In the final of three articles concerning the multiplayer beta of Killzone 2, I give my impressions in place of Machina-AX, the author of the first two pieces.

Killzone 2 is the grittiest, most immersive, and all around most exhilarating first person shooter I have ever played.

Getting that out of the way, let’s rewind to 2004. As we all know, the original Killzone didn’t receive the highest of praise upon release. It had some very cool things going for it, and as a result was hyped to high heavens prior to its debut, but it ultimately turned out to be a buggy mess, with any positive traits of the game being buried under a myriad of framerate dips, texture pop-in, and other technical issues.

Killzone 2 is similar to its predecessor in many ways, such as style and atmosphere, but it seems to be doing so many things so damn right compared to the original game. I’ve spent the last four weeks playing the Killzone 2 multiplayer beta, and it is an immersive, intense, and truly addicting experience, one that uses the original Killzone as its base, but improves on every aspect of the game 100 fold, and further builds on this foundation by adding in other new and unique elements.

The controls are pretty standard fare for a shooter these days. You have the basic abilities to run, crouch, jump, etc., and various button layouts to choose from, as well as sensitivity adjustments for the X and Y axes. The general gameplay style is similar to Call of Duty 4’s, with the main difference being that your character has more of an emphasis on weight. As a result, camera movement is a bit slower, and the camera sort of sways to and fro as you walk and run. When you jump, you lift your arms up while simultaneously moving your head, making you unable to shoot. All of this combines to make a rather meaty and enthralling gameplay experience, but if you have seen any recent gameplay videos, you probably already have a good idea of what I am talking about. Shooting is pretty standard fair, and it takes very few shots to bring someone down. A few well placed chest shots or a single headshot from the rifles will take down an enemy nice and quick, as will a nicely placed shotgun blast, etc. One thing to note, however, is that you will often continue to fire your weapon for a split second after you die, which will occasionally result in you bringing down your opponent as well. This results in an abnormally high number of double kills (you and your opponent dying simultaneously), but it can be quite rewarding, especially if you manage to get a grenade out in that split second as the life drains out of you.

Despite being rather traditional, the shooting mechanics are great. The weapons have a nice weight to them, and a good amount of recoil. The audio is top notch, so the guns sound loud, heavy, and very realistic. The weapons are loud even at a distance, allowing you to hear rocket fire from clear across a map. When you begin firing upon an enemy, blood spurts out of him in various directions, making giant stains on the walls and ground, with a puddle forming around the character after he finally dies. This gruesome experience should be even more intense in the singleplayer campaign, with Guerrilla's inclusion of the Hit and Response System, an elaborate animations system via which the AI NPCs react realistically whenever they take fire. All of this together makes for a shooter in which it's extremely fun to just... shoot. And that's the most important aspect of any shooter.

There are five round types in the beta: Body Count, which is your standard Team Death Match, Search & Retrieve, which is a variant of Capture the Flag, involving finding a propaganda speaker and bringing it to a set location on the map, a location usually near the opposing team’s spawn, Seek & Destroy, which is a variant of King of the Hill, involving one team planting a pair of bombs on two objects near the opposing team’s base, Find & Hold, which is a variant of your typical Zones mode, involving both teams attempting to gain control of various areas of the map until one team fills up a progression bar, and Assassination, in which a member of one team is targeted for Assassination; his team must defend him for a certain amount of time (and within a certain area, to prevent the guy from just hiding out back at his base), while the other team is tasked with taking him out.

A typical match is a Warzone match, which includes all round types. Of course, you’re not limited to this when making your own game. You actually have plenty of options to choose from when making your own match type, like deciding what round types you’d like to play, how many of each round you’d like to play, how long the rounds should be (or how long the Assassination target should survive), which class types should be allowed, whether to allow friendly fire or not, and a number of other categories you can mess around with. It’s a rather robust system.

