Killzone 2 is fantastic.
I seriously cannot believe a game that came out in 2009 looks this fantastic. The graphics for this game are absolutely spectacular.

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The story picks up from Killzone Liberation 2 years after the attack on Planet Vekta with the ISA invading Helghan to capture Scolar Vesari to stop his crazy tyrade of the people of Vekta and to end the war by peaceful means.

You play as a new protagonist Tomas Sevchenko, with returning characters: Rico Velasquez (Killzone 1 & Liberation), Jan Templar (Protagonist of Killzone 1 and Liberation), and Evelyn Batton (Killzone Liberation). Among your team is you, Rico, and 2 other characters named Shawn Natko (kind of a red neck) and Dante Garza (Engineer and hacker of sorts).

Throughout the game you take out forces upon forces of Helghast, along with disabling Thunder Towers, and destroying tanks.
Halfway through the game you meet the true threat named "Colonel Mael Radec" who steals the show by becoming the most interesting character in the series so much so for PLAYSTATION ALLSTARS BATTLE ROYAL they didn't even put the protagonist in the game as a fighter, they chose Radec instead cause of how badass and unique he is.

What's stupid though is that the team who made this series instead of saying, "you know this cool character Radec that we introduced in this game, what if we make him the main villian?"
They instead said, "You know that cool character Radec that we introduced in this game as a villian? What if we kill him in the same game we introduced him in, and make that boring as hell Versari the main villian but kill him off too."

A lot of missed potential for Colonel Mael Radec, as he could've been the main overarching villian of the series. Especially since it's because of him that 2 major characters in the series die: Evelyn, and JAN TEMPLAR (Killzone 1 Protagonist) are all killed by Radec.

The fact they killed the protagonist of the previous 2 games and have Radec also die in the same game is such a shame, because it could've been more interesting if Radec took over the Helghast as the new leader than what we got with Killzone 3.
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Gameplay wise this game is great the flow of fighting in terms of using vehicles, and weapons absolutely are all great. The creators of this game did a fantastic job with the esthetic and the visuals of this game, so much I say it looks better than any recent call of duty games because while it is older, I think it has that modern visual design with a hint of personal touch in terms of design.

The gun play is great, some guns are better than others however there is enough variety here to where each gun is utalized in certain situations in the campaign.
The only criticism I truly have is how, (and maybe this is just because I'm comparing to other shooters at the time) secondary weapons are nonexistent in this series. What I mean is that unlike the Liberation or Mercenary, for some reason the secondary weapon is always a revolver and that's not to say revolvers suck but my issue is that it's an infinite revolver that you can never get rid of. Unlike other shooters where you are able to carry 2 primaries, or different secondaries, here there is no secondary than the revolver.

I've played nearly all the games, the only one I haven't yet is SHADOWFALL, but I hope Shadowfall allows me to use a different secondary weapon instead of just an infinite revolver.
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This game has the issue with the main characters, apart from say Rico and Templar who we grew to like through Killzone 1 and Killzone Liberation, where the main characters are kind of bland. Like they're the typical "we fight to end this war" while say Natko, Garza, and Sev have their unique personalities, you can't really say they have anything unique with their motivations and character archetypes.

Who is Sev? the protagonist. What does he fight for? To end the War with the Helghast and Vesari. What's his motivation? Uh... he's a soldier. What's his goal apart from the war, does he have people back home we care about or does he have something unique that doesn't make him generic? Uh... no not really.


Who's Natko? He's a soldier who's kind of a redneck but also wears an America flag bandana. What's his character like? He likes war and enjoys shooting guns. What's his motivation apart from the war? uh...he like shooting guns.

Garza if anything is probably the most interesting because he's more than just "soldier shoot because war and stopping Vescari"
Yeah sure he's motivated to stop the war but he also thinks about the casualities of his own ISA comrades.
I think his death does add emotional factors and second thoughts to Sev to make him think about how the ISA technically forced the Helghast to act.
But we mostly see that after Garza's death, and after Vesari is killed by Rico at the end with Sev realizing the Helghast were just toying with the ISA and with the death of Vesari, the true sleeping giant was awakened.

Again the person who steals the show in this game is Radec because of his charisma, actions, and abilities he has in the game.

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So to round up:

Visuals: 9/10 - It's impressive and surprising how amazing this game looks in comparsion to most modern shooters.

Gameplay: 7/10 - Standard Shooter, doesn't really do anything unique apart from controlling a vehicle in certain levels and using the Six-Axis motion controls on valves.

Characters: 6/10 - You have returning characters like Templar and Rico who you might like because they're from KZ1 and Liberation, but really you can't really say they have that much depth. Same applies for Sev and Natko, Sev is the protagonist but doesn't really have anything unique about him and Natko's American flag bandana is more memorable than him so much so in KILLZONE 3, the game devs forgot about him and shoved him as the co-op character but he doesn't appear in the actual cutscenes.
Garza for the most part is uniquely written but because of that, he was killed I guess considering he's against the war entirely but still finds the actions of the Helghast horrific.
The villian in this game to be honest barely appears in maximum 5 cutscenes, but leaves such an impact that Radec's tactics and strategies to hinder the ISA are felt throughout the game that he honestly becomes the most iconic character when you think Killzone, along with his final fight.

Campaign: 8/10 - Does a lot of fun and unique stuff and I recommend playing on the hardest difficulty for the sake of true challenge. The story does leave at a cliffhanger however that is resolved and picked up from in Killzone 3 luckily.

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Overall I 100% recommend this game. If you have a PS3 this is a must buy along with 3. Only thing I will say though is that the game does need a modern remaster or at the very least have Sony add it to PS PLUS Classics Catalogue. Only issue there is that Sony has to make players stream PS3 games instead of being able to buy and play them which sucks. To rant a bit, it's still ridiculous Sony haven't made a proper PS3 official emulator for PS4 and PS5, there are rumors they are working on one, but that rumor was from a year ago and nothing came from it since.
It such a shame because there are so many amazing games stuck on PS3, but that's why I'm recommending if you do have a PS3, buy Killzone 2 and 3.

Thanks for reading. :)