The fact that it took me a year and a half to finish this game says a lot. It certainly looks nice on the Vita, but it doesn't do anything special with either the story or the gameplay. Swipe to melee never stopped being annoying.

I also struggled with aiming, even with one of those Batarang-looking grips. And if you have fairly large hands, you will too.

I do kinda' feel like replaying Killzone 3 though.

So i just finished this game. It was cool. I didnt give a fuck about the story, i also hate child characters in games because they suck 95% of the time. I also have no clue wtf killzone is about too so add that in the mix. As a shooting game its alright. It literally doesnt so anything unique but gunplay is pretty satisfying. hitting dudes with a shotgun feels nice and chunky. Some of the segments are boring like the helicopter gun segment, given it only lasts like 4 minutes. Music is nothing to note. The graphics are wild for the vita. I wish i could change my fov but i know why you cant. With base fov, im just running into walls and shit. Controls are nice for what they had to work with. I think the times where i was trying to aim over cover and my guy just wouldnt shoot was cool. That would happen multiple times too. I also think damage feedback is pretty ass. Its hard to know how close to death you are and where you are getting shot from. For example, in a game like left for dead, if i get hit, i turn to the direction im getting hit damn near instantly. In this, i get red half circles in directions im not even getting hit from or wont get any tells that im being hit from my sides or behind. I do think its a good game as im giving it a 6/10 but im also glad that the game didnt have any awful segments to play through. It knows what it can do well and sticks to it.

Picked up a PS Vita from a car boot sale and this came with it.

If the Switch wasn't a thing, I'd be seriously impressed with this. The visuals are excellent, and it plays better than the PS3 Killzone games which I found dull as heck.

Dumb, snappy fun.

Killzone: Mercenary is incredible. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t find anything new in this FPS but it’s really amazing to play it on a portable console.

We’re talking about one the of the most beautiful games from PlayStation Vita. With some work, it could be a PS3 game or even a PS4 game.

I never played the main titles of the Killzone franchise but I can say that Mercenary has a good story. We all know it’s not comum to expect a good story from war FPS games.

It’s a short game and that’s why I tell you will have fun playing even if you’re not a FPS fan like me.

The gameplay is really good. I didn’t miss the R2 and L2 buttons at all. They really did a great job changing the commands normally used in these buttons to PlayStation Vita's features .

Killzone: Mercenary is a must play game for the PlayStation Vita owners. Even you’re a not FPS fan, you have to play it.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first: the game looks incredible, especially for a Vita game. This wouldn't look out of place on a PS3, perhaps not even on the Nintendo Switch. Mercenary does exhibit heavy frame rate drops in some levels, but it running on 2011 mobile hardware is a miracle in itself, so I won't complain too much.

Despite its short length it's also a contender for best Killzone campaign. The game takes place during the events of the first two Killzone games, taking the player to the locations of both games and offering lots of level variety in the process. Players are also free to choose how they approach most situations and can buy guns and equipment supporting their respective styles. Stealthily taking out commanders even yields additional lore bits and currency rewards. There's tons of different weapons and shooting them feels great. I didn't even mind the touchscreen minigames and QTEs since they work so well, way better than rotating the controller did in the console games.

The story's great too. In my other reviews, I criticized the earlier Killzone games for not building onto the tone and stories their predecessors established. Mercenary manages to nicely tie the stories of Killzone 1 and 2 together, even offering a unique perspective since you play as, well, a mercenary. The protagonist and his allies generally aren't constrained by annoying things such as loyalty or basic ethics - they're in it for the money.

Not only does the game make both sides of the ongoing war seem morally gray, it also ties this into the gameplay. Ammo costs money, so you better loot it off the people you killed instead of buying it. Got shot and died? Now you get a (very very slight) punishment in the form of a "life insurance" payment taken from your account. Accidentally blew yourself up like an idiot? Suicide costs twice as much. But don't worry, both sides of the conflict will happily pay you for all the people you killed and things you destroyed. It's perhaps the most cynical the series ever got and I appreciate what the game is trying here, even though it sometimes suffers from the short length of its story - it's hard to flesh out characters when they're only around for less than 4 hour.

If there are, by some miracle, still Vita owners out there that haven't played Mercenary, they should at least try it. It's not only a masterclass in pushing the system to its limits, it's also a great game on its own that I would happily play on a bigger screen, provided Sony ever again allows Guerilla to work on something not called Horizon.

Arguably the best Killzone game solely for its brevity and touch controls replacing what would otherwise be motion gimmicks in the PS3 titles. The performance is shaky (to put it nicely) but for the screen size and how ambitiously designed Mercenary is, I can look over hitches that would otherwise cripple its major console counterpart.

A total shame this formula couldn't be refined in later titles or some sort of port, as this is easily the best FPS the Vita ever had to offer. Not like there was much competition, though, seeing how the handheld ultimately failed in the mainstream market. It's additionally tragic that the multiplayer servers are long-gone now, yet I'm glad I was able to at least put in a few hours until services were shut down.

Well I just finished Killzone Mercenary, this was a lot of fun! First game I played in the series and it was cool. While the game isn't really anything special in the sea of FPS games out there as a handheld FPS game from 2013 it's pretty good and it's an really impressive game for the hardware and the time. I also like how the levels were designed. I never found them too easy or too hard, there were linear but also still gave space to move/look around. The game is also well paced with levels and overall campaign not being too long. I also like how the game scatters shops throughout a level. So you can change your load out or pay to reload/buy new gear, and every kill you do you get paid for it. Since the MC is a mercenary, he just cares about getting paid and he ends up fighting on both sides of the war. Story wise I wouldn't say it's all great it's fine nothing too special but it does the job. A neat game overall, kinda tempted to even try the PS3 games if there as fun as this game.

But yeah I enjoyed the game more than I expected. I can see why it's considered one of the best Vita games. It's a well made game. Worst thing about it is that the game isn't anything special but that doesn't make it bad. What makes it cool, is that's it's on the Vita! Also the frame rate can tank sometimes when things get busy on the screen, even with the overclocking I did. It wouldn't say it ruins the game. You can tell the game is really pushing the Vita to it's limits, I think that's kinda cool but also distracting. The game is essentially a PS3 level FPS game on Vita and while the game itself isn't mind blowing. It's mind blowing what the game managed to pull off on handheld in 2013. Kinda a shame the game didn't too well like most Vita games, it is a real showcase for the Vita. It's a fun game shows what could have been if people actually cared about the Vita. But instead it got turn into a low budget weeb machine. Now I feel even more bad for the Vita! D:

Anyway if I were rated it I'd give it like a 7.5. losing points for a mostly lackluster story, framerate drops, and not exactly being something mind blowing for FPS games in general. To be clear though still a pretty fun game!