One of the more interesting things about the game is how the rounds play out. In a single match, you can have one round, or multiple rounds, and the team that wins a majority of the rounds wins the match. The unique thing about Killzone's implementation of this, however, is that after each round the gameplay does not stop. Rounds are seamless, and they flow right into each other, regardless of the objective per round. When the entire match ends, points are handed out per player, and you move to a new map. To provide an example of this, in a typical Warzone match you might start off in a round of Seek & Destroy. Your team is tasked with planting bombs near the enemy’s base, and then defending them until they explode. Let’s say you fail at this objective. Immediately, your “Commander” (which is really just a generic HGH or ISA voice) will come over the comm. saying something to the tune of “We’ve failed! But fear not, the war is hardly over!” and then he’ll target a member of the opposing team for assassination. Nothing stops, and you’ll immediately start heading from wherever you were to your new objective. This can continue for as many as five or six rounds. It’s all seamless, and it really helps to keep the flow of a match going. It’s also nice because even if you lose one round, you'll still have a chance to come back and win the whole match.

Of course, the rounds system isn’t the only interesting thing that Killzone 2 has to offer. There’s also the badge system, which is really Killzone 2’s defining feature. There are seven classes, including the generic Rifleman, and each class has two badges, a primary and a secondary badge, each providing a certain skill to the wearer. You can mix and match primary and secondary badges at will, allowing you to create some rather unique player types. You will always take on the appearance of whatever type of primary badge you have selected, and you will also be limited to the available weapons for that type.

The classes:

Rifleman
Primary Badge : None
Secondary Badge : None, but you can equip any secondary badge of another class that you’ve unlocked.

The Rifleman is unique in that he has access to almost all weapons in the game, unlike the other classes. However, when you start off as a Private, you only have access to your two basic battle rifles, the ISA M82 and the Helghast STA-52, with other weapons being unlocked as you level up. Of course, that’s perfectly fine, as both weapons are excellent choices for any player, and are used by a large number of people (followed by weapons like the shotgun, sniper rifle, and rocket launcher). The ISA rifle has high accuracy and incurs significant damage, making it great for long distance encounters, while the HGH rifle has a faster rate of fire and a large spray, making it perfect for tight battles.

Medic
Primary Badge : The ability to revive allies via a medic gun.
Secondary Badge : The ability to drop health packs for you and your allies.

Though limited to only using the two main battle rifles, Medics are one of the more useful classes in the game. A couple of these guys can be essential for leading your team to victory at a crucial point in a match. Of course, you might make some teammates angry if you have a habit of reviving them under thick enemy fire.

Engineer
Primary Badge : The ability to deploy sentry turrets.
Secondary Badge : The ability to repair things, like ammo crates, gun emplacements, and sentry turrets.

These guys come equipped with a shotgun, and are absolutely essential in some game types. For example, setting up turrets and repairing gun emplacements around the designated target area in Seek & Destroy can be of utmost importance.

Tactician
Primary Badge : The ability to lay down a smoke grenade that acts as a spawn point for your allies.
Secondary Badge : The ability to call in an air support bot.

These guys are great for helping their teammates get where they need to go. Setting up a spawn point and calling in air support near the target location in Seek & Destroy is extremely useful for getting your guys in, planting those bombs, and defending them until they explode.

Saboteur
Primary Badge : The ability to disguise yourself as an enemy.
Secondary Badge : The ability to plant C4 proximity explosives.

These are some real sneaky bastards that have a habit of slipping into the opposing faction’s spawn, then taking out everyone they can and laying some C4 before they’re finally gunned down by the sentry turrets guarding the enemy encampment. This is especially bothersome for the Helghast on Salamun market, because once a Saboteur gets on the roof of the Helghast base, they’re free from turret fire, so it’s up to a smart HGH player to take them down. These guys are also extremely useful for sneaking up on an Assassination target.

Assault
Primary Badge : Double the health of all other classes.
Secondary Badge : A temporary speed boost, allowing him to get in and out quick!

The Assault trooper spawns with a grenade launcher, and is real useful for getting into the thick of battle quick, then blowing everything to hell while absorbing a good bit of damage.

Scout
Primary Badge : The use of an advanced camo system that makes you invisible while standing still.
Secondary Badge : The ability to tag all on-screen enemies with a marker, broadcasting their whereabouts to your entire team.

