Announced four years ago with nothing more than a pre rendered trailer, Killzone 2 had everything to live up to. Living up to the quality of the trailer, competing against Halo 3, transcending the mediocre game that was Killzone 1, were the hopes that PS3 owners held on to. As fans eagerly awaited, salivating over a handful screenshots and videos, it seemed the hype for the PS3 exclusive only increased. Now it’s 2009. The wait is finally over. Was it worth it?

Following the events of Killzone: Liberations, the ISA (Interplanetary Strategic Alliance) have launched a full assault against the planet Helghan, home of the Helghast, for invading their colony two years ago. Heading the assault is Alpha Squad, a small group consisting of four veterans. You assume the role of Sergeant Tomas Sevchenko, or simply ’Sev’ to his allies. Alongside is the rest of your team consisting of Dante Garza, the brains of the group, Rico Velasquez, the trigger-happy, ill-tempered leader of your squad and Shawn Natko, the demolitions expert with a sharp tongue. The character designs for all four characters are all memorable, however the latter two are impossible to develop any kind of bond with. The problem with Rico and Natko isn’t that they don’t speak enough, but that they speak too much. It seems that they’ve seen so many war movies that they think shouting and cursing is the only form of communication. Garza seems to be slightly more trustworthy, mostly because you’re with him most of the time and he seems to have a more rational way of thinking. In any case, the squad is yours and since you’re hardly ever alone, you have more than enough time to bond with each one of them.

For the first part of the game, you have to escort a convoy en route to Pyrrhus (the capital of helghan). Other distractions from the main assault include searching for survivors to taking down mortars to defending an area, with the action sizing from full scale battalion versus battalion, to smaller, up close brawls. However the primary objective of the entire campaign is to bring down Scolar Visari, the charismatic leader of the Helghast. The story is simple and straightforward enough to follow, though it isn’t as deep as it could have been. Many questions are left unanswered such as ’Why are the Helghast bad?’ ’What goes on behind the warfare?’ It seems the plot could have branched off into many other sub-plots, but they seem to have left it on one linear path. But that isn’t to say that the storyline is bad, in fact, it’s far from it. The progression is subtle, but the game manages to show you how soldiers start off all optimistic and ready, but in the end, the sheer reality of war tears through them. The ending is a love/hate relationship, but one thing is for certain: the story and the ending is something you won’t expect. Regardless, Killzone 2 has such an engaging and compelling storyline that both fans and newcomers won’t be disappointed.

The very reason Killzone 2 was hyped in the first place was because of its graphics. In two words: Visual ecstasy. The game is undoubtedly one of the greatest looking games not only on the PlayStation 3, but on any console. In fact, it is arguably the most beautiful of all time. The graphics have been given so much care that it has surpassed the quality of the pre-rendered trailer. Textures are high resolution, Lighting is dynamic, and special effects make movies jealous. Never before has a game featured such realism as that in Killzone 2. You can see it from the sparks of exploding grenades. You can see it from the reflections of the glimmering water. You can see it from the seamless facial and body animations. And you can see it from the blood painted on walls. This is warfare as you’ve never seen it. It would be easy for Guerilla to leave out the minor details and stick to the big ones that everyone notices. But Guerilla have never been about easy. One incredible example of a minor detail would be the way blood dries up on the floor after a time. Another one would be the parasite life on the planet, as you shoot bags, hundreds of little insects crawl out, running in chaos. Flamethrowers set cloth on fire, burning it slowly to the last scrap of material. But the most important of minor details is wind. Wind plays a great factor in the game, and you hardly ever notice it but it is there. When a dropship flies in, you can feel the gust. In the distance, you see flags being rendered in real time in accordance to the wind. Flying bullets swerve in flow of the wind. A demonstration of its power was displayed in one level, when you had to traverse across a high-speed train, you could feel it pushing you back, restraining you from quick movement. Animations are always fluid. This includes the facial expressions, to the 200 different animations for a dying Helghast, and to the simple gun reloads. Frame Rate is never an issue, however it does take a second or two to load up a new checkpoint, and while it doesn’t remove at all from the gameplay, it damages fluidity of the actual game. Post effects have also been added into the mix, ranging from Film grain, Motion blur, and the Lens flares. The camera itself mimics the eyes of a human being. The fire and lightning effects on the other hand seem to have been copy and pasted from a last gen console. Fire is low resolution and Lightning is almost 2D. If any more nitpicking had to be done, the only thing you would find as a con would be the dark color palette. But in all honesty, it only adds to the urgency and fear of war.

To fully maximize the view of the game, A very light HUD was implemented. Like many games now the HUD of Killzone 2 actually disappears once the alteration (such as weapon reloading) has been made. Ammo count is located in the bottom right, and on the bottom left shows 3 boxes next to each other. The box on the left indicates your secondary grenade (a lightning grenade), the box in the middle shows your primary grenade (the standard frag), and the box on the left shows your knife. Again like most FPS these days, when you hover over a dropped weapon, a small graphic will appear indicating the switch is possible. At usual intervals throughout the game, your objective will have an icon over it, allowing you to locate it with a lot more ease. The icon also displays how far you are in metres (similar to Call of Duty 4).