Playing Killzone 2 after all those years when the dust of the PS360 war has long gonne settled I can see how difficult and uphill battle had Sony fanboys to push this as HALO rival. KZ2 has for it time some crazy production values and for a moment you can forget it is not the infamous target render from 2006. Visual design is strong for the most part but you can feel that ISA troops are more of an afterthought in comparison to Helghasts. KZ2 feels like it has more potential but rarely does anything interesting with it, hiding behind the wall of genre conventions instead.

Wow. This game blew me away. The presentation is just astounding. Graphics are gritty and very, very good for the time. Killzone 2's dev cycle was lengthier than most games of its generation spanning about 5 years and the final product clearly shows that. It still retains the rawness of the war against the Helghast although now the ISA is launching a full-frontal assault on their home planet. The feel of the gameplay is much heavier and meatier than its predecessor. Weapons and projectiles have quite a feel to them.

It can take a bit to get used to if I am honest but the Gunplay is fun and satisfying. The AI is smart! Sometimes you'll shoot at them, and they will immediately take cover and start blind firing. I played on the standard difficulty and even then, they still pose a challenge with their deadly aim. On the technical front, it’s truly impressive like I said. Still, there are some little hiccups like having load in parts of a level or maybe the AI partner can't quite sit still but even then it did not hinder my experience.

The story is something I was looking forward to the most since I thought the characters from the first were returning. And well... they do return, well some. Admittedly, I was bummed about since I thought there was potential to develop a relationship between all of them, especially the half-helgan. However, he is nowhere to be seen in this game. Rico and Templar are the only ones to return and Templar is no longer a squad mate since he has been promoted to Colonel in the aftermath of the first ame. Instead, it’s mainly focused on the new guy Sev and Rico. Not gonna say much about the story but I did come to grips with it and thought ending was good due to its realism in the grand scheme.

Overall, a much, much better game than the first.

Some late 2000s shooter tropes aside, Killzone 2 is still an incredibly impressive game, especially considering it released on the ps3. Enemies aggressively advance, cover shatters under fire, enemies physically interact with the environment when shot, all while lightning and weapon fire light up the scene and futuristic vehicles move around the battlefield. However, those impressive visual qualities come at a cost: the framerate frequently dips into the low to mid 20s and the input lag is fairly noticeable. Beautiful graphics aside, the gameplay is never as fun as it could be due to this sluggish overall feel.

This was the reason you'd buy a Playstation console. The modern titles of TLOU and Horizon don't even compare. Killzone could have been the franchise that would eventually become the "Halo Killer", but this strength of Sony and Guerilla wasn't made to last. Instead of sticking to what made Killzone 2 so great, they wanted to constantly push the sequels even further, to extents where it became almost unrecognizable. Killzone 2 was the first great FPS game of the Playstation 3 era. A multiplayer FPS experience that was solid in all aspects. And boy oh boy did we play the shit out of it. Mind you, the campaign mode was not something to be sidelined. The campaign alone is worth the cost of the game. A big cinematic experience where you're sent off to fight a war in a planet you're incredibly unfamiliar with. The Helghast are ruthless and relentless and you can definitely feel the struggle against such a force, as you play. The charismatic Helghan leaders offer a great build-up to the boss battle near the finale. FPS games could really benefit from more boss battles like the one with Radec, and they are far too uncommon in those games nowadays. Killzone 2 is a great game that became one of the most adored titles of its generation; which makes it all the more sad to stop and think, where it all went so wrong. A success that was just so short-lived.

Considero que es el mejor con diferencia de la trilogía original. Si tuviera un remaster que permitiera toquetear el FOV, quitar el desenfoque de movimiento y unos buenos controles de teclado y ratón, sería un juego excepcional. Por cómo es su versión original en la PS3, pienso que sigue siendo de lo mejorcito en cuanto a shooters dentro del catalogo. Ofrece un gameplay sólido, acompañado de una estética de ciencia ficción oscura muy lograda.
Tiene sus desperfectos, los combates a mucha distancia son un poco petardo, los controles se sienten algo pesados o lentos y a veces se le va la mano con la dificultad. Por otro lado, la historia no es genial en cuanto a diálogos o personajes. De hecho, me hubiera gustado profundizar en Radec o ver más escenas con Visari, porque tienen carisma en su aspecto y presentación, algo de lo que carecen los personajes principales.
Sin embargo, hay que admitir que el contexto de la invasión a Helghan es emocionante y la música (que esta vez está) acompaña absurdamente bien. Maneja el ritmo de sus niveles con gran maestría y nunca se llega a hacer aburrido.

This is probably the single best execution of the gritty, dark, urban warfare aesthetic in any video game. The emphasis on lighting techniques rather than textures or model quality means that it's also aged far better than many other 7th gen games. A lot of scenes are still genuinely amazing to look at and the enemies are all animated incredibly well. Gunfights are full of debris, architecture breaking and particle effects from weapons and grenades. The whole thing feels like it has a cohesive singular tone and vision that every aspect of the visuals work together to reinforce. It's not an exaggeration to say this is one of the best-looking games of its generation.

The game foregoes any attempt at worldbuilding like its predecessor and instead is squarely focused on its single conflict. There is very little here in terms of plot beyond what is established in the intro, but it does convey a good sense of momentum and the feeling that you're continually driving deeper into enemy territory. It probably would have worked even better if it had focused far more on this aspect and abandoned the few abrupt scene transitions the story makes to move the characters to new places.

Speaking of characters, the cast here are somehow even more boring than the ones in Killzone 1 (and that is a feat). Your four squadmates are really lacking in personality and the primary partner might be one of the most frustrating "allies" in a game who never gets called out or any sort of comeuppance. While the Helghast design (taken straight out of Jin-Roh) are as cool and intimidating as ever the major antagonists are lacking any big presence outside of the game's intro and a few sparse moments in the story.

There's enough variety throughout the short length of the campaign that I kept engaged. Notably encounters almost never feel like they're being dragged out with too many reinforcements and you find yourself moving between different areas at a consistent clip. Enemy AI has enough interesting behaviors and arenas are diverse enough to give even the most basic of fights at least a little bit of unique personality. The vehicle and turret segments that were so prevalent during this generation are present, but mercifully few and brief.

Despite the solid encounter design there's a certain sluggishness and latency to inputs that keeps it from feeling as good as it could. And even at its absolute best it really only elevates itself to good, not great, in the gameplay department. It's a game I don't regret playing and could see myself coming back to from time to time if only for the great execution of its artstyle that I've yet to see equaled in another game, but it's not going anywhere near a list of my favorites.