It happens by simple chance that I had the privilege of playing through the official Killzone 2 demo (several times). After having a rather pointless conversation about arcade sticks for Street Fighter IV with a local GameStop rep, he ended up offering me one of the download codes for Killzone 2 preorders, with the great exception that he didn’t make me preorder. Free Killzone 2 demo? Sure, why not!
Before saying anything about my actual impressions of the demo, let me say that if you plan on getting this demo early with any amount of anticipation, you should know that it is short. Very short. I don’t think it would be unreasonable for me to say that it might be one of the shortest demos ever produced, for any platform. My first run through the demo took me only 10 minutes and 30 seconds (it will actually provide you a completion time), and it even felt like a short 10 minutes at that.
The demo’s ten minutes basically consist of you storming along a short beach front, and then taking an elevator up into a storage hanger to fight off a few rounds of Helghast soldiers. One that’s over, the demo ends, and you’re simply left with a lingering of wanting more.
That probably works to the developers’ advantage as far as marketing goes, because now I totally want this game on launch day.
After you play the demo, so will you.
That's because what the demo lacks in quantity, it more than makes up for in demonstrative power and quality. Immediately upon booting up the demo and opening cinematic, you will be given a glimpse of in-game graphics posing as a cinematic. Yes, that is correct, I did not write that backwards. After the initial E3 trailer for Killzone 2 came out a few years ago, and touted that the video on screen was in-game graphics, there was a lot of skepticism from a lot of people who weren’t ready to believe it. Now, having experienced the demo, I can safely say that it was all true.
Without a doubt, this game speaks to the development potential that is just now finally being utilized from the PS3’s hardware. If this game is any indication, we have barely seen the beginning of what the PS3 can do, when the system is chosen as the lead platform.
You begin the demo on a flying drop-ship, which is carrying you and several of your soldier brothers towards a war-torn beach, as you witness some of the other drop ships getting blown up and narrowly missing yours as they fall from the sky. As the flying “boat” lands on the beach, one of your fellow soldiers yells at you to get up, and suddenly your HUD appears with gun in hand, and you’re in control. Similar to Metal Gear Solid 4 in the way the game seamlessly transitions from cinematic to gameplay, Killzone 2 never deceives you away from the game engine. There is one exception: Killzone 2 looks even better than MGS4. No, the facial animations might not be quite as robust, but the in game environments and sheer amount of activity on-screen easily outweighs Kojima’s opus.
One thing of note: During my first play-through, I wasn’t immediately blown away by the game’s visuals. At first, I simply just felt they were great, but there wasn’t that initial shock and awe that I was expecting. Then on my second play-through, I realized that the reason I wasn’t blown away was because I had already seen the E3 trailer for Killzone 2, and this looked exactly like it. So in that way, the game’s visuals meet expectations, and actually exceed them at the same time. You will also really notice the difference once you play Killzone 2 a few times, and then try and go back and play another FPS, like Call of Duty. The visuals in Killzone 2 really outclass everything else that’s come before it.
The gunplay has a very different feel from other console shooters. Unlike Call of Duty or Halo, where control and gun response is immediate and fast, Killzone 2 offers a very deliberate weight and delay system to looking and aiming, which adds a sense of realism by accounting for gun weight and movement delay. It will take some time for newcomers to adjust to the changes (especially if you’ve been sinking a lot of time into COD World at War’s multiplayer lately, as I have), but once you get a feel for it, you will be surprised at how “arcadey” and unrealistic the movement in other FPS games feels when compared to Killzone 2. It has similar aiming mechanics to Call of Duty, with the ability to both fire from the hip as well as aiming down the sights, and there are several control options available to where you can even configure the game to share the same button layout as Call of Duty if you’ve already grown accustomed to that.
What remains to be seen is how robust the multiplayer options end up being in the final product. So far, it essentially sounds like a blending of all the previous multiplayer experiences ever made into one game mode. Whether that will make for the most brilliant multiplayer game ever made or a haphazard stumbling of multiplayer chaos will only come with time.
Look for my full review of Killzone 2 shortly after its launch.
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I had the exact opposite reaction to the demo. Living in the UK I didn't have to go through any hoops to gain access to it. Being of the rare fans of the original KillZone and after hearing the good press the sequel was getting I downloaded it immediately when I got back from work.
ReplyDeleteFirst impressions were not great. Ok it looks good, but the quality bar it sets means all the little elements that don’t look right stand out far more. The depth of field effect is nice but can pop in and out in a strange way as you move.
From the start there is very little information regarding where to go, but at the same time exploration is prohibited by invisible walls in some odd places. There's only one way I could go but I had to stumble around trying to find it as my teammates ran off within seconds of the dropship crashing. That particular sequence itself was nice but reminded too much of the Stalingrad or D-Day scenes from the Call of Duty games.
I'd comment on the weapon feel but maybe you're right and maybe I just need to get use to it. If it was done for realism then I think Guerrilla have made some odd decisions in that regard. Realistic weapon handling combined with explosive barrels everywhere is a confusing design choice.
As a fan of KillZone I'm both surprised and frustrated that the weapons lack secondary fire modes now, especially when some of them are very clearly designed to have them. The Helghan rifle clearly has an under barrel shotgun attachment but it's impossible to use it. Because of this there's no reason to use the Helghan rifle over the standard rifle which feels like a waste. In the first game the Helghan rifle’s much higher rate of fire and attached shotgun made it perfect for close combat, whereas the standard ISA rifle was more accurate and featured a grenade launcher making it more like an updated M4.
I think my biggest single issue however is how safe the entire experience feels. In terms of level and encounter design the demo feels like I'm playing CoD4 again. Only with weapons that don't feel precise enough. This is the third demo this year to leave me less impressed with the game that I originally was and all of them have been for the same reason. Resident Evil 5, Halo Wars and now KillZone 2 all seem to be implementing very traditional mechanics with upgraded graphics and I guess I’m not interested in that anymore.
The only demo that has impressed me recently is FEAR 2: Project Origin, which was one of the rare games to ever genuinely scare me and actually manage to feel like something different. I think it’s helped by the fact that very few developers ever tried to imitate FEAR and none managed it successfully.
I didn't notice the blur effects being weird. If you want to see truly shitty blur, check out Call of Duty 3. That was awful.
ReplyDeleteI can see your point about the secondary fire, but I guess we'll have to wait and see if any of that is implemented later on in the game.
As far as level design goes, I'm not sure what you were expecting. These types of games are never really about exploration; the set pieces usually make or break the fun, and in Killzone 2, at least so far, it was awesome. Look at CoD 4 - that was the definition of linear gameplay, but it was so fun that it didn't matter to me.
Project Origin is going to be great, though. I agree that no developer has even tried to equal the combat in that game (it has the best ever implementation of slow motion firing). Good stuff.