Killzone 3 Review
Getting to the third game in a trilogy stands as quite an accomplishment. For Killzone, though, it's been an unusual story. The original game feels...
Killzone 3 paints a dark sci-fi vision of war
[This Killzone 3 review is based on a master copy of the final retail game provided by Sony played on a retail PlayStation 3]
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replyComment on Killzone 3 Review, by Garnett Lee.
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my middle mouse / scroll wheel is too sensitive to click without scrolling madly around the screen.
what is quite annoying is that not long ago I used to be in the habit of right click + open in new window, but I forced myself to get out of that habit very recently, only to have some of the links in the chatty not open in a new window any more. haha. :) -
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Interesting review, g.lee. Did the scoring system (in MP) and movement remind you of Modern Warfare?
When testing it out I kept thinking how it reminded me of MW, though with less annoying damage-jelly.-
g lee isn't Garnett Lee, Loiosh!
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nah his finger slipped, he's just glee
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It's Geddy Lee.
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phobe
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Loiosh is gay?
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Ffffaalaaaaaaaming.
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i thought he was a chick
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Loiosh is hard gay, but I don't get bent out of shape. He seemed misinformed about facts, now that I remember.
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Looks like fun. The Move support seems to be well done, still not sold on 3D. I will have to pick it up soon.
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Just to expand on something Garnett touched on, Killzone 3 feels less like the third installment of a trilogy and more like a second attempt to reboot a franchise.
It sounds like the developers finally nailed everything down (well except for the lame brained story) but after two prior installments that delivered mixed results I can't muster up much excitement for it.
If I didn't care for the first two games is Killzone 3 going to change my mind?-
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This review is pretty spot on. Though I actually enjoyed the jungle level quite a bit. I beat the game last night and enjoyed the hell out of it, but the pacing does seem a little off. I think they tried to cram too much variety especially with the vehicle segments. There's just too many of them, and while some were great, others were just plain frustrating. (end game spoiler) The fact that the game ends on a on-rails vehicle segment was such a completele letdown. It's probably the worst ending since Halo 2. The indoor combat before that was great though. I never at any point felt like there's too much shooting, since the gunplay feels great and is fun. I just wanted more of it.
I agree that the game stops itself a few times from becomming an epic (for lack of a better word) experience, and that's a shame because the setup on some of these levels is pretty good. It always feels like it's on the cusp of exploding, but it never gets there. It's like the game has blue balls. Although on that one level where you're fighting that giant 4 legged machine thing was pretty cool. At least the on-foot part was.
Overall, I really liked it and had a lot of fun. However, it had potential to become one of the best single player games of this generation. What's frustrating is that it's not mechanics or bugs that keep it from being that. It's the choices that were made that got away from it's best aspect, the shooting. Not that there's a total lack of it. It's just I wanted more. I haven't played the multiplayer yet, but I hope to get some time in tonight. Killzone 2's multiplayer was fun, so I'm hoping this is more of the same.-
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Prepare to be surprised :(
And while the Radick fight was awful, the actual ending of Killzone 2 was not bad.-
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I thought the final fight was good challenging fun, except for the fact that they never tell you that you have to take out Radek's supporting troops before you can actually deal him any damage. I must've pumped thousands of rounds into that fuck before I gave up and went on gamefaqs.
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(end game spoilers)
The level was terrible, not the ending story wise. Though it's not like the story was good either. However, at least someone was shot in it. The fact that Killzone 3 ends on a terrible pew-pew on-rails space vehicle segment was disgusting. You aren't even shooting at someone, you're shooting a faceless ship and the antagonist is likely still alive. This game is amazing when you're shooting someone in the face. End it on that, or put your melee system into play and stab someone in the eye while kicking them in the balls and bashing their face into the wall. -
Having watched all the cutscenes and the ending, KZ3's story has a much more cartoony, almost Uncharted or Gears of War adventure style feel to it and I don't think it suits the game. KZ2's tone seemed much more grim and serious. The principle Helghast in KZ3 were pretty weak characters/adversaries and nowhere near as imposing as people like Mael Radec from KZ2. There also weren't any really griping moments story wise like Jan Templar's exit in KZ2. The ending to KZ3 is indeed horrible; Halo 2 is an apt comparison.
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If you are at all into 3D, this game does it really well. You don't realize the immersion until you turn 3D off and you see how flat the game looks without it.
Also, compared to some other 3D games/movies, I have had hardly any eye fatigue when playing KZ3, even after 2-3 hours of straight 3D playtime.-
thanks for the heads up man!
normally i would have just bought it and played it, but i found out i can order a tv I've been wanting with best buy and well, I'm a patient man and will probably wait just to get that 3d experience.
i even have the move! so I'll see if i can find that gun too.
