Killzone Shadow Fall

As a next gen early adopter, your options are always a bit limited, with some games getting way more attention than they normally would due to the limited turn out. (I’m looking at you Knack….) but you do come across some genre-defining games. At PS1 launch you had the awesome Tekken, PS2 had Timesplitters, and a certain Master-Chief graced day one of the Xbox. 

All these were new IP’s and Killzone Shadow Fall certainly is not new IP. The fourth game in the series where you, the Vektans are locked in the seemingly never ending Sci-fi battle against the generic Space Nazis, the Helghast, now turns up as a systems launch game for the first time. Widely regarded as some of the finest visuals in the business, even if a bit dreary, Killzone games have suffered in the gameplay category when sat alongside the giants of Call of Duty and Battlefield. KZ-SF almost falls into the same old ways again, like your favourite supermodel, Looks fantastic… but a bit empty upstairs. Almost…

Looks Amazing....

KZ-SF looks great. Character models could do with a bit of tidying up, the lip-sync being slightly off during the opening level, with facial close ups of your fellow Vektans not helping to disguise it. Everyone is very shiny, glistening skin, shiny leather, polished metal, etc., but rarely, if ever, do you come across someone who has realistic looking fabric or hair, they’re either bland, or shiny. And let’s be honest, current gen can do bland and shiny…

The environments themselves are a different story, bright, colourful vistas, a real departure from the standard Killzone palette of brown and grey. Sprawling cities with the midday sun reflecting along the skyscrapers, with waterfalls and modern art juxtaposed to all look fantastic…. Hang on a minute…. Now I get what the share button is for! I quickly upload to Facebook; show off the PS4 graphics to me mates.

One of the Earlier levels, still Looking Fantastic...

The now infamous sky-scraper terrorist attack which was shown at the PS4 announcement event last February loses none of its shine when you witness it first hand, with the Michael bayhem-esque slowed-down explosion which now seems common-place in the genre. Then the gun show starts, and the guns look ace, with the standard rifle posing as both an assault rifle, then with a quick flick down on the d-pad, it quickly morphs to a sniper rifle. Bullet impacts on the Helgan give you the familiar yet satisfying blood splatters, like shooting a paint pot, giant spills of red stuff being thrown through the air. When things get a little too close for comfort, a quick L3 gives you the melee performance. A neck snap, a knife to the jugular, a stab in the orange eye, all looks fantastic, even if it does seem like it detaches you from the experience a bit.

The Helgan Terror attack... Those Fuckers!!!!

Believe it or not, gunplay is quite important in a FPS, and it doesn’t disappoint in KZ-SF. The characters are quick and nimble, not hulking fat bastards that you seem to be steering in KZ2, the first PS3 outing for the Vektans. Obviously learning from the slick controls of COD, the characters move just right, and every button seems to be in the right place, expect for the new touchpad.

The touchpad controls your sidekick, The OWL. It’s your own personal bodyguard, providing covering fire, zip lines, a shield placement, and can hack terminals, all at your command. And that command is given by a direction swipe of the touchpad (think of it as a mouse pad on a laptop, exactly the same) swipe up activating the flying sentry gun, swipe left for zip line, and so on. A problem I found was that I knew it was “up” for the sentry, but I often pressed D-pad up. It’s a whole new set of buttons to access, but I sometimes confused them with the d-pad, but maybe that was just me.

This Floaty bugger is your OWL, handy little fella....

The Helgasht are pretty tough, needing a fair amount of caps to be popped to bring them down. As the campaign progresses, it gets tougher by sheer numbers, whereas you can often feel penned in, but with dogged determination, you can pick off the opposition one by one provided you use all of your arsenal, namely, your OWL.

There was times in the game where I struggled to move forward, not hit a dead end as such, but struggled. Then I would remember the OWL, and it’s where KZ-SF begins to impress. In a classic scenario of “hold on til help comes!”  Wave after wave of Helgasht would need mowing down, and in classic FPS style, I would be running from side to side of our position, trying to pick them off. But when I remembered the OWL, I could stand on one side and direct the OWL to the other side while I held position. While not very powerful, the OWL would give you chance to mop up one wave while holding back another. At various times throughout the campaign, I would recall I had the OWL, and it would help me to victory. The OWL isn’t very good on its own, but as a sidekick, it proved to be infallible. I’m not sure if the bits I found difficult and needed the OWL were purpose built to need the OWL, because there is no indication to “USE OWL HERE” but if the game designers did create the campaign to subtly use it, then Kudos to them, cos its woven in brilliantly to be a worthy companion which helps, and doesn’t hold your hand and walk you through.

Killing The Helgasht is always fun, As they all look like Space Nazis, and Killing Nazis never get old does it?

If KZ-SF was a stand-alone PS3 title, it’d be great. Great visuals, good fast gameplay, with some new nice ideas to spice things up. But because it’s a launch title, maybe it’s being over analysed, cos I loved it. It’s not genre defining, but it never professed to be. What it does claim to be is a beautiful adventure through Vekta, with some nice gameplay ideas woven in make it a shooter worth playing.

8 outta  10….

Me, Drunk Gamer, With me Game, getting Drunk!!!