[HEADING=2] JourneyThroughHell reviews: [/HEADING]
[HEADING=1] Killzone 3[/HEADING]
Killzone's campaign picks off where the second one ended, which is a good thing, because Guerilla likes cliffhangers a lot and the ending of KZ2 was nothing short of that. With Visari and Radec dead, the leadership immediately concentrates in the hands of the party. When you think about it, the game paints a pretty nice political post-totalitarian picture, almost textbook style, to be honest.
Anyways, two men step up for the occasion to become the new Autarch of the Helghan army. One of them is Orlock, a clear Stalin stand-in in all but actual power, the other one is Chairman Jorhan Stahl, head of Stahl Arms, which is a semi-independent military corporation and weapons maker in a totalitarian society... weird. Since there are two people and only one Autarch post, many, many cutscenes are spent showing the political dogfights of these two.
This is the WASP and it is the most awesome
rocket launcher thing you can imagine.
Of course, there's always the ISA, the side the game goes to when it thinks they are letting the players have too much with the Helghasts. Fan-favorite (or at least I think so) protagonist Thomas Sevchenko is back, along with Rico, Narville and... actually that's it. Not that I wanted to see more ISA characters, but Natko's absense, for example, is not explained at all.
So, basically, Helghan is strong, the ISA is in deep shit, they're hunting for you because you've killed their leader and you have to kill a bunch of bad guys to make everything good again. That's the gist of it and, you know what? It works. It works really well.
I would be lying if I said I didn't care much for the story of Killzone 2 - sure, Rico was a moron, Narville was the most unlikeable person ever and nobody on your team was any competent. With that said, frequent appearances by the great Colonel Radec, along with the most mind-blowingly beautiful cutscenes that were the exact definition of "cool" made me a firm defender of the franchise's singleplayer.
As you probably know already, Killzone 3 was panned for its story... and I have no idea why. I mean, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's actually pretty great - most of the ISA still act like morons but at least find themselves being awesome, which is more than I can say for them in KZ2. Sev is still a likeable bastard, this time a bit more like Nathan Drake but not to the point of annoyance, Narville's alright and actually trying to save the lives of his soldiers, Rico's not as bad as he used to be, which is not saying much, but still. There are some new characters, also, but they get mostly episodic roles.
And the Helghast side. Oh, man, the cutscenes that depict them deserve a review of their own. First of all, for as corny as some of the dialogue is, it's engaging, well-paced and, while not terribly relevant, is a decent sub-story. Secondly, Jorhan Stahl is voiced by Malcolm McDowell, who steals the show, runs with it and doesn't let anyone come near his levels of badass. Stahl could very well be the best character of the year already - power-hungry, much cleverer than all of his opponents, cunning and absolutely crazy. Can't say for everyone, but I cheered every time Stahl was on screen, because the acting, the dialogue, the actions - all of this is delightful.
What a badass.
The graphics are beautiful, pushing the capabilities of the PS3 - lush environments, great character designs, incredible levels of polish - things that you've come to expect from the sequel to one of the prettiest games out there.
But that's not what you care about, right (or maybe you do, it's THAT pretty)? You care about the gameplay, the changes from KZ2, to be more specific. And, in singleplayer, there aren't that many. The basic combat is the same, there are few new enemy types (if any) and the only new weapons (again, I think) are the ones by Stahl Arms, which are fun to use but mostly situational and largely impractical.
It controls better, sure, but that's what you would expect. It's still the Killzone controls, which take a lot of getting used to, especially for die-hard CoD players such as myself. The cover system's still a bit awkward and not really necessary. It seems like it's the one thing Guerilla is trying to do to separate KZ from other FPS games - all it really does is ruin all unexpected encounters by putting chest-high walls everywhere. Oh, and now Rico or Narville can revive you, so you die much faster. Sounds like a good design choice, but, in reality, I don't know about that - you're not always accompanied by someone, for one, and their A.I. is blissfully stupid, to the point where they struggle to revive you even when you're lying right in front of them, bleeding out and calling for help. And, since the game expects that you can be revived, every death takes forever.
