Killzone

"KILLZONE: an unbiased review."

This is my first review. I have never played either Halo, which this game supposedly 'killed.' This is also one of the first FPS I have ever played extensively.

Story 6/10
There are three planets which play a role in the world of KILLZONE: Earth, Vekta, and Helghan. A colony of Earthlings fled their planet and moved to Helghan, which they were unaware had a toxic atmosphere. The Halghast were poisoned by their new world, and their children grew up deformed; bald, green-tinted skin, abnormal size, and a lust for war. They despise the Earthling and Vektans who would oppress them and, feeding off this hatred, plan an attack. They've built up their military power and are ready to launch war on Vektan. The only obstacle is Vekta's SD Platform, huge orbiting space platforms designed to fire at hostile aircraft. There is no way that and Helghast ship could survive a blast, but the Helghast attack anyway, and the SD Platforms fail! The Helghast have invaded the unprepared planet of Vekta, and with their upper-hand, they slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Jan Templar, a lifer with the ISA (thats Vekta's military) is assigned with the task of retrieving the SD Platform key to reactivate the guns and destroy the Helghast.

This is your basic sci-fi story. Nothing profound, and one EXTREMELY predictable plot-twist.

Graphics 9/10
This is one point where the game shines. The surrounding textures are beautiful. You'll fight through trenches, burning office buildings, a destryed mall complex (my personal favorite lvl), city streets, a jungle, a swamp, a snowy tundra, mountains, docks, a space station -- and they're all beautiful. The mall and offices are burning and collapsing, fire and rubble block your path. The characters are also designed well (despite the fact that 90% of all the ISA forces are exactly the same - bald with identical faces). The Helghast are very intimidating in all black, with glowing red eyes, and some of their later costumes fit in with surroundings. The graphics are very good. Why not a 10? see the bottom of the page. The opening cinematic FMV was beautiful.

Gameplay 9/10
The score may have been bumped up due to the fact that this is my first REAL FPS.

This game is very linear. I mean very. It's like 'move from point A to point B and kill all the Helghast in between." Some people hated this. I, personally, had no prolblem with it. It made the game a little easier.

Theres a good number of weapons,. but there could have been much more. There are no futuristic weapons, despite it's distant-future storyline -- the game sticks to several different machine guns, pistols, a shot gun, a sniper rifle, grenades, and two different missile launchers. I liked the modern weapons, but ther weren't enough, and they weren't all that diverse.

The levels can get very long and sometimes frustrating, having to start an entire level over because you kept dying right before the end. This game was pretty difficult for me. The AI weren't geniuses, but they certainly weren't 'dumb' like many people mentioned. On herder modes, the AI acted very cleverly, although most of their victories were achieved through brawn, rather than brain.

A 2-player co-op would have been VERY fun considering there're four different characters, each which you can choose before beginning a level. With each character you choose, the level will vary, for one character you may need to infiltrate a base and rendezvous with your team at the exit, for another you may simply need to go around the perimiter of the base while the computer does all the work.

The multiplayer was fun, but it got very boring, very quickly, unless you play with another human beign. After first purchasing the game, I could go several 1 hour games before taking a break. Now, I can barely scrape through a 15 minute long game before getting bored.

Sound 10/10
Why such a high score? There was absolutely nothing negative about the sound, added with the fact that it was good = 10! There is very little music in the game, but when you hear it, it is very urgent sounding, dramatic stuff. The battles are fought to ambience. Background sounds -- the wind blowing, bullets hizzing about, leaves crunching under your feet. It was all very wll done. The guns all have a unique sound, and bullets have varying sound depending on close to the gunfire you are. There are also little things, like soldiers grunting when they pull out a heavy weapon, that add to the experience.

Replay Value 5/10
The only real replay value is going through and playing levels as a different character, and since ther're four of them, this adds the bulk of the value.

Miscellaneous:
PROS
-good graphics
-different and interesting characters
-nice sounds

CONS
-details and textures sometimes load slowly
-gets boring

Total 39/50 or 8/10
Killzone is a good game, but it could have been so much better with new and different features, less linearity, more weapons among other things.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/04