Killzone 2 Immediately

I was there on opening night at Gamestop to pick this puppy up nearly a year back. Now is a good time to look at the game and how it stands today.

Killzone 2 is absolutely gorgeous. The sound effects and surround mixing are just awesome. The Guerilla Games team created something very distinct and smooth too. What I liked most about the presentation was how they evolved the color from Blue in the beginning to Red at the end of the game. Very artistic. The Helghast character animations are really impressive also. In short, it didn't take more than a few seconds for the game's looks to win me over. The enemy AI is actually pretty impressive in light of the Call of Duty bullet hose enemies you face in those games. The Helghast run and hide. Sometimes they hit their shots, sometimes not. But they do have dynamic behavior unlike other FPS games out these days.

Multiplayer is awesome. You can listen to your PS3 music while you play, THANK YOU Guerilla. There are dedicated servers, lots of achievements to shoot for and smooth play. The maps are extremely well designed, beautiful to look at and the Warzone shifting objective is something you will not find anywhere else. This mode is rock solid and the best FPS mode anywhere, period. Sure some maps can get VERY chaotic, but that is part of the fun for me.

The single player campaign is run of the mill in some ways, and the game does seem to hold your hand is some ways to soften the difficulty. However, I would say the solo quest is still pretty impressive and varied. There are no crappy "Warthog" controls like in the HALO games for the vehicles. The tank, space gunner and robo suit all feel right to control.

Which brings me to the controls. Killzone 3 is not a twitch game. The style is more deliberate. Guerilla really strived to do something completely different in the way your FPS character moves. While I applaud their idea here, the execution isn't really there. in Single Player and Multiplayer, the controls feel a bit too sticky. It is hard to be exact in the reticle placement. After dropping multiple playthroughs in the SP and many days logged in MP, I still think the controls need work. But it is the same for everybody out there, so after an hour or so you adjust and forget about it.

Firing up some Killzone 2 after prestiging through Modern Warfare 2 still shows where Killzone wins the day. The graphics still hold up. The music score is fantastic and the game is a lot of fun. I think the controls still need work, and we will see how this progresses in Killzone 3 but there is little to take the luster off this game even a year on.

See you on the Warzone.Get more detail about Killzone 2.