Killzone's Story

[Soviet Heavy]

I've heard lots of different opinions on the Killzone franchise. I am a fan, and I understand that the controls and setting can easily push people away. But while gameplay is one thing, I want to know how you feel about the "story" of Killzone, since I think that it is one of the overlooked gems of the past generations.

Yahtzee considers it little more than WW2 in Space, Gamespot believes that the story actually makes the game worse, and others still just find it bland in keeping with the dull color scheme of the second game. And others overlook it completely due to Sony's Halo Killer hype train spiting them.

I really enjoy Killzone's story for the total brutality of it, but also for it's more nuanced aspects. This is really a Villain Franchise, that runs on the strength of the Helghast as an adversary. They are completely despicable (weapons testing on live prisoners, war crimes, mass murder), but yet, they are also somewhat justifiable in their actions, and the ISA not so much in theirs. It walks that grey line very well, and you find likeable characters on both sides, either because they are heroic, or because they are evilly fun.

With Shadow Fall picking up thirty years after Helghan was destroyed, and Guerrilla saying that they want to delve deeper into the Helghast culture, I thought I would ask you guys what you think of the setting, the characters, and the story so far.

 

[80sboy]

I think it's one of the best examples of the worse examples in video games storytelling.

There were a couple of writers hired to delve into a the history of that universe. And they actually did a pretty good job in creating a backstory. Unfortunately the game designers have no understanding of that or their own material.

They just want to create a game about good guys vs bad guys, and they've failed to do it completely in a spectacular sense.

You see, Helghans are written to be much more tragic figures than simply being evil, but then the games go on and just treat them as one dimensional Nazi badguys and the ISA as the long white arm of righteousness trying to stop them. I mean, which is it? Are they tragic figures, or just straight up Disney evil?

Plus there's the ISA, and how they're a bunch of Marines from the movie Aliens rip off characters, and they're suppose to be the heroes.

I mean HELLO Mcfly. If you're going to rip off Alien's characters, at least try to "get" what the movie intended them to be. They weren't meant to be heroes, they were suppose to be annoying and weak; representing the image of heroes until they were put under attack and made to prove themselves, and that's what lead Ripley (the untrained average Jane) to later step out and shine so well.

Yet, I'm suppose to run around as Sev and pretend I'm a hero with one of the most annoying sidekick NPCs ever created in the history of video games (Rico) by my side. Killing a bunch of one dimension space Nazis that became lost in translation for the game writers on what they wanted them to be.

Bad...Just really bad work.

 

[Casual Shinji]

's Okay, I guess.

Though the fact that it's icon is pretty much totally ripped off from Jin-Roh always made me look down on it a bit.

 

[80sboy]

Have you ever seen actual Marines portrayed in films? Especially during Vietnam or Modern ?
Go watch Generation Kill, most of them genuinely want to kill because they think its fucking awesome. Not every single Sci Fi Marine Corps is trying to rip off Aliens.

Umm...I'm not talking about how ALL Marines are portrayed in films and video games. Why are you taking it to that conclusion? I was only talking about Killzone, and how it was influenced by Aliens. And it goes without saying that the game industry has tried time and time again to recreate elements from that movie in their games in more ways that one.

:/

 

[Arqus_Zed]

I liked the story of the second one. The losses they ISA suffered, shit just hitting the fan over and over again - and then the ending that fucks everything up and has a true sense of desperation and "waiting for the inevitable slaughter".

And then Killzone 3 came.

Really, they should've justed ended the story with number 2. The whole "nuke an entire planet with a handful of guys"-thing was just stupid.

 

[80sboy]

Have you ever seen actual Marines portrayed in films? Especially during Vietnam or Modern ?
Go watch Generation Kill, most of them genuinely want to kill because they think its fucking awesome. Not every single Sci Fi Marine Corps is trying to rip off Aliens.

Umm...I'm not talking about how ALL Marines are portrayed in film. Why are you taking it to that conclusion? I'm only talking about the ones in Aliens. And it goes without saying the game industry has tried time and time again to recreate elements from that movie in their games in more ways that one.

:/

I'm pointing out how that's how all Marines, not just the ones in Aliens are portrayed. Marines are very gung ho in the Military Community. Not everything is trying to be Aliens. Stop making it out to be.

Well let's see:

-Space Marines: check
-A squad of joking, grab ass, idiots: check
-Crude, snarky, self centered attitudes: check
-annoying to the 3rd degree: check
-no dept of character: check

Only thing that game was missing was a butch muscle bound Latina, and then, it would have been glaringly obvious.

Most (not all) Marines in movies are not generally portrayed liked that except in Aliens. And Aliens did it for its story and character arc reasons.

Yeah, trust me, I know something about how Marines really are (I was in the Military). Must Marines I met were actually very quiet and humble, that only started acting like "marines" when they were expected to be.

