the graphics help keep you on track but the game never feels as if it’s demanding that you keep playing. Crysis proved the point over a year ago that a pretty face does not a stellar game make, you need substance to back it up and Crysis had a lot more going for it innovation wise than Killzone 2.

They're even worse when they turn invisible

Don’t look for that substance in the games plot or characters either as both are awful, even by video game standards. Any spoilt multiplatform owners (like me) will immediately take note that the characters are almost exact carbon copies of the four soldiers in Gears of War. It’s almost like Guerrilla were hoping no one would notice that the only thing different is Dom wears a hat and goes by Garza, Baird has traded his goggles for a bandana and Cole has been renamed Rico. Christ there’s even a new recruit at one point who never takes his helmet off and dies early on and a rarely seen woman you radio with intel. While Gears of War wasn’t afraid to try for a little humour and flesh out their characters personalities, acknowledging and taking priding in its cheesiness, Killzone 2 doesn’t even do that much. The game remains painfully serious throughout. The plot itself focuses on the mission objectives and never really enlightens you on just why the Helghan are so bad that they should be invaded and exterminated. Or better yet what happens to all the civilians while you’re crushing their army. You see one single non military person during your entire invasion campaign. By the end of the campaign you're not even sure what side you'd support in real life and the open ended conclusion feels like a slap in the face.

Gary decided this was an excellent moment to find religion 'Praise Jebus!"

Killzone 2 is also guilty of applying numerous clichés that other FPS games have left in the past; brightly painted exploding barrels litter levels and breakable crates of ammo appear at random locations. Some of the level designs seem strangely uncompelling and whenever the game wants to crank the difficulty they force you into a deliberate ambush that no one in their right mind would walk into. Sometimes these moments provide the most exhilarating experience the game has to offer, other times they just feel cheap. Sixaxis controls are applied with a varying degree of success; while turning the controller to turn a valve or arm a bomb feels tacked on, holding the controller steady to aim with a sniper rifle adds intensity to the sniping sections.

Multiplayer is sorely missing from the campaign. Adding coop would have taken the campaign from good to very great and the developers must be kicking themselves that they didn’t include it. When you’re playing for the number one shooter crown it’s just not going to cut it leaving things out that have made your competitors games not only best sellers, but most frequently played game online titles. The rest of the multiplayer is where Killzone 2 may well make a mark for itself. There are eight maps that up to 32 players can compete in. The maps are big, very big, and the ebb and flow of the action feels like real combat; frantic, unpredictable and frequently scary.

Dennis resisted all temptation, to stare at Phil's buttocks in those tight Helghan uniforms

This is why it’s so important to take advantage of the squad system. Players can setup into squads of four and set their squad leader as their spawn point, just like in Battlefield 2. Sadly there are no original game types, just the usual suspects with different names slayer, assault, capture the flag, assassination and territories. A cooperative mode reminiscent of Gears of War 2's Horde games would have been an easy fit, you and four friends against an ever more deadly flood of Helghan troops. What is original is that a single game usually involves all the game types on offer one after the other in quick succession and the team with the highest round wins are the champions. There are seven classes that can be unlocked as you gain ranks and this is both the multiplayers greatest boon and failing. Unlocking weapons and special skills is fun, it adds depth and investment to the multiplayer. When you plug hundreds of hours into the multiplayer you are actually getting something out of it. Unfortunately, this means you are also playing with people armed with sniper rifles and invisibility suits. Suddenly your sub machine gun and single grenade don’t seem that formidable. It’s possible to search for a game closer to your level but the pickings are slimmer. If you’re wondering how long it takes to unlock ranks it's a good hour to reach you’re first rank and increasing periods of time over that. Obviously the better you are the quicker things unlock but it’s still a big time investment. Multiplayer also has a habit of crashing on occasion for no particular reason, booting all players back to the lobby and saving no statistics from the game. This can be almost unbearably frustrating when its towards the end of a lengthy 30 minute campaign of varying objectives and all your experience goes up in smoke. This issue is a wide spread problem over the Playstation Network and hopefully Sony and Guerrilla can get people playing without problems soon, otherwise the online community for Killzone 2 could dry up quickly.

I have many eyes with which to see you, like a potato

All hype to the contrary Killzone 2 is not the fabled messiah of shooter games that trounces all that has come before; it’s not the best FPS game to come out so far on any platform, it’s not the best looking FPS game so far (does no one remember Crysis?), in fact it may not even be the best FPS game in 2009. New games should push boundaries; they should excite and inspire other game developers. Killzone 2 does neither of these things and if it doesn’t correct some of the quirks in using multiplayer Killzone 2 could pass quickly as a pretty face that sold a few PS3’s. Visually and audibly Killzone 2 is the bees knees and no Playstation 3 owner should be without it. It might not be a clear winner in the imaginary war for console supremacy but it definitely sits at the cool kids table with the cream of games released over the last few years. Hopefully it’s the beginning of a trend in games stretching the Playstation 3 hardware to its full potential. Bottom line, Killzone 2 is great, really great, it's not the best by a few paces, but it's definitely running with the big dogs and in a genre as saturated as first person shooters that says a lot.