It feels like it was almost yesterday when Guerrilla Games finally released the incredibly hyped Killzone 2 on the PS3 and it was fantastic. Now that Killzone 3 is out it feels like it’s more or less the same as it’s predecessor instead of doing anything new. I’m going to say this now: if you buy Killzone 3 buy it for the multiplayer. The campaign was fantastic but not $60 fantastic with me finishing it in just under 4 hours.
Killzone 3
Developer: Guerrilla Games
Price: $60.00
Platform: PS3 (reviewed)
Killzone 3 starts out right where the second game ended, with Visari dead and Rico in a load of shit. After a few chapters you’ll cut to 6-months later where you learn you’ve been hanging out on Helghan for quite a while and it sucks pretty bad. The story feels a lot looser this time around with characters doing things that make absolute no sense and going off on objectives ‘just cause’. It’s obvious Guerrilla Games decided to play some Call of Duty during development because Killzone 3 is one big action set-piece moment with constant on-rails vehicle moments where you only get a break during a stealth mission, which in turn ends in a huge fight. I think the campaign suffers a bit for this since it kills the feel of the game. When I played Killzone 2 I knew throughout the entire game that invading Helghan was a horrible idea and that war sucks, this time around Sev is a complete badass doing whatever he wants no problem. The two new villains added to the story had potential but overall feel useless due to the little amount of time we get to see of them, but they have some of the best voice-work in the game with Malcolm McDowell and Ray Winstone voicing Stahl and Orlock.
My major gripe with the story would have to be how each protagonist (even the minor ones) seem to have a huge case of the ‘plot armor’ symptom. It just seems that no matter whatever they do nobody who is a good guy can die or suffer an injury in this game. I’m not saying that all the main characters should die, but tossing them in incredibly unrealistic situations and teasing us with their ‘death’ is just bullshit. Not to mention the ending was one of the worst cliffhangers ever in a game. Imagine if the ending of Halo 2 and Assassins Creed had a child, yea that’s Killzone 3’s ending. That’s not to say the campaign is bad, I enjoyed what I got out of it, it’s just that it didn’t really live up to what I was expecting of it. There are tons of great moments in it like the jungle area where you have to sneak around the Helghast, and when I mean ‘sneak around’ I mean stick your knife in their eye sockets. The brutal kills in this are exactly that, brutal, with various moves such as snapping necks, sticking your thumbs in their eyes, bashing heads on walls, or slicing throats. Killzone 3 also supports local only co-op in the campaign and botzone returns once again for you to take out your anger on poor defenseless bots. I did get a chance to play with Move controls and they work quite well actually, but I’m a controller kind of guy so pick the controller that floats your boat.
Now let’s get to the real reason you got Killzone 3, the multiplayer. I’d like to mention that they’ve gotten rid of the server rooms in exchange for matchmaking which a slight disappointment since I enjoyed the ability to customize multiple options in the games. When you start up multiplayer you’ll see three modes to select from: Guerrilla Warfare, Warzone, and Operations. Guerrilla Warfare is your standard team death match and Warzone is a repeat of the previous game where you’re given one out of seven randomly given objectives to complete ranging from typical TDM, assassinating an enemy player, or destroying/defending objectives. The new mode, Operations, is quite interesting in that it starts and ends with a cutscene depicting each player(with their name on top) as their class and the better you play the more important of a role your character will play in the final cutscene. It’s basically attackers vs defenders with Helghast on the defense, but they have a few objective styled such as blowing up a bridge so it can fall on a boat you can hack to escape a facility. It’s pretty obvious Guerrilla Games focused most of their attention on the multiplayer and it shows with the controls feeling a lot smoother than in Killzone 2 and various open levels with tight corridor areas. The jetpacks and mech suits add for nice variety to the levels and really do change up the way you play when somebody could fly over your head with a jetpack and shoot you in the back.
A new change to the multiplayer is the level system. This time around you get unlock points with each new level that you can use to unlock new guns or abilities for the specific class you want. It can feel a bit overwhelming trying to decide which class to put your points into but that’s where botzone comes in since it has all classes at max upgrades so play around with the classes in there to see which one you want to invest in. Also don’t worry about the grind since at first you only get a single point per level but that soon bumps up to two per level.
Killzone 3 does away with it’s previous look of a grim gray world and instead puts an emphasis on a red/white scheme. When I say red/white scheme I mean there are a lot of white schemed levels and there’s blood from your enemies all over it. Nonetheless the graphics look fantastic and although it’s just slightly better looking than K2 it’s still pretty damn good looking. The audio is fantastic once again with each sound perfectly done and if you happen to have a good set of headphones I’d recommend playing with them since it’ll feel like you’re right there fighting a war.
The Final Word
Killzone 3 is a fantastic game to add to your library, but only consider adding it if you want to invest time in the multiplayer since the campaign is insultingly short (shorter if you go at it in co-op).
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