 

[Korten12]

I like the story, although I do prefer the novelization of Killzone 3 to the actual SP. If just for the fact that there is more detail in the novel.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

I've only finished the first game though and played bits and pieces of 2 and 3 though I know for the most part what goes on in them.
I found Killzone's story to be pretty...ok. I never actually finished 2 or 3 but in the parts I did play there wasn't anything that grabbed me story wise. It's by no means bad but there doesn't seem to be much to it. I feel like I've seen better versions of just about everything it does elsewhere. I think there is some interesting stuff going on to some degree but I'm virtually disconnected from it due to a lack of likeable main characters or locations I feel attached to, which is pretty much my viewpoint on many other video game settings as well, particularly Halo. Cool stuff but no reason to care about it.

And at it's core Killzone is most definitely WWII in space with it's background being WWI + the inter-war years. It's way too hard to take it seriously when it effectively makes itself out to be a darkier and edgier spin on arguably the darkest part of human history.

 

[6urk17s]

-Space Marines: check

Don't remember them being overzealous and sporting flashy power armor.


Any, that aside, while I have not played any of the Killzone games because of a severe lack of a gaming console, from what I know of the lore, the Helghast seem like the preferable faction. You know, it be fun for once to play the less morally right faction.

 

[80sboy]

-Space Marines: check

Don't remember them being overzealous and sporting flashy power armor.

LoL, you're thinking of Warhammer 40K...I'm talking more along the lines of Robert A. Heinlein Starship Troopers' Space Marines, where the idea of the Aliens SM were taken and repurposed.

 

[neo0113]

The whole story is quite impressive as someone else mentioned, but the developers didn't build on it. 1 and 2 were good but 3 was terrible. GG dropped the ball on that one by continuing the story from Sevs perspective. I never liked him or his squad and it was tedious to say the least, only saved by the gameplay. What they should've done was look at things from the Helghast side but they didn't have the balls. Looks set to continue that way unfortunately.

 

[Zhukov]

I think it's one of the best examples of the worse examples in video games storytelling.

There were a couple of writers hired to delve into a the history of that universe. And they actually did a pretty good job in creating a backstory. Unfortunately the game designers have no understanding of that or their own material.

They just want to create a game about good guys vs bad guys, and they've failed to do it completely in a spectacular sense.

Basically what this guy said.

Someone somewhere tried to create a morally grey universe centered around a brutal war.

Then someone (I suspect someone else, but who knows...) came along and set Murder Marathon 4: Oo-rah! in that universe.

It doesn't really work. The game frames the actions of the Totally-Not-Americans in purely heroic terms. I really don't buy the morally grey thing, not when one side are being dressed up as bloody nazis.

 

[Foolery]

I thought it was bland. Kinda brown-grey, much like the game's environments. It's a science fantasy version of Nazi Germany and WWII.

 

[Manji187]

Haven't played any of the Killzones but they just seem so "meh" to me. I checked some reviews but they didn't change my mind.

It's one of those franchises I will prolly never play/ get invested in, much like with Gears of War, Dead Space and Assassin's Creed. We all have a few of these "I couldn't care less" franchises.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well from what I gathered in games it's the age old story of good guy Americans invading and liberating bad guy non Americans from their resources / life.

I guess some people would call that a good one...

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Well from what I gathered in games it's the age old story of good guy Americans invading and liberating bad guy non Americans from their resources / life.

I guess some people would call that a good one...

Except that the Good Guy Americans are portrayed as operating on the same level of competence as the Mobile Infantry in the Starship Troopers film. They're total idiots who underestimate their opponents and pay through the nose for it.

On the other hand, you have the Helghast:
-Massive numbers due to an extensive military industrial empire.
-Advanced technology that renders most armored support useless.
-Intelligent tacticians and strategists.
-Unwavering loyalty of the soldiers.
-Evacuating your capital city of all noncombatants, holding 90% of your army in reserve, drawing the ISA main force into the trap, and then nuking it with a stolen ISA bomb. Minimal casualties for the Helghast, near total annihilation of the ISA ground force in an act that implicates the ISA in nuclear warfare.

 

[AkatsukiLeader13]

The problem with the Killzone series is that the good guys just aren't interesting. Halo-even in Halo 1-the characters around the Master Chief are at least interesting. When Foehammer died at the end of the first game I genuinely felt sad which is more than I can say for them killing of Jan in KZ2 and before KZ2 ended I was wishing Rico would die. Hell the ISA felt like every generic USA-in-space government I've seen in these sci-fi universes. The Helghast may be Nazis-in-space but they're at least they're interesting. There's something very wrong with a game when you want to play as the villains more than the actual heroes.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Killzone is one of those few games or movies where I found myself rooting for the bad guys. Not because I think they're morally justified or anything, but they're just so much more interesting than the ISA.

-Their uniforms and weapons are way more bad-ass looking than the ISA stuff.
-They seem to actually run like a Military, as in they have a command hierarchy, make plans, and follow orders. The ISA's entire military doctrine seems to be "we're all a bunch of loose cannons who don't play by the rules, so we'll do whatever we want". The former is way more believable for actually winning the war.
-The ISA are all such bland action-hero stereotypes that somehow a bunch of guys wearing masks are more interesting than them. That's pretty sad.