"“Dull story. But it's really fun to blow things up.”"

I've heard a lot of people trying to say that Killzone is almost as good as Halo. Well, that's dead wrong. They must be in denial. On the other hand though, Killzone is far from a total waste. For PS2 only owners, Killzone might just be the salvation from FPS boredom. Let's be serious, the PS2 is a great console, but there's not many good, intense, First-Person-Shooters on it. And that's really too bad.

Let's go into a formal review.

PLOT 6/10:
Yuck. Let's see, a group of mutant humans who live on colony worlds feel they have been oppressed by earth too long. The solution: invasion, and the general genocide of non-mutated human life. You, of course, must join the resistance.

Hmm. In the end, there's not much there. I was hoping for a more large-scale, all-h***'s-broken-loose, huge intense firefights with guns and bombs exploding. Not so. The campaign was disappointing. But then I discovered the "Battlefields" option. More on that later.

The plot felt very cobbled together. You lead a group of ragtag soldiers through the invasion, trying desperately to regroup the earth's forces. Each character in your group is supposed to have their own personalities (and they do), but unfortunately they are not interesting enough. The most interesting part was when a half-Helgast/half-human joins your party and stirs up prejudices in the group. Let's just be thankful they didn't go into a whole ethical debate in an attempt to give the game a moral point.

Still, this is a First Person Shooter. Good plots are for RPGs, Halo was the exception for good stories in the FPS genre. Most FPS gamers just aren't looking for a good story, the story is just the excuse to blow all manner things to h***. And it's a good thing too, otherwise Killzone would be a terrible disappointment. And when it comes to blowing people up, I still can't resist a smile whenever I hit someone plum-in-the-face with a grenade launcher- Killzone doesn't disappoint in that area.

MUSIC 6/10:
Hmm. I have no idea. It could be I just wasn't listening, but I think most of the game is left devoid of music. When I'm in a battle there's not much except the gunfire and explosions for background noise. This, of course, fits the raw, shell-shocked style of the game. There might be some music in the cut-scenes, but ultimately nothing is going to stand out enough to deserve mention. To be quite honest, I wish I could have had some good, hard, intense rock music playing in the more intense fights- but that's not really a loss by any means.

I might have given this a 6, but for an FPS, it didn't disappoint and neither did it awe or surprise either. I would say average, considering the genre. Nothing else to see here.

SOUND 8/10:
The sound effects fit well. Each gun has a good sound, and you can often tell whether an enemy is using a massive, dangerous weapon or an average assault gun. Everything from the gunshots to the explosions fit well, and feel real and acceptable. You can't really ask for more than that, can you?

You'll definitely appreciate the explosions, the sound coupled with the sight of a limp, flying body more than satisfies! Add that to the intense gameplay, and Killzone makes a great, raw combat game.

GRAPHICS 8/10:
With the rise of next-gen consoles, this game certainly doesn't impress anyone. But I wasn't looking to be impressed, I wanted to just play a fun game and not worry what it looked like. On that level, it really does do well. The environments are far from beautiful, and are dull and gritty, often using dark grays and whites. It was meant to feel like a battlefield, and it does it well. The character animations were well done, and fully believable, the facial movements fit well. But you probably won't notice any of this, it all takes a back seat to the intense firefights.

The environments also look good and realistic enough to not bother your critique side. But what I think really stands out is the animations. When you reload your gun you get to see it happening, which adds to the intense, battlefield style of the game. I never thought sticking a new cartridge or a fresh grenade into your rifle could be so cool and effective. I found myself desperately hoping, in moments of intense action, that my character would just hurry up and reload, and watching the painstaking task take place was really intense. And then there is the times when you are really close to an explosion. The screen wobbles out of control as if the ground is shaking with a fury! You'll learn to really appreciate these small but effective touches, in a game like this, it's everything.

GAMEPLAY 9/10:
At first, I wasn't impressed. But that's before I started really getting into it. You see, the game looks drab until you get into the simulated “Battlefields” section. That's where this game's true value shows.

