This review contains spoilers
First thing I will say point blank is that gameplay and graphically it feels WAY better than the first Killzone did and I think that's great. It took me a bit of time to get used to it and at first I'll be honest I wasn't feeling it but then it actually started to click. This game is a marginal improvement over the other two in most aspects and for that I totally and completely get why people LOVE this game and herald it as the best in the franchise (or at least out of the ones I played so far, though that's not saying much persay), and that's the E3 2005 trailer aside which from what I understand overhyped the game a bit even if it didn't look like actual gameplay anyways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnZJSse_9Pw&ab_channel=SnazzyAI (shoutout to Snazzy for the 4K upgrade goddamn).
However, it does have some issues, but first I wanna go out of my way to give some positives here.
I'll start with graphics because that's the easiest thing to talk about with this game. Guerilla knows their shit with how to make their games look phenomenal, which truth be told they only got better with over time and truth be told to me it looked like a late lifespan PS3 game. I can't really say much else about this off the top of my head other than I also again don't care much for the grey mid to late 2000s grey filter BUT it does kind of fit the atmosphere of a planet run by an oppressive facist regime so I guess I'm cool with it. I can't say anything else graphics wise without repeating myself so yeah it looks great.
Gameplay wise it's good too! Weapons feel weighty but not really sluggish, you can actually aim down sights which is nice unlike the previous game, like for the most part everything about the gunplay was improved immensely, and that most of them feel powerful. If I were to critique something about any of the guns is that I don't particularly care about the flamethrower really, it doesn't necessarily feel right, if anything it feels like I'm kind of missing my target but again I think it has to do with the guns being more weighty and I didn't use it much anyways so I wasn't bothered. One thing I didn't like is that they put in Sixaxis mandatory stuff for the game (in order to turn wheels mostly, place bombs and to help aim your sniper rifle).
Again I don't really have too much to say at this moment, as doing so would just make me repeat myself over and over again. To sum up, graphics and gameplay is good. Soundtrack is also good, though nothing I would go home and put on the stereo or something like it helps serve it's purpose well.
Now my main critique is the story/characters/and dialogue of which there's A LOT more I can say. Going based off memory after thinking about it a bit, the story starts off after Killzone and Killzone: Liberation; the ISA are now invading Helghan to capture Scholar Visari, the leader of the Helghast. The invasion is led by Jan Templar from the last two games, who commissions your squad (led by Rico from the last two games) to help out with the invasion. You play some dude named Sev, and along with two other generic military dudes go through the motions of shooting Helghast and blowing stuff up. Along the way you run into the Helghast counterpart to Templar, Colonel Radec. Some electric arc things destroy the first convoy, leading to the discovery that these things were made from a refinery outside of the city. You go there, your people get kidnapped, you and Rico go in, people get shot and die. Then afterwards, they attack the main ISA sky convoy where Templar is, Templar gets shot trying to protect nuclear launch codes before sacrificing his ships to crash into the electric whatever the fuck to destroy the ultimate electric weapon thing before Visari decides to go to DEFCON 1 and just nuke his own city while hanging out at the palace like a crazy bastard. You and your squad squabble amongst each other, fight your way to the palace, before fighting and kill Radec in an extended fight involving multiple waves of goons and a final boss who's a definite asshole with his cloak. He dies, you go to arrest Visari, he goes on a giant dictator rant before Rico guns him down and that's where the story ends. For me it's a bit of a mixed bag because whereas I enjoy the pacing, it being short and sweet at 10-11 Levels; the characters are....less interesting.
I'll say from the first couple of missions the dialogue is....just fuckin wow. I don't know how to put it but these guys are stereotypical military douchebags, like I don't know how to describe it so I'm gonna put a clip down that I got from a playthrough cause I didn't have a recording device on hand.
