Killzone 2 Demo Impressions
Damn Guerrilla Games, damn them to hell I say! They just wanna tease us don’t they?! “Why do you say such things?” you may ask, well firstly the Killzone 2 demo is great, infact it is fantastic but it is very short. It will probably give you gaming joy of around 15 minutes, that is why I say “Damn you Guerrilla Games, damn you!”
Well now I have that off my chest, time to get to the impressions. When you first get into the game you can’t help but be a little astounded by the games look. It is visually breathtaking; I would go as far as to say it is the best looking console game I have seen so far this generation. The lighting is fantastic, the textures are high quality, the character, gun and environment models all look great. The only remotely negative thing I would say about the visuals is that everything is a bit grey and murky but you get the feeling that is the look of the Killzone world so I don’t think you can really put the game down too much for that.
This is an FPS though, it can look fantastic but if the gunplay fails then well there is no game. Fear not though, Killzone plays really well. The guns feel like they have a real weight to them, you really feel the kickback after every shot. There is something immensely satisfying about pumping a Helghast soldier full of bullets and watch his body react to each individual shot! I also really like the lean and peak cover system that has been implemented, you stay in first person throughout and it really adds to immersion. You just basically hold L2 when you’re near a wall and you slip into cover. You can peak around corners and look over the top; it’s all very well done. Kudos to Guerrilla Games!
The demo is set to the trooper difficulty which I am guessing is normal and the enemy AI is pretty good for that particular difficulty. I noticed the Helghast soldiers steadily advancing from cover to cover to gain some sort of advantage on me, one guy even went round the corner…..sneaky so and so! The standout moment (AI wise) for me took place in the warehouse section when one of the Helghast soldiers who was behind cover, sneakily rolled out and started shooting me (rather than just popping his head out), trying to catch me out. I found it rather amusing and clever in the same instance, nice little addition.
It is safe to say that I really enjoyed the demo; Killzone 2 is shaping up to be a great game. Now, how many days til February 27th?!
The demo is available on the European PS Store to download now, it weighs in at just over 1GB.
