Killzone 2 (Demo)

[C']

It really does have a great feel. Very weighty and deliberate, which actually gives your character a presence rather than simply being a gun floating around in the world.

I’ll admit that I didn’t find the controls totally intuitive on first play. Felt like I had to perform some extreme finger gymnastics to fire from cover. Keep hold of L2, tilt left stick, click R3 for sights, then R1 for fire. Repeat plays did help with this and the actual implementation of a first person cover system is actually really good.

Now for the obvious stuff. It looks and sounds fantastic. I do think there is a very strong argument to say that in still shots, other rival games do look comparable but when where Killzone 2 pulls ahead is when everything is moving with some ridiculously good lighting effects, fantastic animation, brilliant AI routines and the sheer scale of things going on in the battlefield. All without any noticeable tearing or framerate drops. Clearly they have developed a very good engine here.

And to go back to the AI, that was one aspect of the now infamous CGI trailer that people said was not going to be replicated or if it did would be a series of canned routines that happened every time. That blatantly is not the case. Even on this normal difficulty setting, watching them blindfire, try to flank me, dive from cover when I land grenade and scoot around the map in reaction to my gunfire. It really impressive what has been achieved. The AI doesn’t seem to cheat either. In the warehouse section I was down to the last helghast and I moved to flank him and saw him blindfire at where he last knew I was. Totally missing the fact that I’d moved.

I think one of the things that made the single player in Halo: Combat Evolved so replayable was the AI routines so it’s a good sign for this.

[spagmasterswift]

Only thing I was unsure of, was that it seemed to miss the "Grainy" feel of the vidoes.

Get out!!!!

[ezee ryder]

yeah, looks lovely as long as you don't move. great.

It looks fantastic when you move aswell, I don't see an issue.

[Darwock]

Set this to download last night and had a quick go this morning. Think I found all the ways to die in about 2 minutes, it was comedy phail of the highest order. Ran forward, picked up an enemy gun and was shot. Ran to cover, heard beeping and was blown up. Picked up launcher, fired and blew myself up. Ran over to heal teammate and was shot. Reloaded gun, enemy appeared infront of me, smacked me in the face and was shot.

Started to get my **** together in the warehouse but had to go to work. Gagging for another go so can't be bad.

Just had my first go and it was completely the opposite experience, I simply could not die! I got through that whole outdoor section alive on the first go, despite not being able to find the rocket launcher for about five minutes and just stumbling around in the open taking hits. When me and the other guy eventually crept into the warehouse and saw a bunch of the enemy down below, I felt so superhuman I just lobbed a grenade at them and then vaulted over the railing after it! So incredibly satisfying lol! I took out a couple of the survivors with close combat but eventually they got me. Oh well.

I'm not having any trouble with the aiming, perhaps cos the closest I have played to this type of game is MGO which also doesn't have any assist. I did have a lot of trouble figuring out where to go and what to do.. no surround sound here so when one guy was shouting at me "Over here!", "We can go up this way!", "Come on!".. I was totally baffled as to which one was talking to me.

Great experience though, I'm going to preorder it now.

[spagmasterswift]

Just had my first go and it was completely the opposite experience, I simply could not die!

I am indeed gamings 'redshirt'

[fishbowlhead]

Another thing I noticed was that you don't get that really annoying thing that you do in CoD where enemies endlessly re-spawn until you've reached a checkpoint 20 foot in front of you.

I really hated that and was worried it would be happening in this too but I'm glad to say that there was no sign of it in the demo.

Guerrilla use the halo system of enemies either already being in an area, or they go into the area by a realistic means, i.e absale in, or are transported in by by some sort of vehicle. (kilzone 1 did it effectively too)

Its something ive noticed virtually no other devs do apart from bungie or guerilla, however it adds to the immersion immensely.

