By Matthew Dykstra

(UCC NEWS)

Imagine every other video game as a 2009 Nissan. You like your Nissan, it’s nice. But one day somebody hands you a key to a 2010 Porsche, and you realize just how much driving that Nissan sucked.

Playing Killzone 2 for the first time is a little something like that.

Now that 2008 is out the door, I am pleased to announce that the first competitor for 2009’s coveted Game of the Year award is here. Killzone 2 offers a visually groundbreaking and realistic war experience set against the backdrop of the planet Helghan. From shooting your way through the futuristic inner city ghetto to exploring the outskirts if the planet’s nuclear ravaged desert, Killzone 2 offers the year’s first taste of immersive, brutal and violent warfare.

Setting the bar for themselves at 2005’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, developer Guerrilla Games showed a video of what they had in mind for Sony’s PlayStation 3. Killzone 2’s debut set the internet on fire with speculation about whether or not the team could actually set a new standard for video game console graphics. Four years have passed and the only thing that would have been surprising is if Guerrilla hadn’t delivered on their promise.

Campain for the Ages

Killzone 2 continues the story of the first game. The Interplanetary Strategic Arms (ISA) invade the planet Helghan to prevent the advancement of the evil Helghast forces into neighbouring planets. The Helghast, led by their fascist leader Scholar Visari, are viciously defending their planet at any cost. You play as Sergeant Thomas “Sev” Sevchenko, an ISA soldier tasked with recovering the Helghast’s nuclear weapons as well as arresting Visari. Meant to be a metaphor for the war in Iraq as well as a fictitious retelling of WWII, the story keeps the player interested enough to fight the Helghast all the way through.

But that won’t be what keeps a player’s eyes glued to the screen. The game looks and handles magnificently. It rivals the best shooter games with its intensely beautiful display of shiny explosions and war ravaged cities. Guerrilla triumphs in setting a new industry standard for graphical power on a game system. Each and every bullet is rendered in wonderfully lifelike detail.

Firing them is just as fun. The weaponry is expansive, adding a layer of tact and choice in the players arsenal. Do I want to use the submachine gun to quickly splatter every enemy in the room or am I better off using the electro-gun to shock them all into a coma? Can I use the flame thrower or is the room so small I’d be more likely to set myself on fire? It’s choices like these that make the player think about how they want to proceed and stretch themselves to outwit and outgun Guerrilla’s impressive artificial intelligence.

As if that wasn’t enough, Killzone sounds awesome. The audio track is impressive, making the explosions and gunfire feel like it’s shaking your living room. And I’m sure with the right stereo equipment, it could. The sounds of the battlefield are brought to life in the frenzied combination of loud enemies, thunderous tanks and canon fire. The game is as much fun to watch as it is to listen to.

Things that Suck

Killzone isn’t without it’s flaws. While running and gunning has never been more fun, the action can get congested when your enemies are actually smarter that your allies. The rest of the your ISA squad mates are constantly shot down, forcing you to risk your own neck to save them after they’ve foolishly walked into an enemy bullet. To make things worse, if you’re pinned down but your ally needs you to flip a switch or retrieve some data, you’ll be constantly taunted and berated by choruses of “Sev! Get your ass over here!” or “Sev dammit! Help me out!”

If you thought that dialogue was hard to swallow, the game is filled with it. Your entire team is a bunch of foulmouthed, macho soldiers who walk and talk like a ragtag group of Hollywood clichés. By comparison, the enemy Helghast soldiers actually sound more proper and focused, making you feel like a one man army when you leave your horribly irritating allies to take them on alone. While it’s mostly annoying, sometimes their conversations are laughable in their ridiculousness, setting a lighter tone in the often bleak urban environments.

While those are problems in the game, what’s more bothersome and confusing is what was left out. Killzone 2 suffers from a complete lack of cooperative play or 2-player. You can’t invite a friend over to help you take down some orange-eyed Helghast scum. This is a no brainer for other top shooters like Call of Duty or Halo, so any reason it’s missing here is kind of aggravating.

Online Perfected

Despite not being able to have a friend on the couch next to you, the game does offer a fantastic online multiplayer experience that will keep anybody hooked for long after the story’s credits roll. Gamers from across the globe can team up to fight each other for the online rank of 1st place. While you get used to the mindless waves of enemies in the story mode, facing another person online is a refreshing. frenzied and unexpected battle.

Players are rewarded for their online gusto with points that are used to rank up so that they can be more useful to their team on the net. You can advance from a lowly soldier to an engineer who places turrets or a tactician that plans the troop movements of the entire team. These different classes keep gameplay fresh as well as reward the player with new abilities.

Communication is handled through headset channels so that everyone can coordinate, which is especially useful for staying alive. Responding to an online player saying “Anybody around to heal me?”, I used my medic class to zap him back to life and into the action. He shouted back at me with glee, “Thanks for the revive, baby!” and sauntered off to another firefight. Encounters like this make for a special community experience you can‘t get in the story mode.

Final Thoughts

Killzone 2 is a full shooter experience akin to coming for the meal and staying for the dessert; meaning while most players will shoot through the single-player story in six to eight hours, the online mode will give them a reason to keep the disc in the machine. Despite some dumb allies and a lack of 2-player, Killzone rises above the haze of other shooters to deliver a fun, and engaging story mode as well as a challenging online experience.

With the eerie combination of gritty and gorgeous warfare, Helghan will remain a popular place to blast through enemy lines. Killzone 2 is a sure-fire game of the year contender that shouldn’t be missed.

Rating:

A