Killzone 3 is the latest entry in the blockbuster Sony exclusive franchise developed by Guerrilla Games. The Killzone series was originally intended to be the PlayStation’s direct answer to Halo much like what Xbox ended up doing with Forza Motorsport as a counter to Grand Turismo. While Killzone may or may not still be thought of in that same way now that there are other big FPS series out there like Resistance, Call of Duty and Battlefield, I still tend to think of it as such. Which is why I felt that Killzone 3, being my first real experience with the series, (I played the first level of the original Killzone a couple of years ago) had some pretty big expectations to live up to. So the question now is, can Killzone really stand toe to toe with Halo and if so who will win?
The story for Killzone 3 as far as I can tell (like I said this is my first Killzone game and it doesn’t really clear up much of a back story) is as follows: you are a soldier on a plant called Helghan that humanity colonized at some point which then rebelled because they believe that the Helghan people (known as the Helghast) are better than the rest of humanity. So you play a soldier who has been sent to Helghan as part of a military operation trying to end the war by arresting the planets ruler Visari. At the end of Killzone 2 one of your teammates kills Visari essentially screwing you and all the other members of your team because Visari’s assassination will further motivate the Helghast to wage war and do whatever it takes to kill those responsible for it. Now in Killzone 3 you are stranded on Helghan because the ISA (the good guys) can’t send people to get you because they would be quickly destroyed by the now fully alert and aggressive Helghan army. So you must find a way to either escape Helghan or win the war. Meanwhile there is a major power struggle going on between the new ruler Orlock and Stahl who is the planet’s largest weapon manufacturer.
The game does a good job of making you feel like you are in a war and are totally outnumbered by keeping up the action and sending you in against overwhelming numbers. Unfortunately while killing all the enemies you rarely feel like a total badass. For instance there is a mission where you drive a big mech and have to take out a bunch of soldiers and a few tanks. This is a great moment to make you feel really powerful and crush your enemies but instead you are slow and whenever you take a step your screen shakes making you miss most of the time. Not to mention the fact that the tanks do a lot of damage which kept making me hide behind a building waiting for my window to heal signalling that I could go back out and try to get a kill. You should never have to run and hide in a big mech. The guns are mostly unimaginative with the exception of a couple of heavy weapons like the Bolt Gun which shoots a bolt into your enemies then explodes and the Arc Cannon which fires beams of energy that you can charge up and disintegrate enemies with. In fact using the Arc Cannon is one of the best parts of the game because it handles well, looks amazing and is incredibly different from the guns you’ll find in other shooters. However when using most of the game’s guns you are somewhat inaccurate. You’ll have enemies dead in your sights but your bullets will spread out and miss a lot which I hate. If I’m shooting at a target I want the bullet to go exactly where my reticle is, not in the general area of the reticle. I don’t feel it makes the experience realistic because real people miss a lot, I feel it is poor game design because you are hampering the player. Plus the meal attack is essentially useless unless you catch your enemy off guard at which point it becomes an instant kill triggering an execution move.
The environments in the game while really detailed when you get up close just like the characters thanks to the amazing graphics in the game are usually wasted by the fact that with the exception of the snow levels the game is all grey and brown with all types of dust particles constantly blowing past your screen obscuring your vision. This is probably why all of your allies have blue lights on them and the enemies have red, so that you can tell the difference. As for the cutscenes they really show off the amazing graphical detail put into the game with the exception of the characters’ faces which were sort of like plastered on pictures in the sense that they have all the necessary details but don’t animate well or every really spring to life. The enemies are fine with the exception of the fact that they feel very familiar. You have the standard enemies that you fight most of the time who are fine but get repetitive by the end which is pretty standard for just about every game. Then there are the guys that run at you in white armour with a blade that instantly kills you which was clearly inspired by Elites from the original Halo. Next up are the flying bots that remind me of Sentinels from the Halo games except they shoot bullets instead of lasers. Lastly there are the big, indestructible enemies that can only be defeated by shooting them in their weak point located on their back, which is reminiscent of Hunters. So whether you are like me and think of Killzone as an attempt to beat Halo or not it is rather clear that the makers clearly want you to make the connection between the two games, which is unfortunate for them because they don’t stack up as well as they think.
The multiplayer in many cases is a major selling point for FPSs. Personally I felt that playing the multiplayer made me want to own the game less. One of the cool features in the campaign was the ability to take cover which didn’t always work well but was different from other FPSs is not in the multiplayer. There are a lot of different classes but in the beginning before you level up their abilities the biggest difference between them is the gun that each comes with. Which brings me to a major problem that I have with many shooters; getting better weapons and equipment because you play a lot is stupid especially if there is no system in place to separate beginners and veterans. I get that developers feel that multiplayer will prevent people from returning games and if you reward them for playing the multiplayer with bonuses they are even more likely to keep it. The thing they don’t get is that if the game is really good people tend to keep it as well. I would much rather hang onto a great single player game that I can go back to than a decent multiplayer game. When you make the experienced players who should be better to begin with even better by giving them upgrades you alienate new players who don’t want to get crushed every time. That isn’t the worst part about the multiplayer however. No the worst part is that most of the maps are small and might fit 8 players comfortably but instead are filled with 16 players. This leads to everyone just running around constantly spraying at everyone in their path. The game has 3 game types; Guerilla Warfare which is Team Deathmatch, Operations which is basically Invasion from Reach where one team defends certain points trying to prevent the other team from getting through and heading to the next one and Warzone which has multiple objectives throughout the match from killing the other team to planting bombs to capturing territories. Alas I didn’t really enjoy any of these game types or the maps they were played on.
Killzone 3 did everything it could to get into the ring with Halo and match it blow for blow by mimicking it but it turns out that it doesn’t even belong in the same league, let alone ring as Halo. The game has a solid single player despite less than perfect controls and somewhat uninspired weapons, not to mention the game ends on a bizarrely flat note which I found weird because it could have been a big impactful finish with a little more work. The multiplayer isn’t worth your time and the while the game is pretty it lacks substance. If you only own a PS3 and want to play an FPS with some sci-fi mixed in for good measure you should consider renting this game, if not you won’t be missing out on anything special.
Score: 3/5
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