Reviews// Killzone 2

It's quite possibly fair to say that Killzone 2 carries more weight on its shoulders than any game before it. Gamers, critics and even the public are not really appraising this title simply on its merits as a first-person shooter, but as the saviour of the PlayStation 3. Perhaps LittleBigPlanet carried a similar degree of expectation as the key to turning around the fortunes of Sony's beleaguered third-generation console, but then, LBP didn't also shoulder the burden of years of hyperbolic visuals.

So, can Killzone 2 play Sony's Canute and hold back the seemingly relentless waves of former Playstation gamers and newcomers drifting toward the Wii and 360? To be blunt: no, not a chance. It's not a bad game by any chalk, in fact it represents the highest standards of video game production. Why it cannot alone save the PS3 is simple: Killzone 2 has to work doubly hard just to regain the trust of shooter fans after the original Killzone's bubble of hype burst, revealing a technically outstanding but soulless game. Even if it were blessed with following-up a sparkling début title, this game is a first-person shooter: a genre that's fighting with driving games for the dubious acclaim as the most over-saturated.

So, let's forget about all this platform-saving bullshit. I'm going to review it as a game - albeit one that has some reparation to make and some very stiff competition from other franchises most beloved of the shooter fan.

For the uninitiated, the setting is hundreds of years into Earth's future. As the human race has reached out to new planetary systems, a faction known as The Helghast has risen against the ISA (International Strategic Alliance ) - the colonial coalition. The original game, released on PS2 in 2004, put the player in the trenches as an ISA soldier defending the planet Vekta from a Helghast invasion, bent on reclaiming the world they settled. The PSP's Killzone: Liberation continued the story, this time viewed in a third-person perspective, as the ISA took the battle from the cities and out to the hills, valleys and rivers of Vekta.

Killzone 2 sees the ISA take the offensive against the Helghast; bringing the fight to the enemy's door; the Helghast home world, Helghan. A stark departure from Vekta's lush vegetation and temperate climate, Helghan is a harsh world battered by high winds, electrical storms and toxic atmosphere. This chapter in the story explains why the devilish Helghast, with their menacing glowing eyes, are rarely seen without masks and breathing tubes having adapted to and embraced this hellish world. The ISA must fight on two fronts: against the Helghast and against Helghan itself.

The single-player campaign establishes the setting and introduces our player character, Sev, and his team mates: Alpha squad. We are aboard one of the ISA cruisers in the minutes leading up the attack.

Alpha squad comprises a pretty thick-skulled bunch of gung-ho Jarhead types, sporting some truly comical dialogue. Do US Marines really talk to one another like this? Answers in the Forum – but only from real marines, not from people who've just seen Jarhead!

A true reflection of infantryman prose or not, these segments of rotten dialogue - which, thankfully, do become more tolerable - establish the story and the method of its narrative. The game slips neatly between pre-set cut-scenes to gameplay, faultlessly delivering a continuous story from the moment your character steps from his sleeping quarters to the end of the first 'act'. It's only with the change of location that there's a break in the action and you see a loading screen, because, even during battle, the plot is told through your squad mates and radio communications.