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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.
Early reviews? Scores have been pouring in for weeks! The game has received more than two dozen reviews from numerous sources, the vast majority of which have been unanimous in their praise of the game. The only blips have been EDGE (a magazine which has been going rapidly downhill for the past few years) and Maxim's review, which scored less than 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. There again, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Having played the demo and watched all the gameplay videos, I'm confident my pre-order decision was a good one (£30 off Play.com, so it's not exactly breaking the bank).
The only downer I felt was that the original cast members from the first game, Templer, Lugar, etc., are not the lead characters in this sequel. I'm not even sure if any of them feature at all, apart from an odd cutscene here and there. A shame, really. Sometimes I think video game writers and designers need to consider that games like Killzone should care more about what happens to these characters as they fight this war. They don't have to be the most overly developed of characters, but at least it would allow the player to build an affinity with them, be more drawn into the story, and therefore enjoy the game on another level. (rant over - sorry)
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
So the reviews are looking good, but the game sucks?
that is a lot of fucking links
Gamers need to stop worrying about the sales numbers of the PS3 and arguing over the merits of PlayStation Home. The truth is that the system is flush with excellent, exclusive games, and we're way past the point where you can call yourself a hardcore gamer and not own the hardware.
That is something I would expect to read on a fan-boy site and not a tech blog.
Killzone 2 is a good game, certainly above average. In the looks department it blows most games out of the water but the game play is generic FPS game play. There is nothing new here and nothing that is going to break barriers or set a new bar for overall game development. It's not the ultimate Sony exclusive that Sony fans were waiting for. It's a good AAA title that had way too much hype surrounding it.
This game has been hyped for very, very long. The first trailer was in summer of 2005...it seemed like an eternity for the game to arrive on shelves.
Killzone 2 will bring the PS3 some better acclaim but everyone on earth knows that God of War III is going to not only set the bar for this generation of games but it's going to destroy the bar.
my *personal* viewpoint is that KZ2 is one I am really waiting for.
I was mildly unimpressed by the Resistance2 multiplay mode (though the single player is amazing) and I am really looking forward to KZ2.
I think we are beginning to see the effect of the better capabilities of the PS2 in terms of performance, visuals and disc storage (BD vs DVD).
I am lucky to already have a copy of the game, and can say to everyone: this game rocks!!! It is full pack with the best FPS action I've seen. Yes, there are more games in the market which I'd say the same, but definitely KZ2 is in my top list, it is worth all the good ratings, and I just can't stop playing!
Ok, I regularly frequent sites like N4G (Don't go there, it's like everyone is an anonymous coward, but worse) and there's always a mass outcry if you so much as imply that the 360 is somewhat powerful, at least enough to contend with the PS3 for a while yet.
The main consensus seems to be "PS3 == Most powerful console on earth, thus 360 == suckiest console on earth".
Now, I'm no expert and this is where /. comes in. I'm a firm believer that although the PS3 has an exceptional amount of power behind it considering what it is (And it's price), most of this power is incredibly difficult to use when making a game. I attribute this to games being incredibly linear, from a programming sense (In that you pretty much have to do tasks like A.I., physics, graphics, input, etc. in a very specific order and can't do any of them before the other is finished, for example you can't render the scene if you don't know where the objects in the scene are, so you can't start rendering until the physics have been finished and such). It's possible to break up some of these tasks into enough threads that all of the SPUs have stuff to do, but with deadlocks (I can't remember the correct term, it's when a thread puts a block up to stop another thread messing with it so bad things don't happen) and whatnot, a lot of them may end up waiting for other threads to finish. This is my basic understanding of how it all works, but as I said, I am no expert. On the off chance that a vaguely expertise person reads this, or even someone with a bigger understanding of the hardware and games and such, could you tell me if I'm even anywhere close to the mark?
What's more, is it reasonable to assume that even graphically amazing games like Killzone 2 would be more than possible on the 360, since apparently the 360 has a more powerful GPU (something to do with the eDRAM inside it)? Or is this just 360 fanboy FUD?