[Eight Rooks]

That was about my only big issue with the demo, by the way - quite hard the first time to work out what the bloody hell I was supposed to be doing. Took me a while of wandering around before I noticed my buddy waiting to give me a boost onto the lift, in particular. Not to mention the bit with the RPG. I thought I was being prompted to stay where I was, not dash forward straight into open ground. Still, it was late, I was tired, it's certainly not a deal-breaker.

[Brad]

Agree with Rooks on that actually. I had an identical experience and I wasn't tired. That kinda thing could get frustrating.

I did also see a Helghan's knee clip through some scenery. Just once and only a few pixels but it was definitely there. Not as bad as Fallout 3 though where my companion crouched down near a wall and her head and torso poked though the wall.

[TheForce]

played the demo once, it was quite nice, graphics are good, sound is good, AI is good. But it's not like something we've never seen before.
It's just that (IMO) the PS3 pad is crap for FPS. Maybe it's because I'm so used to the 360 pad by now, but somehow it feels like a step back in time playing it with the PS3 pad.
I was totally annoyed by using R3 for aiming, that just didn't work for me.

However I've read here now that another setting will move it to one of the shoulder buttons, that might make a (huge) difference, I will give it another try this evening and I really hope it will change my mind because the game looks promising, but when the controls are so annoying I will have to pass it.

[Brad]

You can set it to L1 = zoom in. Also you can set it so that you have to keep L1 held in to remain in zoom. I found this conflicts somewhat with holding L2 for cover. In the end, just like SOCOM before it, I used their default controls and I believe they are the best way to play the game (not surprising really - makes sense for the optimal controls to be the default).

[rmoxon]

That was about my only big issue with the demo, by the way - quite hard the first time to work out what the bloody hell I was supposed to be doing. Took me a while of wandering around before I noticed my buddy waiting to give me a boost onto the lift, in particular. Not to mention the bit with the RPG. I thought I was being prompted to stay where I was, not dash forward straight into open ground. Still, it was late, I was tired, it's certainly not a deal-breaker.

I agree with this, surley it wouldnt harm the game to give you some type of on screen arrow telling you where to go next (ala Halo).

[Extra Terrestrial]

This is such a good demo.

In the warehouse, I went over to the far side (from where you enter the area) and got into cover and popped out by using the 'hold zoom' function and blimey, the lighting from the roof glares into your line of fire and makes it difficult to shoot the helghast yet alone spot them.

This might be a small subtle thing in the grand scheme of things but it is truly a brilliant feature and not one I have seen whilst playing any console-base FPS in my life.

I managed to get through the first area in just under five minutes and blasted my way through the warehouse in just over five minutes; it is almost a time trial in it's own way.

Not one but two helghast managed to flank me during the beach battle and the first almost went in kamikaze style at me whereas the second kept running from cover to cover and taking pot shots at me - the demo shows off some stunning AI routine if you ask me and it's only on the 'normal' mode too.

The 27th really cannot come soon enough!



For those who are finding the controls difficult, simply go into the controls menu with the options and enable your set-up as 'Alternative 2' and select the 'Zoom Hold' box.

It plays just like Call of Duty 4 and I am so pleased that the developers provided alternative control set-ups.

I agree with this, surley it wouldnt harm the game to give you some type of on screen arrow telling you where to go next (ala Halo).

And ruin the immersion?

F*ck no!

[Rick]

Do the enemies react to being shot? or are they just bullet sponges until the fall over dead?

[Darwock]

I'm guessing once you play more of the story you will get to know who the characters are, so being told to go with one in particular won't be trial and error as it was in the demo.

They react in lots of different ways to being shot.

[Brad]

And ruin the immersion?

F*ck no!

Completely agree. Other than the cross hairs there is no hud and this really helps the immersion. I actually wish there was a way to switch off the glow of guns and ammo too.

Do the enemies react to being shot? or are they just bullet sponges until the fall over dead?

This is why I'm confused that some people are saying the aiming feels off. If you shoot a Helghan in the leg then you can see that he got shot in the leg by the way he reacts. Think Resi 4 body part targeting and you'll not be far off.