The Scout is arguably the deadliest class in the game, due to its sniper rifle and cloaking capabilities. Of course, it has its disadvantages, such as limited ammo, and the likelihood of being snuck up on from behind, due to the game’s intricate level design. There are always multiple ways to get to any given area, so these guys always have to be on the move.

The ability to mix and match badges leads to some very interesting class combinations. For example, you could combine the Engineer’s primary badge with the Tactician’s secondary badge, allowing you to set up sentry turrets while calling in air sentry bots simultaneously. Or you could combine the Assault class’ primary badge with the Medic’s secondary, resulting in a tough warrior that can throw down health packs to heal himself. There are over 40 combinations of badges you can try, if you take into account the Rifleman’s ability to use secondary badges. Of course, these badges must be unlocked through extensive online play.

Of course, if you and a friend utilize two classes that benefit each other in some way, you may want to form a squad together so that you can follow each other around easier. In Killzone 2 you can form up to six squads per team. However, each squad can have a maximum of four members, so it's usually best to have four squads of four, using all 16 players on your team. When in a squad, open chat is enabled between you and your squad mates so that you can stay in constant contact with each other. You can also use the leader of the squad as a spawn point. In a larger match between two experienced teams, a couple of organized squads can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

There is also an intricate clan system in the beta, which allows you to set up matches between clans via the game itself, or via Killzone.com. Clans have Valor Points, which determine a clan’s rank, and which a clan can use to bet on any matches they partake in. I would go more in-depth on this intriguing system, but I honestly know very little about it.

There are only three maps available in the beta: Salamun Market, Radec Academy, and Blood Gracht. In their most basic design, the maps in Killzone 2 consist of nothing more than an ISA base countered by a Helghast base. Each base is protected by three automated turrets, preventing members of the opposing team from camping within your base, taking out players as they spawn. Of course, the actual maps are far more complex than that. Salamun Market, for instance, consists of a large street surround by alleyways and multi-tiered buildings, with one rather large building at the center of that includes a bridge extending over the road. This level is great for full 32 player matches. The second map, Radec Academy, is an abandoned military school that consists of various classrooms, a library, bathrooms, and other things surrounding a rather large courtyard. This map is fine with 8-32 players, though 32 can get extremely chaotic at times. The final map is Blood Gracht, a map similar in theme to the first, but much more compact. It consists of various makeshift bridges suspended over canals, in addition to tight corridors throughout abandoned buildings. This map is probably best suited for 8-16 players, but going with a full load of 32 can result in some insanely hectic fun. All of these maps are intricately designed, with multiple rooms, levels, and even tunnels. 90% of the rooms have 2-3 exits, so you never feel trapped, as there's always another way out of sticky situation.

All of these things, the gunplay, the map design, the classes, the mission objectives, are wrapped up in a stunning graphical package that makes the game an absolute blast to play. Players move fluidly and realistically (something that will actually be improved in the singleplayer with the added Hit and Response System), trash floats by in the wind in Salamun Market, the pillars you’re cowering behind in Radec Academy begin to crumble under enemy fire, glowing embers float through the air after an explosion, and your screen becomes a blurry and bloody mess after a rocket lands a mere six feet in front of you. This all leads to an intense and chaotic experience unparalleled in the console realm. Even the more subtle details of the graphical engine add to the experience, like the way dust can block out the light, or the fact that everything has a shadow, even pieces of destroyed cover. This all happens at a locked 30fps.

Click for bigger pic


This stunning presentation combined with the game’s tactical, squad-based gameplay and intricate level design results in the defining FPS experience, and it’s something no shooter fan (or even a non-shooter fan, something I would’ve considered myself to be just a short while ago) should miss, even at this beta stage.

Killzone 2 releases exclusively on the PlayStation 3 in February 2009, and it should start the year off with a bang. Assuming the singleplayer is as awesome as the multiplayer, Sony and Guerrilla Games will have one hell of a hit on their hands.

So ploid, I bought KZ2, I propose we make an EDEN clan on KZ2. Would be pretty sweet and then we can gather everyone on here that has a PS3 and own some shit up. Stat pad and get our ranks up real fast then just go rape everyone lol. IM GONNA MAIN SCOUT SO FUCK OFF....go be spy or something...maybe medic...we need those.