https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxtYDiqquTCCVFNjA3b6-uz78Ff9D7T2gD
Now keep in mind, this is the funniest banter I encountered. I don't remember most of the other quotes but truth is I don't really need to because most of it is generic dude bro bullshit. Your playable protagonist isn't interesting but he's notable with the fact that I don't hear him talk much (or I don't remember hearing him talk much so that's a plus) and neither are the other two Randoms whose name I don't recognize. The real person to pay attention to is Rico to be honest, at least how they dealt with him. Now, personally I'll start with I don't think it's too out of character for him to be this much of a loose cannon, in fact the first half to 3/4s of the game I didn't notice too much that was out of character so whatever. The real tension comes within the last three missions, where he gets inpatient, gets one of your squad buddies killed, and then gets hyper aggressive for the remainder of the game and basically goes against orders by killing Visari instead of taking him alive for trial, leading to him being martyred and the Helghast going ballistic. Do I think that's stupid? Yeah. I'm kind of torn though whether not it feels believable or if the dude is just kind of a trope and this whole thing was pulled out of his ass but to be honest I'm leaning towards the former with the whole "Fuck Helghans" aspect from the first game and the death of his buddy Templar. Templar is kind of one note, not interesting, and without Luger there to serve as a foil (no mention of her in the game) and no Hakha to serve as a foil for Rico (no mention of him either), it kinda falls flat in that regard. That leads to the final two characters to mention:
Colonel Radec, who for the most part is one of the more memorable characters in this game just due to his design alone, I don't personally think he was as cool as everyone tried to make him sound, I guess I can see why they made him the series mascot but for the most part he served his purpose as sociopath general who loves murder and serves his master obediently. Visari on the other hand, Jesus H they really leveled up the ham on this fucker cause he goes ALL IN on the crazy dictator speech that he's actually to me the most compelling character in the game even with the limited screen time he has.
Now with that I guess I should address one last thing: the multiplayer. They shut down the servers in 2018 I believe but thanks to a game preservation group PSOne, the unranked multiplayer servers are back online for those who want to take a chance and play again. So far I've played twice, both saturdays over two weeks and whereas I didn't stay for long I had a good time with it. Just keep in mind if you're gonna trophy hunt for the game, you can't get the trophies for the multiplayer wise as of 2022 still so no platinum on my end. However, one day I hope to go through and mop up the remaining single player stuff with the off chance that maybe they'll bring back trophy support online (though I highly doubt it).
And finally again, obligatory rant at the end of every playstation exclusive review (or game stuck on consoles). I know it's not gonna get you millions of dollars but Sony please port your old games to PC, keep history alive. And if they don't, luckily ya'll can just get the PS3 emulators up and running I know but I'd like to see these games remastered and ported some day along with all the other franchises stuck on old systems.
I guess if I were to tl;dr this I'll say this: Gameplay/Sound Design/Graphics good, Story isn't the most memorable but is paced well and didn't feel like a slog, and characters were one note, boring and cliched on the protags side with the Helghans being the more interesting part. Multiplayer is back online, just look up PSOne.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnZJSse_9Pw&ab_channel=SnazzyAI (shoutout to Snazzy for the 4K upgrade goddamn).
However, it does have some issues, but first I wanna go out of my way to give some positives here.
I'll start with graphics because that's the easiest thing to talk about with this game. Guerilla knows their shit with how to make their games look phenomenal, which truth be told they only got better with over time and truth be told to me it looked like a late lifespan PS3 game. I can't really say much else about this off the top of my head other than I also again don't care much for the grey mid to late 2000s grey filter BUT it does kind of fit the atmosphere of a planet run by an oppressive facist regime so I guess I'm cool with it. I can't say anything else graphics wise without repeating myself so yeah it looks great.
Gameplay wise it's good too! Weapons feel weighty but not really sluggish, you can actually aim down sights which is nice unlike the previous game, like for the most part everything about the gunplay was improved immensely, and that most of them feel powerful. If I were to critique something about any of the guns is that I don't particularly care about the flamethrower really, it doesn't necessarily feel right, if anything it feels like I'm kind of missing my target but again I think it has to do with the guns being more weighty and I didn't use it much anyways so I wasn't bothered. One thing I didn't like is that they put in Sixaxis mandatory stuff for the game (in order to turn wheels mostly, place bombs and to help aim your sniper rifle).
Again I don't really have too much to say at this moment, as doing so would just make me repeat myself over and over again. To sum up, graphics and gameplay is good. Soundtrack is also good, though nothing I would go home and put on the stereo or something like it helps serve it's purpose well.
