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| Source // MobyGames |
There are an awful lot of components that go into a great game. Solid gameplay is an obvious bonus, but as technology has advanced, great stories, characters, and voice actors have made games shine, and film composers and orchestras have provided incredible soundscapes that can be recalled in an instant.
But there's another aspect that can make an otherwise excellent game fade over time if not done right, and that's worldbuilding and the aesthetics of what's on show. The reason I rate Front Mission 3 so highly is the look and feel of those big stompy mechs. I'm a fan of that aesthetic. Metal Gear Solid is also helped by its look and feel, but that game does have a whole load more going on besides them. Wipeout famously had a graphic design studio turn the game into the vibrant futuristic wonder that it is today.
However, in my opinion - though it's a tough call to make - there may well be no more aesthetically pleasing game, no better world to dive into, than the grungy, smoggy, near-future, WW2 analogy that is Killzone 2.
The first game of the series didn't grab my attention. That E3 teaser trailer and the subsequent gameplay footage that followed sure did. By the time you've played it, you too will know that Helghan belongs to the Helghast.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Fond Memories
If you know of Killzone 2, you know the power of Scolar Visari's opening speech, spurring the Helghast on in their efforts to repel us, the invading ISA forces of Vekta. It hits all the right notes, and the stare into the camera that follows it leaves you in no doubt as to who the bad guys are - right?
We'll get to the story in a bit, but I want to point out that I played an awful lot of Killzone 2 at the time of its release and the months that followed. I wouldn't say I was hunting PlayStation trophies, but I had the time to play enough multiplayer matches to give me a chance at being in the top 1% of players for the week, so I played an awful lot of multiplayer that week, and many of the surrounding weeks.
When the dust had finally settled on my time with Killzone 2, I was just a single trophy short of completion. Finish the game on Elite difficulty. Oooh, I shudder to think about the challenge even now. I don't remember even attempting it, and if I did, I certainly didn't finish it, and I sadly have no save files left to give me any ideas as to how far I got, if at all.
I know one thing for sure: I won't be anywhere near as skilled with it a decade later to try again.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Fun Times
A couple of years after the events of Killzone, the ISA have decided to invade Helghan in an attempt to arrest the Emperor for his war crimes, namely invading Vekta in the first game. As you can see from the pre-rendered opening cinematic, it's not going too well for the ISA, their ships being torn from the skies by lightning-like Arc cannons, their ground forces surrounded by battle-hardened Helghan soldiers defending their homeland.
It's a miserable place to live, a planet whose atmosphere the locals can barely stomach, but it is their home, and we are making even more of a mess of it in retaliation to previous events.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
We play as Sev, currently high in the Helghan atmosphere but about to join his squad to drop in - rather literally - onto the frontlines. When I say the aesthetic of Killzone 2 is so damn good, I'm referring to all of these screenshots. The colours, the design, the HUD... wherever I look, I see a reason to say "Gah! That's so good."
To you, it's probably just sci-fi or industrial or something, but to me, there is something in all of this that I can't put my finger on, but that I know makes Killzone 2 amazing.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Crashlanding onto the riverside is Killzone 2's version of the D-Day landings, and the concrete and steel of the city - already ruined and transformed through warfare - evoke even more similarities to the bunkers and the barbed wire of the Second World War.
More intelligent people than I have looked into the symbolism of the Helghast in comparison to the Nazi's, but it's almost impossible to ignore the fact that there is one. Dressed in black, glowing red eyes, devoted to their leader... we're definitely the good guys in this story, and making our way into the city with the help of explosive barrels and chest-high cover is a scene of blood and violence.
The controls are famously on the bulky, weighty side, and it does take a bit of getting used to. I generally prefer this kind of feel, but after all these years, it did feel like I was playing almost a completely alien game to me, my sights swaying all over the place, recoil completely throwing off my following shots.
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| Source // MobyGames |
As we make our way through the defensive line, we're usually told to split off from the main force and do some busy work like opening doors and clearing buildings of grunts armed with rocket launchers. You're accompanied by Garza who will provide some firepower of his own, but don't rely on him to do the work for you.
Instead, pick up weaponry from fallen Helghast troops and enjoy the sheer industrial power of some alternate reality, alternate history, near-future takes on some iconic weapons. One of my favourites is the StA-14 rifle, like a suped-up M1 Garand. Iron sights, packing one hell of a punch... I remember just sitting at one end of a corridor in multiplayer dominating with it at range. Ah, good times.
Here, I'm a little more wobbly. Animations are realistic, with soldiers ducking into cover and blind-firing over the top of it, and a head-shot may only take off their helmet, rather than kill them, so you need to pay attention and wait for the body to stop flailing around and finally fall to the floor before knowing whether the job is done.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
There are a few flavours of enemy troops, for want of a better word, as well as the occasional mini-boss like this lumbering hulk here, who, in typical video game fashion, turns around to expose his weak point if you shoot him in the head.
It's in this muddy sewer area that you might appreciate all the blurring and lighting that is going on to give Killzone 2 a look that other games just didn't have. Whip the camera around and aim down the sights, assuming you've a weapon with a holo sight, and you can see all this blurring and lights interacting with your equipment first-hand - when it's safe to do so, obviously.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
How about the dusty reds and oranges of some mining villages, full of miners who are defending themselves from the ISA. We're still the good guys, aren't we? They don't look like civilians to me. They shot first, though, so they had it coming...
