Killzone

Review - Is Sony's opus likely to snipe Halo? We find out...

Right, you're a huge gaming superpower and you've just placed a new-ish Dutch company in charge of what you're hoping will be one of the killer apps on your platform. There are two things you can do in this situation. The first is keep things under wraps, hope that your chosen developer pulls a real corker out of the bag and then unleash it upon an unprepared world. The second is to announce that the title in question is set to be better than anything else yet seen in the genre, a "Halo-beater" for want of a better term, even if it's only been in development for a very short time. The latter option could either be seen as a tremendous vote of confidence or instead a massively huge pressure that could force the whole development team to buckle.

In early previews of Killzone it started to seem more and more unlikely that what we had in our hands wasn't anywhere near a Halo beater. Further previews served only to reinforce this view. Word gets out, forums are set alight with manic fanboy banter. Suddenly people no longer want a game that's better than Halo, they want a failure. They want dross; they want Driv3r all over again. And from what I've read of the reviews so far, that's what many people have received. By the time I received my review copy I was expecting a rancid turd of a game, a game I would distinctly dislike. You can imagine what a surprise it was then when I discovered that Killzone is actually really good.

Or is it? You see, that's a question I've asked myself throughout my time with Killzone. Any sort of extended play forces the quite obvious faults of the game into full view. But then I could say the same about Halo. Bungie's masterpiece is certainly not without faults itself. The identikit corridors, the dreary levels toward the end of the game, the lack of enemy variety. Hell, I can even criticise Pro Evolution Soccer at length if you so desire, but that's not to say I would deny its majesty. Killzone has a lot of problems, but the thing is that despite them I've really enjoyed it. Again, just like Halo.

I won't kid you though - I'm not suggesting for one minute that Killzone is better than Halo or Halo 2. It's not. However, whilst it may not be as good as Halo what you also need to realise is that it's also very different. The Chronicles of Riddick and Serious Sam are both first person shooters but despite this fundamental similarity they're different in nearly every other respect. Halo is about superb AI, quality set pieces and fantastic multiplayer fun. Killzone is about stunning urban environments, industrial decay and chunky weapons. Halo is better in several key areas, but there are things about Killzone that I prefer. It sets out to do a completely different job to Halo and whilst it may not pull it off quite as well, where Halo succeeds in one respect, Killzone does in another.

Despite what you may have heard, if Killzone does one thing right it's the way it represents urban warfare in a decaying future world. Graphically it is really excellent. There is a price to pay (remember, as much as the PS2 continues to impress it is getting old, bless it) and that comes in the form of a stuttering framerate and some shocking draw distances. The framerate you can deal with in much the same as you do in Star Wars Battlefront. Nonetheless, it does struggle along and on those rare occasions it does actually maintain a steady 30fps you can't help but stop to admire how nice it could be. The draw distance is something you'll notice less, especially as much of the combat takes place in tight interiors, but when it does crop up it is a problem. Frustrating would be an accurate way to describe what it's like to try and snipe an enemy whilst having to aim for his gunfire because the character himself is fogged out.

Yet no matter the sometimes quite severe technical restrictions you have to put up with, there's no denying that the world of Killzone is a carefully and lovingly constructed one. There's something about the levels and visuals that just screams "solid". Every panel has been carefully sculpted, each pillar or holding support gently polished. You never get the feeling that Killzone's world has been pieced together from a set pool of textures and polygons. Every part of it feels individually considered. Get up close to a ladder and you can see the individual patches of rust, it emits a satisfying creak as you slide down it and the sway of your head as you climb reminds you that climbing ladder in the midst of a violent urban firefight is bloody hard work. Granted, there are times when you can almost see the PS2 reel in pain at the effort needed to pump all this out. The tiny white dots that sometimes flicker along the lines where polygons connect almost suggest that the world is ready to tear in two. Luckily, the old girl manages to just about hold things together.

Good thing too, because there are joys to be had. The weapons are so chunky, their loading animations so robust and mechanic that you can almost feel them in your hands. People have commentated on the comparatively long time that it takes to reload and whilst this may be true they are really missing the point. People got annoyed that Doom 3 didn't allow the use of a pistol and a torch simultaneously and whilst this of course is annoying to the player who is accustomed to a predetermined and formulaic control scheme, the fact is that it was a design decision. Doom 3 isn't about team management, fully interactive worlds or sophisticated AI; it's about tension and slaughter. Alternating between torch and gun builds tension, in the same way that clunky controls add to the terror in Resident Evil.