Bloodsport

by ERIK LEIJON

Facing near insurmountable expectations thanks to a well-oiled hype machine, Playstation 3 exclusive first-person shooter Killzone 2 (PS3/SCEE, Guerrilla) doesn’t fail in its quest to be one of the loudest, most violent, excessive and most bewildering shooting experiences in gaming history. Killzone 2 is defiant and unabashedly proud of being devoid of any kind of storyline, and any attempts at fighting strategically are thrown out the window as soon as the first fleet of faceless enemies aggressively scream for your head.

With a name like Killzone, it’s obvious this futuristic space war shooter isn’t aiming for subtlety. Still, once your army character drops from his transport module onto a rapidly decaying battlefield—thick smoke filling the air and scattered garbage spinning helplessly in the stiff winds—every mission is a quick adrenaline rush of intelligent foes emerging from every corner, numerous inaccurate weapons and endless disorienting explosions. Killzone’s Helghast enemies have bright orange eyes for a reason—it’s the only way to pick them out when there are hundreds of moving objects (from eardrum-shattering lightning bolts to broken building chunks) at any given time.

Although visually impressive, the Final Fantasy-esque introductory cinematic does little to present any sort of back-story or moral question. Metal Gear Solid this is not, but developer Guerrilla Games’ smartest decision was to make Killzone 2 as emotionally and narratively barren as the numerous urban wastelands your crew will leave in their wakes. If anything, cluttering the game with clumsy dialogue or moral choices would have only removed players from Killzone’s best moments—the relentless barrage of futuristic warfare.

As a war-based FPS, Killzone 2’s gameplay is mostly familiar, although the elasticity of using cover feels much more natural than Gears of War’s cover auto-locking invincibility. Cover doesn’t work particularly well, and neither do the crosshairs on your weapons. This promotes more brazen behaviour during firefights, as standing still or laying back will only result in being swarmed and quickly killed.

Occasionally there are minor issues with smoke vanishing and reappearing, but otherwise Killzone 2 is one of the finest-looking games ever made. Many of the fights occur in war-ravaged industrial areas, with cars, walls and foundation poles as potential cover. Usually with more than a dozen enemies at one time attacking from above and below, the orgy of explosions, ricocheting gunfire and the omnipresent smoke makes for a unique-looking, grimy battle scene. It’s almost impossible to take in all the minor visual touches because there’s never a dull moment, but at the end of a big battle, it can be fun to look back at the massive amounts of carnage inflicted on the area.

Killzone 2’s single-player campaign is really just a primer for the bevy of online, team-based missions. In this respect, Sony have finally succeeded in creating their own Halo—a shooter with an indeterminate lifespan. But just like Halo, it’s doubtful Killzone 2 will appeal to anyone tired of FPSs and looking for something new.

Garden of delight

The liberating feeling of flying over a dewy, green meadow can now be experienced in Flower (PSN/SCEE, ThatGameCompany), a highly original and graphically stunning downloadable Playstation Network title. Playing as a flower petal in a gust of wind from a first-person perspective, the only mission is for players to fly over each field, touching flowers and building a chromatically pleasing cyclone of petals.

Everything about the game is calming except for the tricky sixaxis controls, which require tilting the controller as a means of orienting oneself. There’s nothing like it out there and the wind physics hitting each individual blade of grass looks incredible. Not a conventional game, but worth checking out.