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Killzone 2

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I suppose I am trolling, I spent hours doing it on 4chan's /v/ to much amusement and I'm so used to ripping on it that I do it everywhere I go.

I like Killzone 2, but I'm not joking when I say Black is more accomplished in the gameplay department. Then again, I do adore Black.

When it came out it had the tech and the gameplay. Now all that remains is the solid, perfectly paced shooting designed for consoles and it works so brilliantly. Killzone 2 attempts to be just that, and falters somewhat in comparison. I don't not like Killzone 2 Cigol, I just hate the way everyone, including the critics, appears to have had the smokescreen of awesome graphics pulled over their eyes to fool them into enjoying themselves more than they really are.

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Well that doesn't explain why you're trolling here as nobody suggested Killzone 2 redefined the first person shooter genre or anything remotely similar.

I like Killzone 2, but I'm not joking when I say Black is more accomplished in the gameplay department. Then again, I do adore Black.

Based on a ten minute demo?

I don't not like Killzone 2 Cigol, I just hate the way everyone, including the critics, appears to have had the smokescreen of awesome graphics pulled over their eyes to fool them into enjoying themselves more than they really are.

If I find it fun it's not because I'm blinded by graphical fidelity, it's because of graphical fidelity.

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You enjoy something measurably more because it has exceedingly accomplished visuals?

Fair enough. Sorry for trolling as well :yep:

However; I think it's fair to say that, given this is essentially final code, that I played it three or four times over and that presumably the core gameplay won't be altered in any significant way at some stage, I feel qualified to say that Black's stronger in that respect.

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You insinuated people were being blinded by the graphical fidelity of the game. I'm saying that enjoying the graphical fidelity might actually be fun in itself. Of course I happen to find the mechanics of combat, both in terms of its gunplay and reactive AI, to be of merit and a source of enjoyment also.

However; I think it's fair to say that, given this is essentially final code, that I played it three or four times over and that presumably the core gameplay won't be altered in any significant way at some stage, I feel qualified to say that Black's stronger in that respect.

Whether you're right or wrong isn't relevant; I think it's fair to say you've jumped to conclusions. I remember being unimpressed by the COD4 demo, and it wasn't until RPS ran a feature on it that I bit the bullet and found out for myself how wrong I was. You may well end up feeling vindicated when the time comes, but that doesn't mean people who enjoy the game are somehow wrong for doing so.

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I certainly hope I'm not vindicated, however given that my most trusted sources have now said it's not all that, just a fairly fun, if run-of-the-mill shooter (Idle Thumbs, Edge, Gamer.no) I am probably predisposed to not liking it now. Enjoy it if you're into it; like all other forms of, well, anything, gaming is subjective. In future I'll try to stop pretending I'm an authority on opinion.

There is a whiff of denial around people that hyped it though. I haven't been here long enough to know whether you did or not (presuming no), but it's not getting the same sort of "Holy shit this is something special" reaction Call of Duty 4 did in the build up to release. I also hate console controls for shooting in general, I'd say that the closest I've seen to them being nailed was either Black or Timesplitters 2.

Damn, I hate defending myself when I know in my heart of hearts I'm in the wrong. You've reduced me to the mere shell of the hardline elitist prick I strive oh so consciously to be. Have fun playing the game, thank you for making me hate myself.

On another note, where have you preordered from? I'm getting the shiny metal box from ShopTo for £33ish, it appears to be the best deal.

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Yeah. That one's been making the rounds in the Twittersphere. It's so painful to read. I'm sure the comments are even better, but I dare not venture into those depths. THERE BE TROLLS THERE.

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On another note, where have you preordered from? I'm getting the shiny metal box from ShopTo for £33ish, it appears to be the best deal.