It's still a good campaign - great level design, fairly long without getting boring, pretty solid set-pieces (there's a jetpack level made of awesome, a sniper thing, all of the stuff you'd expect from a modern FPS game). However, the on-rails-shooter sections are mostly utter trial-and-error crap with the only redeeming factor is them being pretty.
There's a stealth level and, oh dear, is it good.
Also, be prepared - the ending is dumb. About as dumb as they get. Really dumb. Just dumb.
So, that's the campaign. Not the only part of KZ3, thankfully. There's also Botzone, coop and multiplayer.
Let's get coop out of the way first. It's split-screen only. Why? Oh why, Guerilla? That is nonsense. Botzone is just basically multiplayer with bots. Which brings me to the multiplayer.
There are three modes in Killzone 3 - Warzone, Guerilla Warfare, Operations. Warzone is the dynamic objective-change trademark mode of Killzone. Guerilla Warfare is TDM. Operations is... hahahahahaha. I'm sorry. Operations is basically an Attack-Defend mode with varied objectives. Which sounds like great fun, but the objectives are same for each map that supports the game mode, of which there are three. Also, it's not nearly as good as Warzone, but compensates by having cutscenes after completed or failed tasks, which feature the best players on both teams (which is signified by a PSN name floating above the random soldiers) doing some funny heroic stuff for about 15 second. That alone sends the mode straight into Gimmicktown.
So, how does the game function? Well, character progression is a lot like Battlefield - you upgrade every class individually, buy weapons and abilities for it with buy points you get for leveling your profile. It's actually really neat - leveling doesn't take long and is essential.
Oh, and the classes themselves offer immense variety, rivaling TF2 (in my opinion) - Infiltrators can disguise themselves as enemies and can be revealed by placing your reticule over them or just spy-checking, Marksmen are snipers who can go invisible, Tacticians can capture spawn points, Engineers place turrets, Medics revive and heal.
With classes like these, the game needs to be balanced really well. And it's kind of not. For example, when you upgrade a Marksman's cloak to the max, you can go invisible forever. So, if you want to hide in the corner and wait for people to run buy, stabbing them in the back, you can be my guest, you jerk. There are similar problems with The Infiltrator.
Obviously, there are other things that break the game. The shotguns, for example, are madly overpowered. The grenades are deadly, especially because there's no on-screen indicator and, although the grenade does beep like mad and is blinking yellow lights, it can also be cooked with the help of a special meter.
So, you'd think that no one uses anything but grenades? Well, you'd be wrong. Very wrong. There are also the proximity mines, which are claymores you can fucking throw. They also blink colours, but are hard to notice, especially on the more colourful maps. Oh, and you can place multiple. And their hitboxes are incredibly small. Balance flies out of the window.
Jetpacks are also present in some multiplayer maps,
along with exoskeletons.
Still, it's a shooter to be admired. No killstreaks - instead, you get ribbons when you complete certain tasks in a game, which improve some aspect of your game. The perks are class-based and are not as overpowered as they could've been. There are remote drones and turrets which deal minimal damage, pretty much, and are great support machinery, but are not that good for offense.
The maps are mostly excellent, with some notable exceptions, such as a map where you can't see jack because of the fucking snow (what's this, Bad Company 2?) and a gigantic alley map which is sniper heaven. If you like a certain map, there are almost dedicated servers - you can select a "preferred map" which is actually the only map you'll play in the game mode, which was achieved by setting up dedicated 24/7 servers. If you want a variety of maps, well, that's a problem, because every map in the game mode is put on vote after the round ends.
Also, special mention goes to the patching, which fucks up all of the servers for most people fora day or so. Guerilla, this is NOT how you implement patches.
So, that's Killzone 3. Great singleplayer outing that's still not quite near the levels of CoD perfection (in this reviewer's opinion) but is getting there through trying new things. Some of them work, some of them don't, but it's hard to deny it's getting better with every installment.
The multiplayer also has every right to rival Black Ops and Reach, in that it's deep, high on addictiveness and functions well enough to be enjoyable.
If you're tired of FPS games, I'm fairly certain Killzone 3 won't change your mind. It's also probably not a system-seller, but, really, if you don't own a PS3 yet, you should. In case you do and you like FPS games, there's no reason not to add this game to your collection.