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I just beat the game tonight and am surprised that no reviews I've read mention how unfinished the story cut scenes feel. To me this is the primary thing that kept the game from being epic. It was a lot like watching a bad scifi movie. A lot of the cut scenes, especially the ones with a lot of action seem to be unfinished and poorly mixed and cut. It'll leave you thinking how'd they get there?, oh now we're doing this why? Why aren't they dead? Unlike a lot of the reviews I didn't feel like the game was too much go go go. I felt the pacing and the variety in the game was rather good. I did however feel that the cut scenes and the story let the rest down. Sometimes the cut scene would be full of action but the audio would just let it down by either being too quiet or not having the right music. And sometimes when the cut scene gets good and I'm thinking I can't wait to see how they get out of this one, magic now we're playing a new level and I don't know what happened. By the time I completed the game it had me thinking this is a good alpha build and I can't wait to play the final game when they polish up the cut scenes and add some of the missing footage to make it all flow together.
I haven't played the multiplayer yet. Hopefully I'll get some time tomorrow to play it but as a single player only game I can only give it a 8/10. To me KZ2 felt more polished as a whole although I did like the core mechanics of 3 better.
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I'm not sure I'd call the jungle level ill-advised. While its placement in the story left something to be desired, I thought the natural alien landscape was a nice break from the typical ruined cityscapes and industrial complexes from the second game.
Totally agree about the flow of the story though. It was disjointed, like many parts were developed separately and then just glued together. It felt like the fighting was just there to drive you to the next cutscene, which would set up the next confrontation to drive you to yet another cutscene.
I think you're right Garnett, lacking in confidence is the correct way to describe it. Either it doesn't trust itself, or it doesn't trust the player to be able to handle a narrative without having their hand held the entire time.
Oh well, at least the Multiplayer is still awesome. -
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I'm going to try the Move tonight and I'll post my impressions with it. If the Move works well then I'll probably get the sharp shooter attachment since it looks fucking awesome.
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I've put maybe 3 or 4 hours into the campaign using the Move+navigator and while I'm enjoying it I'm still kinda struggling with the controls. What you gain in accuracy with the Move you lose in maneuverability.
FWIW I'm using the default Move control settings. I should probably play around with them to see if I can get better results.-
One day someone's going to figure out how to map both 'move' and 'look' to a single stick (with trigger modifiers to let the game know which one you mean) and leave the pointer out of the camera system entirely.
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Just beat the game today with the move on hard and realized something when calibrating today. Instead of pointing to the approximate location of the targets which yield a rectangle(top left, lower right) I pointed to imaginary points to make a square. My imaginary top and bottom were off the screen. With this setup it'll make the move less sensitive to vertical movements so you don't end up staring at the sky or ground like I usually do when things get hectic. I would also recommend playing around with the deadzone settings. I like mine at 0.
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Loving the game, a must for any ps3 fps fan.
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It's interesting that years and years after Killzone was released as "the Halo killer," it would seem that Guerilla is going to outlast Bungie and Halo. What will MS do in a world where Halo is progressively tarnished by sweatshop-like production schedules (ie., Crackdown 2)?
Oh, sure, 343 Guilty Spark will try to keep the torch going after a respawn, but I think Guerilla may wind up killing Halo by the next release cycle because I doubt Microsoft's Halo-making facility's ability to generate compelling Halo's. To paraphrase a horrible movie, "You're good, baby, but Bungie's magic." Bungie's left the controller on the floor and I don't think 343 Guilty Spark is that good a player no matter how many precious jewels, lights, and Razer Onza stamps are on the controller... -
Getting to the third game in a trilogy stands as quite a tautology.
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Single player is awesome, but only when the terrible cutscenes aren't rolling. It's almost as if they went out of their way to squeeze as much derp factor as possible into each one. Every character is pretty much just a big cliche, which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that the game is constantly trying to get you to be emotionally invested in said characters. It takes itself way too seriously, and the ill fitting grandiose orchestral score which constantly changes moods doesn't help. On top of all that, the cutscenes are kind of annoying to skip. Sometimes you can just press X to skip them. Sometimes you have to press Start and then Square. And sometimes, you can't seem to skip them at all. Single player would have been much better if they had just scrapped all the cutscenes and worked the plot info you get out of them into the gameplay instead.
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I don't have a PS3 but the graphics and art style of this game are fantastic. Once we get out of this modern shooter phase, I think the next frontier will be sci-fi or near future settings. I really hope future games use killzone 2 and 3 as a standard. The quality of the game assets, guns, uniforms, the look of the vehicles, is very very impressive. I'd love a Battlefield style game that looks something like Killzone 3.
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Unfortunately those graphics come at a cost. Single player runs at acceptable fps for the most part, but some of the larger multiplayer maps slow down to a crawl. I don't think the game even maintains an average of 30 fps on the most popular Warfare map, and I've had it slow down to ~10 fps with thick action (a few walkers fighting each other along with other players having a shootout in the area). The whole time I played it I kept thinking how much better it would look and run on my PC.
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It struck me as trying to be Call of Duty. The past 3 CoD games have all had missions like that. At least the jungle had a very original look to it. Great atmosphere in that level, bad gameplay.
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