Killzone 2 is a great game plagued with odd problems.  The kind of problems you wouldn’t expect.  In Killzone 2 you play as a soldier called Sev.  Your part of an army sent to the alien planet of Helghast to destroy the Helghan, who invaded in the first Killzone.  The opening cut-scene is good enough to get you excited and hate the lead villain.

After a little walkthrough level where you have no gun, you’re dropped right into the middle of battle.  The first thing that you’ll notice is how amazing the graphics are.  In my opinion only outdone by Uncharted 2, the visuals are very striking.  The gun details are far ahead of any previous FPS.

The second thing you’ll notice is how oddly hard it is to aim.  Of course you’ll get use to it, but the sluggish movements are jarring for sure.  Some appreciate the realistic weight of the guns, some just want better control.  These are big guys; they should be able to better handle their guns. (The previous sentence sounds strange.)  The game’s most unique feature is the first person cover system.  It works remarkably well and keeps you immersed into the game.  I’m sure a couple other games will implement this sometime in the future.  A small note to add is the melee.  If you keep tapping melee it will begin doing quick jabs.  Very cool in my opinion and a break away from the typical FPS melee systems.

The enemies in Killzone 2 are very good.  Their AI is above average for sure and their animations are very good.  Sometimes you will definitely be outsmarted by these enemies.  Another thing to like are their glowing red eyes.  There’s no mistaking friend from enemy, which is a problem some seem to have in other shooters such as the Call of Duty series.

 After getting use to the sluggish controls the game becomes very fun and intense.  You feel truly bad-ass until the moment you walk up to one of your friends and notice that you are only 4-foot tall.  Maybe Sev is only 4 foot, I’m not sure. Nevertheless, this disturbs me.  The levels don’t have a whole lot of variety but the dark and gritty world is always a treat to look at.

The environments have a decent amount of destructibility which adds to immersion.  The weapon variety is good enough to please any FPS fan.  A couple weapons are truly unique which I won’t spoil here.  Overall the single-player campaign is worth playing, even if it’s just to see the outstanding visuals.  The story is worthy and I would watch it in a movie, but it’s nothing that absolutely needs to be seen.

 The games multiplayer is very ambitious but also falls slightly short of greatness.  It is a class based game similar to Team Fortress.  In an attempt to make the matches speedier and deadlier, the cover system is completely removed.  Doing this in my opinion causes Killzone 2’s multiplayer to stand out even less.  The map design is for the most part very good.  Sometimes I think that too many players are crammed into small places.  The match type changing in-game is a nice touch, which gets rid of the need to always back out into matchmaking to start a new map.  It also has a call of duty like leveling system, which works well.

With a few improvements to the single-player, and a reworked multiplayer, I think Killzone 3 has the potential of overshadowing this game and becoming a legendary FPS.  But until then what we have is an above average game with amazing graphics. 8.5/10