The single player campaign is certainly worth the effort, just don't expect to be left in awe. On the other hand, the game gives you the option to play as one of four different characters: Templar, Luger, Rico, and Hakha. The game plays different depending on your choice. My first time through I played as Templar (whom most players will). But I was selling myself short- part of the fun of Killzone is playing the different characters given.

I decided to play the second time through with Luger, the female assassin. Wow, I was stunned by how much fun it was to snipe enemies in the head, killing them instantly, whereas with Templar I was always hiding in covering playing pop-out fire (dull and annoying). But with Luger, I became a hunter! It's incredibly satisfying to run up to a unwary enemy and stick your knife in his neck, or even running up to an enemy who is shooting at you!! I eventually found myself running into rooms of Helghast and massacring the lot of them with nothing but a knife- even as they desperately tried to unload countless rounds into me.

In short, I recommend experimenting with different players, especially Luger and Rico.

But it was the battlefields that truly impressed me. I've played both Halo and Halo 2. The multiplayer seems to be the heart of the game, and yet is missing something: intense action. Unless you have two game consoles connected together or have online play, Halo 2's multiplayer is useless at best. Finding eight to sixteen friends to play against just isn't very easy, it's hard. You think, “That's okay, my three friends and I will fill the places with AIs!” But Halo 2 has no AIs in multiplayer- Killzone does.

You'll never truly see the importance of this until you see that you can pick a multiplayer map and duke it out with fourteen AI opponents, no strings attached, no consoles attached, no Internet attached, just good-old-intense-single player-h***- and it's fun, REAL fun. I've spent weeks playing over and over again on one map, enthralled by the intense action. Add awesome maps like Beachhead, and my, you've got hours of fun that will make you forget this game's flaws easily- and better yet, you don't need any friends or Internet, it's all single-player. Why can't Bungie learn something from this? Why can't they learn not everyone can gather huge numbers of friends for hours-long multiplayer sessions whenever they want?

Just try and duke it out against in 14 AIs on beachhead and tell me that's not fun. That's the most fun I have all week sometimes. For that reason alone, this game is worth buying used at a game shop. It's worth the measly ten bucks you'd pay.

CONTENT WARNING:
Violence factor- This game is pretty violent. There's no “Oh dear lord, Johnny's brains are falling out” graphic gore, but blood is certainly there. When you shoot a guy, let's say with a shotgun, a cloud of red appears for a few seconds. If you snipe a guy, it leaves a blood mark on the ground. So yeah, there's blood, just nowhere near as much as there would be in real life. And there's no gore to speak of (Unlike Gears of War).

Other Content- Let's see, at one point during the cut-scenes, Templar awakes after an explosion knocked them all unconscious, to find himself sprawled across his female comrade, Lugar. He mumbles something about how this isn't the first time he's woke on top of her before- thus hinting that there was something sexual between them at one time. But the game never really gets around to explaining much more than that.

But it's really the language that should be a concern. There's really no boundaries here, the F-word and MF-word are used quite frequently- and there's plenty more. Mostly, this language originates from the character Rico, who has a serious problem with Hahka being Helghast (racial issues). Ultimately, I would say this is the worst category as far as content.

This certainly isn't a game for kids. It's rated M (mature, 17+) for a reason. The game was designed to give gamers an intense, raw combat feel. It's not realistic when compared to the real thing, but that doesn't mean kids should be playing it.

OVERALL 8/10:
Okay, so perhaps eight out of ten is a bit high when you consider that there's not such a great story, and sometimes it can get boring (if you play as Templar. Again, try Luger). But I'm giving Killzone an 8/10 based on it's fun factor. You can easily just pick it up and play it, no hassles. Trust me, this game is pretty fun. Sure, Killzone has definite flaws, but it's still fun- isn't that what video games are supposed to be?

In the end, it's no Halo-killer, but when you consider the “Battlefields” option, this game is really quite fun. If you have a PS2, this is one of the best First-Person-Shooters you can get for the console.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/03/07, Updated 12/21/07

Game Release: Killzone (US, 11/02/04)