Previews// Killzone 2

It's unfortunate that the setting demands a monochromatic palette, but let's be clear - blue skies and green grass bathed in golden sunshine doesn't really work with the dust-coated, crumbling concrete of the urban battlefield. Later levels set in a desert, though still battered by high winds, do offer some variations but in this preview I didn't get to see much more. It would be interesting to see what the Killzone 2 engine would make of some of the most striking settings of the original, such as parks filled with cherry trees in blossom. Alas, I doubt the Helghan home world plays host to such beauty.

On the gameplay front, the single-player campaign is still as robust a first-person shooter experience as the original game. Gone is the option to play as one of the team members, instead you play throughout as the same character, Sev. During most encounters you're accompanied by another team member, who acts as much a signpost through the mayhem as he plays the part of a source of covering fire. The gun-play is a little more measured with more emphasis being placed on using cover. This is a perfect opportunity to use the 'lean and peek' manoeuvre to quickly move from cover to return fire and then take cover again.

Multiplayer mode is far from an afterthought. The beta game features three battlefields of varying sizes. As is always the way with multiplayer, learning your way around the battlefield is almost as important as knowing which end of the gun makes the noise. The lobby area gives players the chance to vote on their preferred arena before play commences.

The instructions are delivered over radio comms from either Helghan or ISA command, depending on which faction you choose to play. Either way, the objectives are the same: search and destroy, search and retrieve or assassinate a target. On the flip side, when you play for the defending team you must protect the target area or player until the time is up. There's also the classic team deathmatch where it's simply kills that count. Each sub-game connects these play modes seamlessly, granting a few seconds to regroup before instructions are delivered for the next objective.

It probably comes across a bit nerdy or worse, fanboyish, but I have to say that I'm truly delighted to find that Killzone 2 is turning out to be a great game. It does nobody any favours to over-hype a game, whether it's with promises of undeliverable features or unachievable visuals, despite what some claim. That the game is living up to the visual promise made by the pre-vis rendered video from 2005 is testament to the sweat and toil put in by the folks at Guerilla, and a ruddy, stout finger in the eye for the haters out there that said it wasn't possible.

So, what do we have? Blisteringly good visuals? Check! Good, solid campaign gameplay? Check! Equally good multiplayer? Check! Single-handed saviour of the PS3? For that we'll have to sit it out and see.

^{* preview code is dated October 2008.}