Slashdot Mirror
Early Killzone 2 Reviews Looking Good
Reviews are beginning to appear for Guerrilla Games' upcoming first-person shooter, Killzone 2, a PS3 exclusive that has received a great deal of hype over the past several months. The reviews are mostly complimentary, but not overwhelmingly so; Ars Technica says it has "some of the best graphics yet seen on the PS3," and is a "solid take on the war-gaming genre." They also acknowledge that this is the latest game being held up as a standard for how good PS3 games can be, though the PS3 may not need such validation anymore. Edge Magazine is critical of the story, saying, "you could play the levels in random order to little ill-effect," but found the gameplay redeeming enough to warrant a 7/10. Concerns were raised early about the quality of the controls, but Guerrilla Games has affirmed that no changes will be made. Though the game won't be out for about a week yet, rumors of some fairly typical DLC plans are already cropping up. Giant Bomb recorded some video showcasing Killzone 2's multiplayer a while back.
Let me preface my comment with this: I've owned both a 360 and PS3 and I've never really liked my PS3. I'm getting ready to sell it, in fact. I bought it for Home, blu-ray playback, and exclusives. But Home was delayed for a long time and sucked when it finally did come out, there are much cheaper blu-ray players now that don't require constant updates and actually work with my universal remote, and the few exclusives the PS3 have gotten (with the slight exceptions of Little Big Planet and Metal Gear Solid 4) have been mediocre at best. I'm actually getting ready to sell my launch PS3, as it just gathers dust now that I have a regular blu-ray player. My 360 on the other hand, is invaluable to me. Great exclusives, better quality and downloadable content on even multi-platform games, lets me stream movies from my Netflix account, it let me get in on the brief HD-DVD phase on the cheap (I still treasure my Battlestar Galactica Season 1 boxset, which has never been made available in HD on any other format), better controller for my big hands, etc.
But having said all that, there are still 360 exclusives (even popular ones) that I criticize. There are a lot of mediocre or boring shooter's on the 360 that just don't do it for me. I would give Gears of War 1 & 2 both "meh" scores, the same as some people are giving KZ2. And I just couldn't get into Dead Rising, with it's timed missions. So even a 360 fanboy like me doesn't just slobber over every game just because it's a 360 exclusive.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Edge places a high value on innovation, and openly admits to doing so. Even those who rate Killzone highly admit that, while amusing, it brings absolutely nothing to the table not seen before. It takes zero chances, preferring to polish the pre-existing experience. Even Gears 2 made SOME changes to the formula, both technically and in terms of storytelling and gameplay flow.
For many gamers, that's just fine. But as someone who plays most everything that comes out, I'd much rather a score tell me if the game will truly surprise me, as opposed to just being a well-trodden path through the FPS woods. Not everyone looks for the same thing in a review, but then, that's why there are multiple review sources. You can't whine about the over-dependence on metacritic and the generally poor state of numerical reviews, as many do of late, then penalize one source for actually trying something different and using the full 10 scale.