For the record, I'd like to state that I am stating all this from a neutral perspective and, in fact, own both consoles.
Reading the Edge Magazine review of KZ2, I get the feeling it is written by a person who clearly doesn't like FPS shooters, PS3's or both. Considering the fact that similar games on the 360 received high acclaim from Edge, it looks like Edge wasn't entirely fair with the review. At least, that's what the review tells me. KZ2 arrives a couple of months after GeOW2, it can't be that in those couple of months the requirements to be an entertaining shooter has become that much higher. The review has similarities with the Eurogamer review of Fear2 which was rewarded a 5/10, also completely off the mark.
Oh well... the rest of the reviews on metacritic are pretty positive.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is it just me or does it just look like a fairly standard shooter, with a TF-style multiplayer? Graphics? Good. Sound? Good. Gameplay? Standard FPS fare. Controls? Dunno because I don't have a PS3, but I imagine that keyboard/mouse players would be thrashing anybody who's trying to play it with any other controller (ala every other FPS out there). Whoever shot that multiplayer video certainly wasn't using a proper mouse.
I don't see anything astounding here. It might be a good technical achievement (getting this to run on PS3) but then, to be honest, I'm not even that impressed at that given the PS3's hardware. Could someone enlighten me: What's the big fuss?
They could "monetize" KZ1 all over again if they were to release it for PC IMHO. I don't think I'm the only one that would happily buy KZ1 for PC, even with no or limited MP capability. It was great on PS2, but with the control flexibility etc available with a PC, it would rock!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Slashdot is always, and I mean ALWAYS weeks late when it comes to games, so why bother using words such as "early"?
Also, the article is poorly written.
Gaming articles on slashdot are almost exclusively late and poorly written. As in pure crap.
Why bother writing about games when you don't care and don't know anything about them anyway.
Playing video games... on a blue ray player? How deliciously absurd!
Early reviews? We have published our review (based on a original retail game version provided by Sony) like 9 days ego and we are from Poland, which in game publishers calendar is even worse off than Australia.
And yeah, the game rocks and rocks hard.
Exactly the point: most games look bad on PS3, unless they're exclusive. Then they come close to those on the 360 and sometimes even on PC. End yet, the KZ2 is a far cry from Sony's promised 1080p HD gamin. In fact, it doesn't even seem to be rendered at 720p - looks more like it's been rendered at a lower resolution, and then scaled up with antialiasing (similar to MGS4).
I can't imagine how can you make a true HD game on a device with only 256MB of Video RAM, and with a BluRay drive that can only read data at about 9 megabytes per second. So, you get a MGS4 and the likes, which takes AGES to install onto PS3's internal hard drive, multiple times. I'd rather change a DVD any day - takes a few seconds, than to wait for minutes for the content to get copied at a ridiculously slow speed onto internal hard drive.
That is not to say KZ2 is a bad game - not at all. It's just one of the games that users of 360 and PC have gotten accustomed to long time ago. Hell, just look at one of the ancient games on 360 - Splinter Cell: Double Agent! The graphics there were absolutely fantastic, and that was October 2006 - 2.5 years ago!!!
These guys thought it would be fun to spend review copies to EVERY gamer site on the internet EXCEPT Penny Arcade to send a message.
Well, it did for me. I will not be buying this game.
I think a story in a shooter in particular is really necessary because otherwise the game will become boring pretty quickly and the player will start wondering why s/he has to go there and click button X, why object O is at spot Y etc. A story gives meaning to all that, and the player thus is able to accept why things happen the way they did and why the environments/objects are the way they are. If you for example played Gears of war 1, there are numerous moments where you simply wonder why you're there, why you have to go there and why things happen the way they happen. Sure the shooting the crap out of every enemy is fun, but a story which gives meaning to the events makes a good experience a great experience (IMHO)
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
If you replace "PS3" with "Gamecube" and KZ2,Uncharted with Windwaker and Eternal Darkness, you start to have a very familiar story of a 3rd place console.
For what it's worth, there's something to be said for not being the console targeted for every lame shovelware game that's released.
