With trademark astounding visuals and Playstation Move functionality, is Killzone 3 the new standard bearer for first-person-shooters on Sony’s console?
By Shane Willoughby of thegamingliberty.com
The reciprocal chorus of brutality and beauty that defines the Killzone universe has saved its best symphony for Killzone 3. Guerrilla’s latest effort is a master class of complimentary aesthetic fidelity and competent unrelenting warfare. Killzone 3 is war on a disc and it’s a bloody beautiful war from start to finish.
Sev is back and he’s still hungry for Helghast. The game literally picks up minutes after the death of Scholar Vesari at the end of the previous instalment and makes no apologies for it.
One thing that’s immediately evident here is just how layered the story and subsequent narrative is this time out. It’s easily the best KZ storyline to date.
Internal antagonisms underscore both the ISA and Helghan war efforts and add an interesting and refreshing edge to the story. Sev and Rico clash with their commanding officer Narville over what’s best for the ISA moving forward.
Trust us, there’s probably some expensive-ass carnage to the right of this picture… probably
Helghan’s top brass, the diabolical Admiral Orlock and the shrewd and calculating Jorhan Stahl wage their own internal war of Helghan ego and ideology. The story takes us from Sev’s immediate frontline skirmishes to the decorated war chambers of Orlock and Stahl. War, at every level, is a struggle and there’s a level of welcoming subtle depth here that Guerrilla have never explored before.
KZ3 is an incessant combat experience. There’s no negotiating with the unrelenting and unremitting bullet blitzing mentality that proved so purposeful and affective in Killzone 2. KZ3 takes what KZ2 did and ups it a notch or two. It’s trigger happy stuff but it never outstays it’s welcome and never outweighs the quality of the experience.
Sev will dash from fire fight to fire fight streaming thousands of bullets into the vexed rouge eyes of the interplanetary fascist Helghast. It’s a struggle at times and death lurks around every corner. Sev is always outnumbered but this is what makes KZ so good – its constant brutality and consistent devastation is what makes it what it is.
Gunning down streams of Helghast, on foot, behind a turret or in a vehicle, is medicine for FPS fans that are becoming more and more exposed to shooters with protracted stealth sequences, modern weaponry, tactical combat and intellectual insertion. KZ3 washes its hands of its FPS competitor’s and gives them that element of intellect but with a hell of a lot more killing.
New additions
Many (if not all) of the weapons that Sev handled in KZ2 return in the sequel and there are only a few new additions to the firearm roster this time out. However, the biggest alternation and addition to Sev’s arsenal has to be the new brutal melee. A quick tap of the L1 button near any Helghast will have Sev slit a throat, gauge an eye, stab a socket or snap a neck to the ultimate satisfaction of the player. It’s not called a brutal melee for nothing and it equals instant death to the unfortunate Helghan that stands before you. It’s the kind of thing that Kratos would be proud of.
The brutal melee is by no means a game changer but it is a very cool addition that you would think could potentially play a huge part in how you interact with Helghast in later installments of the Killzone franchise. Guerrilla is really onto something here. The brutal melee system is actually a metaphor for Killzone 3 as it is an example of how, although Guerrilla haven’t exactly taken that big of a leap forward with Killzone 3 by comparison to Killzone 2, the additions they have packaged are nothing if not definite.
Damn them Helghast lot, always up to their usual space-fascist nonsense
The visuals also are incredibly rich and wondrous. Killzone 2 set new standards and KZ3 does it all over again. KZ2 was a beautiful uniform palette of heavy browns and greys with the odd splash of primary colour red. KZ3 is a little more adventurous in its colour schemes, the murky browns and dim greys share the same space as bright whites, handsome blues and rich greens.
Helghan is an astonishingly beautiful planet, even if it is dilapidated and ravaged by war. From the urban expanses right down to the insular jungles, Guerrilla’s visual team has built an incredibly detailed and stunning graphical engine that 99.9% of games out there at the moment can’t touch. There’s an awe-inspiring sense of scale and depth tucked away in there.
Often times you’ll point you rifle skywards just to look at the beautiful mushroom cloud renders that surround you. Lighting effects are sublime. The visual and aural stimuli are seemingly never-ending.
It’s just such a shame that the single player campaign is as short as it is. At around seven hours, my first playthrough was completed in one single sitting on medium difficulty. It’s not the most difficult game you’ll ever play either. For example, when you make your way through sequences with Rico, when you die, he will revive you almost immediately.
Although enemy A.I is quite good, there are a number of tangible inconsistencies, particularly with Rico and accompanying squad members. You will often see Rico riddling Helghast with almost double or triple the amount of bullets it would usually take to down them and yet they don’t die. It isn’t until you unload on them that they finally choke.
Likewise, sometimes character dialogue can get lost and can loop in sequences and sound a little off. The actual dialogue itself is much better on the Helghast side, particularly with Stahl and Orlock. Sev and Rico’s script is a tad clichéd and will have you rolling your eyes from time to time with the sheer predictable nature of what their saying.
Multiplayer mayhem
Taking the battle online is a must and Killzone 3 packs an incredibly deep and satisfying multiplayer experience. Guerrilla Warfare, Operations and Warzone define proceedings and there’s many many hours to be had of brutal melee-ing you’re mates and your online competition for many, many months to follow. It’s not much of an evolution from Killzone 2 but it does appear to run much faster.
The weighty player feeling of KZ2 has been removed making things far more frantic both on and offline. KZ3 inherits the same classes as KZ2, for example the tactician, engineer, medic and infiltrator and the more you play and the more you kill, the higher your rank will climb and the more abilities you will unlock. Multiplayer maps are recreations from single player campaign settings and all cater better to different individual modes. Overall, multiplayer is a robust, rewarding and competitive experience. 
Even after all this, KZ3 just has so much more to unravel and unlock. Not only does it look sumptuous in 3D but it supports Playstation Move to incredibly surprising results. KZ3 handles brilliantly with Move, far better than one could have originally imagined. If you ever had any doubts about the competency of the hardware, then KZ3 will be the game to dispel said doubts.
Killzone 3 is a fantastic title. Although it isn’t exactly a huge leap forward from KZ2, it bests it in almost every conceivable way and is easily the PS3’s best shooter. Buy it.
Format: Playstation 3; Developer: Guerilla Games
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