To tell you the truth, I can't remember the plot that brought us here. If memory serves, there's a funky power source that fuels the arc cannons that are wreaking havoc on our ships, and I guess we're trying to investigate just what it is and how we can turn it off or harness it for ourselves or something.
By this point, there's no real turning back. We're as committed to bringing Visari to justice as the Helghast are in defending him and their homeland from us. And there's not too many of us left.
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| Source // MobyGames |
Maybe cool is the wrong word. He is a space Nazi, after all, but through eavesdropping over conversations between Helghan troops and following his antics in the cutscenes, we learn that he will readily kill anyone who gets in his way for the most insignificant of reasons, and does so not because he is mentally unstable or has a short fuse, but because he is so damn cold-blooded and indifferent to anything that isn't the task at hand.
Ruthless, extreme, non-compromising. If you have the pleasure of meeting him face to mask, and you emerge out the other side still breathing, you've done well. But he is the bad guy, so don't like him too much.
Also that costume, those aesthetics, hoo boy how does Killzone 2 do it?
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| Source // MobyGames |
Without spoiling anything, Killzone 3 immediately picks up after the events of Killzone 2, so you know the story doesn't end, put it that way. But this game does end with an almighty struggle up the steps to the palace, before a boss fight against Radec himself, complete with his invisibility cloak and lethal speed advantage over your tired legs.
It's one of those endings to a game where you feel every part of the slog and end up slumping in your seat, drained at what you've gone through. I can only imagine the horrors of this section on Elite difficulty because Killzone 2 isn't without its faults.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Frustrations
While playing Killzone 2 for the first time in a very long time, one of the big faults I encountered was that in an attempt to get the game to feel big and ongoing, levels, or sections within them, would be connected with loading corridors.
Normally this wouldn't be too much of an issue, but when you run into the corridor and the game looks to have frozen completely, maybe they need to be a little longer or something. Minor problem, for sure, but one that caught me out a couple of times before I realised that, nope, it was just loading the next section and saving me at a checkpoint.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Once you get on top of the way Killzone 2 controls and get a handle on the various weapons, thinning the Helghast herd shouldn't be too difficult, even if they take a short while to finally fall over. If you're not paying attention, though, you'll miss your opportunity to move up while it is safe to do so and trigger them to stop infinitely spawning into view and sucking up all your ammo.
This is especially annoying on the last level, where you're pushing into the palace. The steps are littered with cover to hide behind and obstacles for Helghast troops to pop out from and shoot you in the face. It is their last stand, after all, and they're doing everything in their power to stop you.
It is hell to make any progress in this place, but make progress you must to stop streams of soldiers from appearing, and if memory serves, you need to so do at least a couple of times before you finally get to the front door.
Again, I dread to think what it plays like on Elite difficulty, but damn, it'll look incredible.
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| Source // PlayStation |
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| Source // PlayStation |
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| Source // PlayStation |
The multiplayer servers were only shut down relatively recently in 2018, but you can still play against bots in the various game modes. In Warzone, the entire map will be used to play the other modes in a random order. You might be defending a single player from being assassinated by the enemy one minute, then trying to destroy a landmark the next.
As I say, I played a ridiculous amount of Killzone 2 multiplayer, to the point where I'd remap other control schemes to that of Killzone 2 to give me an easier time of adapting to a new game. Those days are now gone, though, and only a scant few memories remain.
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| Source // PlayStation |
The biggest frustration of them all is that the Killzone series doesn't get better than this. It was Killzone 2 that wowed gamers and gave the green light for sequels and spinoffs, and while they are generally speaking as aesthetically pleasing as this one, they just don't come close in terms of the overall package.
Killzone 3 takes things too far, Shadow Fall doesn't have an amazing story, Liberation on the PSP can be tough as nails and Mercenary on the PSVita, while surprising in places, is lacking a real reason to care about the universe. Killzone 2, many fans' first in the series, is the peak. Two forces battering the shit out of each other before questioning why they're doing it at all.
Final Word
I'm as rusty at playing Killzone 2 as the mining facilities on Halghan seem to be. My memory of the story details is as foggy as the harsh atmosphere that chokes the planet. The look of this world is as inspiring as a speech from Scolar Visari. I cannot find any good reason to ignore Killzone 2.
Don't be surprised if nostalgia propels this one up the Top Ten lists later on, because I could spend hours and hours nose deep in concept art and design for this universe.
You might say that it's a little black and white, a clear Earth-like Vektan ISA, an obviously evil Helgan army, squabbling over land because they just can't agree on what is right and wrong, and I might well agree. It does lean on tropes to get its point across, but it does it so well that the final product is unmistakably Killzone, recognizable in an instant.
If you've not played any of the games, this is the one to play. Be prepared for a learning curve with regards to the heft of your movement, but get excited for an explosive showing of environment design, lighting, animation and effects, in a war like no other, and yet one that's all too familiar.
Fun Facts
That E3 teaser was touted by Sony as in-game footage, though few believed it to be the case, notably because it was a pre-rendered target of what the PS3 ought to be capable of, done by a different studio than the developers themselves.
Killzone 2, developed by Guerrilla Games, first released in 2009.
Version played: PlayStation 3, 2009, also via memory.