I went with Play.com's Killzone wallpaper, because I prefer my free gifts to be intangible and fleeting. Also, as nice as tin boxes look alone, I think I prefer most of my game boxes to be made of the same stuff. It's some sort of pathetic sense of satisfaction I get from them all lined up in a row. But Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is buggering that up on the PS3 front. If they were all made of tin, that'd be pretty cool.

Blimey!

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I quite liked the demo, thought it was quite exciting. I didn't see much of the vaunted AI though - they just seemed to behave as any other bad guy. Still undecided as to whether I'll get it. :violin:

It wasn't as exciting as Eve... :getmecoat

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I went with Play.com's Killzone wallpaper, because I prefer my free gifts to be intangible and fleeting. Also, as nice as tin boxes look alone, I think I prefer most of my game boxes to be made of the same stuff. It's some sort of pathetic sense of satisfaction I get from them all lined up in a row. But Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is buggering that up on the PS3 front. If they were all made of tin, that'd be pretty cool.

You're not alone, I considered just plumping for the plastic one, but I decided the cardboard cover on Metal Gear has already ruined the lineup. I also have a platinum game box, which couldn't appear more out of place.

Jealousy on the part of this site. Hilariously it's probably a hypocritical cry for attention.

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I'm not understanding Remo's complaints about a lack of "dynamism" in Killzone 2, since the enemy AI functions at or near Halo levels. They have very dynamic behaviours, the harder the difficulty level, the more you'll notice. Each gunfight plays out differently, they flank aggressively, chase you down when you reload, throw grenades, and take advantage of the environment. (by shifting around behind cover or shooting explosive barrels)

I also dont understand how anyone that favours dynamism can cite a COD game or HL2. HL2 vanilla has completely scripted AI, and the recent CODs are the epitome of total linearity and a lack dynamism!

Respawning enemies, scripted AI, invisible trigger points, COD4/5 not only direct the setpiece, they script the actions of every NPC it!

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I'm not understanding Remo's complaints about a lack of "dynamism" in Killzone 2, since the enemy AI functions at or near Halo levels. They have very dynamic behaviours, the harder the difficulty level, the more you'll notice. Each gunfight plays out differently, they flank aggressively, chase you down when you reload, throw grenades, and take advantage of the environment. (by shifting around behind cover or shooting explosive barrels)

I also dont understand how anyone that favours dynamism can cite a COD game or HL2. HL2 vanilla has completely scripted AI, and the recent CODs are the epitome of total linearity and a lack dynamism!

Respawning enemies, scripted AI, invisible trigger points, COD4/5 not only direct the setpiece, they script the actions of every NPC it!

Killzone's AI is good, but the rest of the game design--in particular much of the level and weapon design--didn't actually encourage me to take advantage of that.

And it's true what you say about Half-Life 2 for example. The thing is, Half-Life 2 has tons of other stuff I find interesting instead--the way the world looks, the atmosphere, the non-shooting sections of gameplay, the pacing, and so on. Killzone 2 is literally nothing but shooting for the entire game, in a world that I find very generic, and it didn't really succeed as a nothing-but-shooter for me.

As far as the CODs, I have only cared about COD4 recently--again, you are correct about its combat and encounter design, it's completely scripted. However, the things that game does in terms of framing its missions, adhering strictly to the Valve-style first-person perspective at all times (which I always find interesting as a gamer), moving control from character to character depending on the plot (with some really cool and unexpected justifications), the inclusion of things like the AC-130 gunship (which is one of the only times playing a video game I've actually thought about what it would be like to be an actual soldier killing in real life, and been disturbed by it), and so on, are all things that hardly any other game is actually doing.

Basically, I don't need every FPS to follow the same formula. But I do want it to do something interesting beyond just put guys in front of me and have me fire bullets into them. If the game is going to be nothing but shooting ever, I'm totally fine with that, but it must do it in a really cool way. To me, Killzone 2 did a decent job of it, but not one that actually made me excited or compelled for the majority of the game.

