The NPC’s are more than mere window dressing; they also represent an invaluable aid against the Helghast forces, which act with a considerable degree of (artificial) intelligence. I can’t fully explain their wardrobe choices (Sure, their home planet is polluted, but shouldn’t the humans be the ones with the breath masks? Also, glowing red goggles make for bad camo), but they concentrate their fire on the greatest threats, execute flanking maneuvers, and generally avoid serving as unperturbed cannon fodder. Friendly AI is similarly competent, though I was moved to restart one level after my lone companion became inextricably attached to a waist-high railing. Enemies take a beating before succumbing, and a lack of animation in their models at the point of impact can sometimes lead to confusion over whether your shots are actually hitting home.

Prior to the arrival of the current crop of consoles (and, in some cases, subsequent to it), enemy units sought cover with a nod and a wink. Oh, they’d cower behind impermeable obstacles, all right, but often they’d leave a limb or three exposed in the process, or pop up into your waiting cross hairs at regular intervals. That was only fair when the best the player could do was crouch, but now that we’ve been granted fully implemented, context-sensitive cover systems, we have no right to complain when enemy units refuse to act as meat shields. When Helghast take cover, they take cover; attempting to pick them off from afar without the aid of a sniper rifle will summon memories of similarly fruitless exercises in the Brothers in Arms franchise. You’ll have to do the same if you hope to survive-Killzone 2 might lie closer to Halo than Ghost Recon on the run-and-gun spectrum, but spend too much time in the open, and you’ll pay the price for your indiscretion.

Holding L2 will attach your character to the nearest cover. You’ll be able to lean around or above it to gain a better view of your assailants, or fire blindly over the top. Pressing L3 will send you into a sprint, enabling you to traverse open ground quickly en route to the next available shield. At no point in this process (or at any other moment during the game) does your viewpoint stray from a first-person perspective. This decision proves slightly disorienting for the first few levels, and the substantial head bob caused me to keep my Mirror’s Edge Memorial Barf Bag at the ready, but the overall effect is one of total immersion. Your accuracy might suffer, despite the noticeable auto-aim (though that has more to do with the significant recoil accompanying the discharge of most weapons), but the fixed perspective and the superb implementation of the DualShock3’s rumble feature elicits a visceral reaction to each bullet strike. You know how a combination of factors makes some shooters feel right, while others feel like Star Wars: Battlefront? Killzone 2 belongs to the former camp.

SIXAXIS controls are used sparingly, and are mostly well-implemented; you’ll use the motion controls to plant charges and turn valves, and while each action could have been accomplished just as easily with a single press of the action button (O), taking a more interactive role only adds to the gameplay’s holistically immersive effect. The option of steadying a zoomed-in sniper reticule through a corresponding cessation in controller movement can add precision, but an involuntary motion can also disrupt a perfect shot.

Killzone 2’s campaign lasts roughly eight hours, and with few breaks in the action aside from loading screens, flies by with the seemingly effortless ease of a page-turner or a well-executed action flick. Fortunately, the fun isn’t over when the credits roll, since the game includes a fully-featured multiplayer component that takes over where the campaign leaves off. Killing human-controlled Helghast is even more satisfying than slaughtering the AI-operated variety, and you’ll have the opportunity to do so across eight maps drawn from setting scattered throughout the campaign. Killzone 2 doesn’t revolutionize online multiplayer; the play modes are fairly standard FPS fare, and very little that it does hasn’t already been done elsewhere. However, very little that it does has been done better elsewhere: the same level of polish that enriched the single-player campaign also graces the multiplayer element (though I was forced to perform one hard reset after an in-game freeze, forfeiting a substantial amount of progress).

Like Call of Duty 4, Killzone 2’s online play is incentive-based. You’ll earn experience as you rack up kills and victories (and accomplish specific tasks, for which you’ll be awarded ribbons), unlocking new weapons, abilities, and classes. I tend to prefer a simpler, more level playing field in my online gaming, but I also tend to move on fairly quickly to the next single-player experience; Guerrilla hopes to keep you enthralled by their proprietary playground for quite some time, and I see no reason to believe that they won’t succeed. Killzone 2 supports a maximum of 32 players, and each of its maps is designed with flexibility in mind. Because any mode can be played on any map, transitioning from one to the next without any break for a return to the lobby, each area has to be able to serve as a good fit for all five. Of course, not every map is equally suited for each type of competition, but on the whole, the system works remarkably well. The maps share the single player game’s penchant for astute design, forcing the player to think in three dimensions in an attempt to anticipate attacks from a multitude of angles.

Those who wish to plight their troths to a clan will find a fully featured support system awaiting them, while those who prefer to remain tagless can form temporary squads to coordinate their actions with three other players. Of course, voice support has been implemented to facilitate both collaborative options. If you yearn to unlock classes and their respective abilities-automated turret deployment for engineers, cloaking for scouts, spawn point generation for tacticians, etc.-you’ll have to make a substantial investment of time, since Killzone 2 doesn’t yield its treasures freely. Of course, accruing this sort of experience can hardly be called “grinding”-you’ll be having plenty of fun along the way.

Near the end of Killzone 2’s single-player campaign, one prominent character somberly intones, “The madness begins.” If that was just the beginning, I shudder to contemplate the levels of insanity sure to be attained by the inevitable Killzone 3. Fortunately, I don’t have to yet. Why think about the Next Big Thing when the current one still has so much to offer? Killzone 2’s collection of minor shortcomings prevents it from attaining the status of a perfect package, but its well-executed single-player campaign and deep multiplayer offerings qualify it to stand undiminished alongside the recent giants of the genre.

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About The Author

Ben Lindbergh is a Blast Games staff writer

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