FUNK!
I don't know... Accusations are constantly flying about the folks over at Ars having a bias towards the PS3. Perhaps they do. But as someone who is, by and large, not even really a "console gamer" - I came to the same conclusion they have.
I bought a PS3 only 2-3 months after they were released. At that time, Resistance and EA's Fight Night boxing title were about the only noteworthy releases I could find for it. Still, I saw the potential the hardware had, and realized it was finally a "console that made sense to own, along-side of whatever high-end computer system I was gaming with".
At the end of the day, a Wii is "doing its own thing" with inferior hardware, but a creative new angle on what a console should do. Great, but I didn't really WANT my gaming to be that physically involved. The XBox 360 is too much like buying another PC with embedded Windows and controllers replacing the mouse and keyboard.
The PS3 earns its space in my living room by serving as a blu-ray disc player and "media center" (as it can display slideshows of my photos from a computer on my LAN, play music from one, and even stream video content from one).
If anything, I think it's really a shame the current PS3s ditched the backwards compatibility with PS2 games. That was yet another big positive with the purchase of the one I got.... I can literally buy PS2 titles for about $1.99 each in discount bins at local game shops, making the whole console gaming proposition much more cost-effective than it might have looked when people first saw that sticker price for the PS3 itself.
I am quite sure that THIS time, the killzone franchise will live up to it's "halo killer" predictions from 5 years ago. And by halo killer I do mean that it will be more advanced (and by that I mean graphically) than Halo 1.
KZ2 is excellant just like GoW or Halo but that said i does not have much replay value once you play thru it first time you are done (MP is not anything new there). IMO Action FPS will give way to Action/RPG games like Fallout 3, Bio shock, this where devs can clearly show their talent in developing a storyline/character and giving open sandbox environment for players to play with.
I have now watched few videos from game and ALL what I can see is same FPS for PC/Mac and other consoles. Few new nice graphical implents like the gun blur, it looks more like real gun and it's weight. But otherwise it was same old FPS.
The FPS games sucks if it is played with pads and not with keyboard + mouse combo. And why they need to put all those stupid red/green etc ligts to units uniform that even the enemy can see you from the dark when range is more than 5m.
Well, this might be nice game for Playstation 3 owners... but in typical FPS genre... not so great...
I'd been looking forward to this game for a long time. And then the demo came out.
It looks gorgeous, but like many others I had that damn floaty/lag effect on the controls. At the default joystick sensitivity it's like moving around in the game by handing the joystick to a friend and using verbal commands to negotiate the level.
Once I cranked up the sensitivity to max the lag decreased, but did not disappear entirely. Best case is 1 or 2 tenths of a second. And in an FPS that's just not the kind of controls I want to use.
If they are not going to fix it, that's fine. I don't *need* to buy the game. But considering how many people I saw commenting on the issue as well, I don't know how they can afford to just turn away sales like that.
"And let's not forget the split-memory architecture, where half of the main memory effectively has zero bandwidth to the CPU and should only be accessed from the GPU. Which leaves only 256MB of RAM or a major headache laying out your data in memory."
"the 360 GPU has significantly better fill-rates, especially when complex shaders are used."
"The Cell in the PS3 can be used to offload graphics stuff and not be limited by shader performance, but again it's not easy."
LOL!!!!!!!!!!
Oh the pathetic little idiots who are dumb enough to sit around on beyond3d or other shitty PC developer hangouts.
You're a moron. A fucking moron.
I have owned almost every system, and enjoyed them all. I bought KZ1 because it was the supposed Halo killer. While I didn't think it was even close I still think that it is the best FPS to come out on the PS2 (with Red Faction 2 being really close) and looks to be better this time around. Maybe it is enough reason to go buy a PS3, used if I can.
I've been playing a media preview version of KZ2 for the past few weeks. IMHO, the game rocks, basically because the AI is damn good, and you really have to 'work'. Resistance 2 had lame AI by comparison. KZ2 also has increidble sfx, and the smoke/dust fx are incredible.