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I was debating this game with an ex-Marine(!) on another forum. He's played through the whole thing and I think his reaction to how the game as a whole played was very interesting. This is what he wrote:

In-terms of Kz2's gameplay as a whole its geared to make the player think on his feet as a Soldier would, and this for me is what makes Kz2 stand above its rivals. As you progress through the game it becomes instinctive and doesn't impair the gameplay it.

Example the warehouse section just after the bit with the lift. From my perspective I wouldn't go charging down inbetween the crates because it limits my view of the area, and puts me in a situation where the enemy can get the drop on me, effectively reducing any chance of fire coming from behind.

The room on the far side of the warehouse has 2 entrances (front and left,left being to an elevated platform), so i'd work my way along the right wall, using the corner of the building to cut of the amount of positions the enemies can take up. This also grants an additonal layer of cover inconjuction with crates etc (the corner of the building blocking shots).

So its more a case of not putting yourself in a situation where fire can come at you from behind. In reality,if I was in a position where fire was coming in from behind, I would instinctively hit the deck and get to cover, instantly turning opens the face, which is a bigger target area than the back of your neck between your helmet and your armour. At close quarters, it'd be a drop and turnonto your knees or back, making a smaller target and accounting for recoil tomaintain your accuracy.

I would say this whole debate raises the question of how real do gamers want games to be, and do we want shooters that provided out right action, or action and allowing the player the ability to think.

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adhering strictly to the Valve-style first-person perspective at all times (which I always find interesting as a gamer)

Am I alone in being really surprised that Killzone 2 didn't do this? The whole presentation seems quite gritty and "realistic" ("realism" in this instance being a style rather than actual closeness to reality); all of the presentation seems geared towards making you feel (buzz-word alert) immersed in this whole urban combat situation. Having disembodied observers for cutscenes seems at odds with all this, and makes it all seem a bit cheesy. Then again, the dialogue is pretty cheesy, too. I guess the trailers left me expecting something a bit different.

Oh, it also bothers me a little that some of the interactions with the environment snap you into place for the animation. I found it to be actually quite noticeable in the demo (when you press the button in the lift, for example. I understand that making these animations match up properly is a challenge, but third person games seem to be managing it quite well these days, so I'd have thought a first person game could do a bit better, particularly when there's been so much emphasis on its visual presentation. I would have thought it'd be comparatively simple to slide the view over a few inches and degrees to make things line up properly isn't a huge deal. Then again, I have no experience of such endeavours, so perhaps there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for it.

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Killzone's AI is good, but the rest of the game design--in particular much of the level and weapon design--didn't actually encourage me to take advantage of that.

And it's true what you say about Half-Life 2 for example. The thing is, Half-Life 2 has tons of other stuff I find interesting instead--the way the world looks, the atmosphere, the non-shooting sections of gameplay, the pacing, and so on. Killzone 2 is literally nothing but shooting for the entire game, in a world that I find very generic, and it didn't really succeed as a nothing-but-shooter for me.

As far as the CODs, I have only cared about COD4 recently--again, you are correct about its combat and encounter design, it's completely scripted. However, the things that game does in terms of framing its missions, adhering strictly to the Valve-style first-person perspective at all times (which I always find interesting as a gamer), moving control from character to character depending on the plot (with some really cool and unexpected justifications), the inclusion of things like the AC-130 gunship (which is one of the only times playing a video game I've actually thought about what it would be like to be an actual soldier killing in real life, and been disturbed by it), and so on, are all things that hardly any other game is actually doing.

Basically, I don't need every FPS to follow the same formula. But I do want it to do something interesting beyond just put guys in front of me and have me fire bullets into them. If the game is going to be nothing but shooting ever, I'm totally fine with that, but it must do it in a really cool way. To me, Killzone 2 did a decent job of it, but not one that actually made me excited or compelled for the majority of the game.

Thanks for the response.

I feel that good, dynamic AI is still annoyingly uncommon in the major console shooters, so I'm pretty enthusiastic about any shooter that actually has an interesting, dynamic AI.

