Killzone 2: Europe Doesn’t Get Screwed Shocker

Over the years Europe has been something of a disfigured stepchild to gaming companies.  Waiting months or even years for console launches, game releases et al was par for the course to us.  Worldwide PS3 launch?  Yeah sorry Europe we can’t make enough, see you in four to five months.
It’s not that bad nowadays though.  Big game releases tend to hit the same week, or at worst a fortnight later.  We’ve probably never had it so good.  Yesterday (Thursday) we had demos of Halo Wars on Xbox 360 and Killzone 2 on PS3.

A demo for a big game released before it hits the shelves isn’t anything new of course.  But what is strange, is that here in Europe everybody has gotten it.  Live in the US?  Yeah sorry you need to preorder the game from Game Stop and get a code.  But then give it a while and then the demo will be made available to everyone.  So wait a moment.  You have to preorder and part purchase a game so that you can try it out and see whether you might want to buy it?  For once, I’m happy to be living in the self proclaimed “sceptred isle”.

As for the demo itself, it’s big.  Or more specifically it is a big download, 1.2Gb to you soldier.  For around ten minutes of gameplay.  Yes that’s right, this is not a long demo.  You get to fight roughly three waves of enemies, but it’s an enjoyable three waves.
Killzone 2 doesn’t do anything different with the shooter genre, it’s still the same thing: Go here, shoot these guys.  Move, open a door, shoot some more guys.  Enter a room…shoot guys.  Your partner needs time to work on a door lock.  What do you do?  That’s correct, YOU SHOOT SOME MORE GUYS!  But what it does with tried and tested mechanics it does very well.

First up, the game looks gorgeous.  Absolutely stunning, hands down one of the best looking shooter I have ever played.  It also gets a major win pass for having DTS audio that is incredibly aggressive.  It’s right up there with Dead Space and Metal Gear Solid 4 in the “audio to disturb you and your neighbours” stakes.
After completing the demo for the first time I did feel a little underwhelmed with it though.  It’s generic FPS 101 with pretty graphics and incredible sound (the dialogue is presented in Swear-O-Vision).  But when I played it a second time it really clicked into place.

The controls are a little unconventional for starters.  The Dualshock 3/Sixaxis controller really isn’t that well suited to shooters, and it’s a case of really re-learning how to play games like this after spending so much time with the 360 pad.  The guns feel quite different from most shooters, you are better off taking single shots rather than holding down the fire button.  Here you have recoil, and the reticle will jump and skip around the screen making the game more of a challenge.

I already have Killzone 2 on a preorder, and am now looking forward to the final release.  I know it will be yet another shooter to play through, but as it looks and sounds so great I don’t particularly mind.

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Category: Videogames