Hoorah another big hyped up FPS for me to get myself into. If the video game industry was its own departmentalized building then there would be a department for hype, and if there was a hype department then Killzone 2 would be the department supervisor asking you about your TPS reports (since Halo 3 by now would have accepted that job over in the Useless Product Placement department by now). Now let me set one thing straight, I never played the original Killzone on the Playstation 2… I heard good and bad things from others and I was turned off by the title when (before its release) it was given a potential kiss-of-death and dubbed a ‘Halo Killer’. So my experience entering Killzone 2 was a fresh new step into a new franchise for me, as it will for many others.

Considering most of my recent gaming has revolved around me completing single player campaigns lately I gave Killzone 2’s campaign an initial night of hot steamy fun, and now I intend to not give it a call back until a later date when I have nothing better to do. I have quickly run off with the much hotter younger sister, the Killzone 2 Multiplayer. I’ll admit that I’m not extremely deep into the multiplayer experience yet, so if I am missing out on a few key points at any time here then please let me know.

As a short synopsis Killzone 2’s multiplayer, appropriately named Warzone, throws you into a 32-player experience pitting you on either side of the ISA/Helghast confrontation. Warzone features a sufficient amount of maps each capable of supporting a variety of gametypes. When you first start out you’re pretty much a good old FNG, you have one class to choose from (a grunty normal soldier) and you can only select between the standard ISA rifle and the standard Helgan rifle. Similar to systems used in Call of Duty and Resistance 2, you are awarded points based on basic things within combat; completing objectives, defending objectives, kills, and most importantly winning (through a point multiplier). As you accumulate points you will, as expected, achieve new ranks and thus unlock more weapons, perks, and eventually more classes. Unlocking classes obviously gives you a new character skin as well as few new abilities, such as a medic being able to revive a fallen teammate. Now while I haven’t gotten extremely deep into the leveling system (the game has only been out for a few days, y’know) there are definite signs that each class can become more customized to your specific desires as you continue to level up. This will essentially make you into a very specific killing machine, and arguably add more depth than what we’ve seen in a CoD title.



Gameplay within Warzone can be very simply described: really damn fun. As a match initially starts there’s a few moments of silence as both teams scamper out of their spawn points and try to fortify positions and take higher ground (and thus proclaim that they have the high ground, and that its over Anakin). And after these initial moments pass the game turns into a constant intense battle filled with various power struggles and fierce firefights… and then there are objectives you need to complete on top of this. Possibly my favorite thing in Killzone 2’s multiplayer is the objectives system the game uses. Instead of the traditional ‘one objective = one game’ setup many shooters use, one game of Warzone will have multiple gametypes stringed together over the course of one match (assuming the host hasn’t set it to one gametype only). So a match could start and your team immediately would need to defend a certain object from being destroyed by the enemy, then after it has been successfully defended/destroyed you’d immediately have to find a specific player on the other team and assassinate him, followed up by having to retrieve a propaganda speaker and deliver it to a recon position deep within enemy territory, and then have the game end in one giant deathmatch.

In ‘Halo’ terms it would be like starting a match on Sidewinder and having the following gametypes all happen one after another;

---Team Slayer
---Capture the Flag
---V.I.P.
---Assault
---Territories

Spawning is a very cut and dry system in Killzone 2 as well; you can choose your spawn point, as long as multiple are available, and jump right back into the action. Each team has their one standard team spawn point, which are protected by dual sentry bots to prevent spawn killing. Players can take over areas of the map to create additional spawning areas for their teammates as well, and if you are part of a squad then your squad leader becomes a mobile spawn point (as long as he is alive of course).



Killzone 2’s controls do become a slight hindrance to the overall experience. I tend to find myself doing a lot more hip firing then I do actually using the iron sights since there is a small amount of auto aim present when hip firing. When in iron sights mode, there is seemingly no aim assist what so ever (this can be good and bad for various situations) so when you’re even a fraction off centered from an enemy’s head, you’ll miss. When you throw in the sluggish weight of each gun as well as the delay that occurs between analog stick and the on-screen movement minute adjustments are troublesome and difficult. I also have personal gripes with the sensitivity scales in Killzone 2 since I keep finding myself stuck either being a tad sluggish or a tad too fast. After extended gameplay I have adapted to the feel of the game, but the weighty and sluggish feel of everything simply makes Killzone 2’s combat a little more tricky and difficult… but not necessarily for the right reasons. The button layout in Killzone 2 is by no means bad, but an option to custom map your buttons would be extremely welcomed (I myself have more of an issue with the layout then I do the sluggish nature of the controls). I’m personally not overly comfortable with any of the controller layouts, even the ‘Alternate 2’ setting most people seem to use. I’d really like to be able to set up a CoD/Resistance hybrid layout that I’d be more comfortable with, and Killzone 2 simply should allow you to do this.

The other slight annoyance is the lack of a party system. Yes, you can join friends’ games quickly and effortlessly but being on their team is far from guaranteed especially if you’re forced to autoselect your team. Squads you form in one game will not transfer over to the next game, so from match to match you’re reforming squads and checking to see if your buddy is on your team. There is faction support, which may or may not be a workaround for this, which I have yet to test. However the lack of any noticeable party support is definitely one area where I think Killzone 2 definitely dropped the ball.

Despite these minor inconveniences (which aren’t relegated to multiplayer, but campaign as well) Killzone 2’s Warzone mode is seriously a shitload of fun, and I’d argue that its rank system is deeper then what we saw in Call of Duty 4.