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dynamic AI is still annoyingly uncommon

That's because it's a really hard thing to do. The Halo AI always gave the impression of being smart and the Gears stuff isn't bad, if you ignore Dom that is.

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My frothing ambivalence to this game has morphed into grudging respect. It's good fun, but there's a lot of wasted potential.

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God I can't wait for this any more. Not so much about playing KZ2, but to FINALLY drag my FPS-only friends on PS3 away from COD4 once and for all. It was the same feeling as when I finally got them to move on to COD4 from Resistance. Christ.

To people like them, it's more important to have sound mechanics, great graphics and deep multiplayer modes (as they may play it until COD6) rather than some kind of subtle ludo-narrative or a camera that never breaks from its first-person perspective. I'll even wager 3/4 of them won't even finish the single-player campaign at all. Those are the people this game is rightfully targeting as that's what KZ2 needs to be for the PS3; a mass-market, solid, gorgeous FPS with cool badges for your clan.

I'm not saying that KZ2 wouldn't have been a better game if it did try something new, but you have to keep in mind this audience is more Madden than Half-Life 2.

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That audience is also much more likely to be found on 360, though. Hilariously, the squadmates in the game are the most Xbroish guys you could think of.

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I decided to try the thing that apparently a whole load of CoD4 players did and launch straight into the multiplayer. It's a pretty cool guy. I have a clan with my PS3-owning friends, which will therefore remain small and completely ineffective, but we will all have the same letters before our names, referring to a dumb/awesome in-joke. I'm thinking we should challenge an ultra-hardcore clan. All three of us.

When playing against bots, I was impressed with how cinematic and non-arcady things felt. I was on the dusty map with the all the long bridges, and the wind blowing all the dust and cloth bits around looked really impressive, and beyond that the way the bots moved seemed unusually unrobotic. I guess I didn't notice that as much when playing against humans, as you're not exactly going to convince people to role-play in an FPS, but I still quite liked that it was quite effective at being narratively involving as well as just engaging from a gameplay perspective. The problem I have with being purely focused on the gameplay is that at that stage you might as well take things to the extreme and be one of those guys who runs around in a bunch of abstract untextured shapes in Quake 3. Which is fine, but not what I want.

The replay stuff is pretty interesting, too. For example, you can see how much effect the spawn delay can have on the number of people in play at any one time. During the first match that I watched, at one point the ISA were down to one man. While actually playing the game, I would have just assumed everyone was elsewhere (I suppose you could see on the spawn map, but I tend to be paying more attention to the spawn points and getting straight back into things).

I'm definitely still getting used to it, and finding my reactions even slower than normal, so it's a bit frustrating. I used to be pretty OK at CoD4 on the PS3 for a while, but then I lost Internet for a couple of months and when I came back either everyone had got better, all the bad people had left, I'd gotten worse, or a combination of the three.

In this round I did OK. That's probably because everybody else sucked or something. I'm #4, if you're interested.

EDIT: It doesn't seem to be updating my stuff properly. It's just zapping me from one death position to the next. Weird. Disappointing. I wonder if it's because I was spawning on my friend who was my squad leader. Yeah, it only seems to show when I sawn from the base. In this game I was the squad leader, so I should be visible all the time, but I did less well, so I'm not going to show you it. OH WAIT, I JUST DID. I'm #13 YOU CAN READ IT WITH YOUR EYES.