Now my main critique is the story/characters/and dialogue of which there's A LOT more I can say. Going based off memory after thinking about it a bit, the story starts off after Killzone and Killzone: Liberation; the ISA are now invading Helghan to capture Scholar Visari, the leader of the Helghast. The invasion is led by Jan Templar from the last two games, who commissions your squad (led by Rico from the last two games) to help out with the invasion. You play some dude named Sev, and along with two other generic military dudes go through the motions of shooting Helghast and blowing stuff up. Along the way you run into the Helghast counterpart to Templar, Colonel Radec. Some electric arc things destroy the first convoy, leading to the discovery that these things were made from a refinery outside of the city. You go there, your people get kidnapped, you and Rico go in, people get shot and die. Then afterwards, they attack the main ISA sky convoy where Templar is, Templar gets shot trying to protect nuclear launch codes before sacrificing his ships to crash into the electric whatever the fuck to destroy the ultimate electric weapon thing before Visari decides to go to DEFCON 1 and just nuke his own city while hanging out at the palace like a crazy bastard. You and your squad squabble amongst each other, fight your way to the palace, before fighting and kill Radec in an extended fight involving multiple waves of goons and a final boss who's a definite asshole with his cloak. He dies, you go to arrest Visari, he goes on a giant dictator rant before Rico guns him down and that's where the story ends. For me it's a bit of a mixed bag because whereas I enjoy the pacing, it being short and sweet at 10-11 Levels; the characters are....less interesting.
I'll say from the first couple of missions the dialogue is....just fuckin wow. I don't know how to put it but these guys are stereotypical military douchebags, like I don't know how to describe it so I'm gonna put a clip down that I got from a playthrough cause I didn't have a recording device on hand.
https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxtYDiqquTCCVFNjA3b6-uz78Ff9D7T2gD
Now keep in mind, this is the funniest banter I encountered. I don't remember most of the other quotes but truth is I don't really need to because most of it is generic dude bro bullshit. Your playable protagonist isn't interesting but he's notable with the fact that I don't hear him talk much (or I don't remember hearing him talk much so that's a plus) and neither are the other two Randoms whose name I don't recognize. The real person to pay attention to is Rico to be honest, at least how they dealt with him. Now, personally I'll start with I don't think it's too out of character for him to be this much of a loose cannon, in fact the first half to 3/4s of the game I didn't notice too much that was out of character so whatever. The real tension comes within the last three missions, where he gets inpatient, gets one of your squad buddies killed, and then gets hyper aggressive for the remainder of the game and basically goes against orders by killing Visari instead of taking him alive for trial, leading to him being martyred and the Helghast going ballistic. Do I think that's stupid? Yeah. I'm kind of torn though whether not it feels believable or if the dude is just kind of a trope and this whole thing was pulled out of his ass but to be honest I'm leaning towards the former with the whole "Fuck Helghans" aspect from the first game and the death of his buddy Templar. Templar is kind of one note, not interesting, and without Luger there to serve as a foil (no mention of her in the game) and no Hakha to serve as a foil for Rico (no mention of him either), it kinda falls flat in that regard. That leads to the final two characters to mention:
Colonel Radec, who for the most part is one of the more memorable characters in this game just due to his design alone, I don't personally think he was as cool as everyone tried to make him sound, I guess I can see why they made him the series mascot but for the most part he served his purpose as sociopath general who loves murder and serves his master obediently. Visari on the other hand, Jesus H they really leveled up the ham on this fucker cause he goes ALL IN on the crazy dictator speech that he's actually to me the most compelling character in the game even with the limited screen time he has.
Now with that I guess I should address one last thing: the multiplayer. They shut down the servers in 2018 I believe but thanks to a game preservation group PSOne, the unranked multiplayer servers are back online for those who want to take a chance and play again. So far I've played twice, both saturdays over two weeks and whereas I didn't stay for long I had a good time with it. Just keep in mind if you're gonna trophy hunt for the game, you can't get the trophies for the multiplayer wise as of 2022 still so no platinum on my end. However, one day I hope to go through and mop up the remaining single player stuff with the off chance that maybe they'll bring back trophy support online (though I highly doubt it).
And finally again, obligatory rant at the end of every playstation exclusive review (or game stuck on consoles). I know it's not gonna get you millions of dollars but Sony please port your old games to PC, keep history alive. And if they don't, luckily ya'll can just get the PS3 emulators up and running I know but I'd like to see these games remastered and ported some day along with all the other franchises stuck on old systems.
I guess if I were to tl;dr this I'll say this: Gameplay/Sound Design/Graphics good, Story isn't the most memorable but is paced well and didn't feel like a slog, and characters were one note, boring and cliched on the protags side with the Helghans being the more interesting part. Multiplayer is back online, just look up PSOne.