Edited by JamesM

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Basically my feelings so far on the campaign are as follows:

  • I won't bother mentioning the controls a lot of people have been complaining about. Yes, I'm finding them difficult, but since I don't handle console FPS controls in general well and double that for the PS3, it's hard to say how much of my dislike comes from my own handicaps and preferences. Regardless, I do find it a bit irritating that something with such a loosy-goosy reticule can be so demanding on how exact you are with your aim, sometimes in a very limited time span.
  • Probably the weirdest part of this is that the auto-aim is pretty forgiving, but disappears completely when you use the iron sights, so ironically it's easier to make good shots when you shoot from the hip, which feels completely unintuitive for this style of game.
  • With all the brown same-looking buildings, the open-ended areas with tons of dead ends, the conversations that get drowned out by gunfire, and the lackluster story, I find myself constantly hitting the checkpoint button because I have no clue where I should be going or what I'm doing. It's clear the levels were built first and figuring out how to guide the player through them came after.
  • Sometimes you can't take cover behind certain objects, or you can take cover but you can't shoot from behind it, and there is no way to tell the difference.
  • Someone who made the checkpoint system is a dick, because on three separate occasions I died and restarted from a position that had me completely compromised unless I retreated back immediately after restarting.
  • As I mentioned above, the game is scripted to the point where pretty much anything dynamic has no chance of happening. I keep missing conversations for what I'm doing, or sometimes the voiceovers start overlapping with each other, because I'm either too behind from where I should be or too ahead. If I die, when I replay the section, every action takes place the same, with the same enemies running in the same direction, taking cover in the exact same place. If I die twice in a row from a guy running past cover to attack me while I'm being suppressed, the third time I can literally just keep doing the melee move knowing he'll run right into it. It's the continuation of this trend I hate immensely in current FPS titles, where the designers are so intent on making the game "cinematic" that I feel like giving control of the character to me feels like a huge hassle to them.
  • In relation to above, when you make a game that focuses completely on going slow, and taking cover, and heavily punishing the player if they take any alternate approach to this routine for the whole damn campaign, why the fuck would you then make sequences where the enemies infinitely respawn until an invisible barrier is passed? How the fuck does that make sense at all?

It may sound like I'm being harsh on my assessment, and I am, because I'm not really into it. All those lows are just overwhelming the experience, because I'm now at the last level and I still feel like I'm going through the motions, with nothing sticking out as especially memorable out of any of the encounters I've been through so far. Because of this, I don't even know if I am going to finish it. I'm currently at a spot where I've died in the same place over a dozen times in a row, with no clue what I was doing wrong. Looking it up on two game guides reveals my worst fear: It's one of those COD-ish final levels where luck plays just as much into my success as any skill on my part, so that it can create one of those "realistic chaos of the battlefield moments".

Either way, this is getting traded in next week.

Edited by kuddles

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I put a few hours into it yesterday and it just hasn't clicked with me yet, and I totally agree with your bullet points there kuddles. One thing that has stood out for me is that you're constantly dragged through the levels by a AI buddy. You clear an area, he runs off and waits for you next to the locked door that triggers the next killbox. What that tells you is there are no enemies between you and the door, so there's no surprise...just a bunch of empty corridors and some chump dissing your mom on the way!

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I'm just thinking that since it's not really impressing me, I might as well get as much trade-in value as possible for it. I know some people are getting into the multiplayer, but I rarely get into that stuff in games where I'm perfectly fine controlling it. Maybe the game is fine if you're into what it's selling - as my comments suggested I also thought the COD4 campaign was over-rated so it could just be me. I just wish I could see what's making some people/critics going crazy over it. Even the graphics to me look really great but only in terms of draw distance and artistic consistency, nothing mind-blowing.

I'm also pretty biased because the only thing that really bothers me is something that I can't really blame the game for since I knew it involved that months ago but forgot how much I despised it. Cover-based shooters really need to die a horrible death. If you want to implement a cover mechanic, that's just fine. But making a whole game around that mechanic leads to long stretches of land completely narrow with a hundred sandbags around them. It leads to combat that focuses almost completely on flanking, which makes the least intuitive and least tactical option - Jumping out of cover and shooting as much as you can until your screen turns blood red, kneel back down and wait until your health regenerates, and repeat - always the most efficient one to take.

In other words, maybe other people will love it and I'm just a cranky old whiner.

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