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I just finished Killzone 2 and 3 (spoilers I guess)
12 years ago
What the hell Killzone? You started as a series I could mostly take seriously, and you were shit tons of fun to play. Lots of weapons, most of them with fun alternate attacks and cool sounds. The best part, of course, was getting to play as four different characters, all of whom felt reasonably different from each other, and most levels changed in subtle ways for each character. The icing on the cake was the final level having a unique opening half for each character.
Killzone 2 happens and you no longer have alternate fire on any weapon and can only play as one character. That wouldn't be so bad, but the new cast seems so much less lively than Templar, Lugar, Hakha, and Rico were. Rico himself isn't nearly as entertaining without Hakha's personality to play off of. Savjenko wasn't a bad character, and I thought it was really cool story wise to have Templar get promoted and he died like a badass, but where the hell are Lugar and Hakha? They were a huge part of Killzone 1 and I get no mention of them for 2 whole games. They were my buddies. I miss them.
The story for Killzone 2 was about as good as the first game. Nothing brilliant in there, but it worked well enough with only a few things that made me think, wait really? I don't care how much fun it was to pilot that exo-suit thing or how fun it was to blast people with a lightning gun, they both still came more or less out of nowhere and really felt like they were just someone's pet idea. Which brings us to Killzone 3. Holy shit did the pet ideas take over.
I'm kinda glad I stopped taking Killzone seriously about the time I saw Radec use a personal cloaking device/teleporter in 2 because damn did it get silly in 3. I'm not sure how taking over the leveler from Ferngully to save a bunch of marines from some kind of radiation tower mine field that only kills you if you move by driving over it made it's way into the script, but they had room for fighting the bastard love child of an AT-AT and Metal Gear Rex, so maybe it's just me.
The jetpacks were an okay idea in theory, but in practice they were just awkward and really only served to introduce a new enemy that was more obnoxious that interesting. Speaking of obnoxious, that whole last level seemed kinda obnoxious to me. So now I'm the gunner in a Helgast space fighter and Rico is the pilot. Rico? Really? Rico doesn't fly shit, he kicks doors in and shoots people with a minigun! Then he swears at them. He has no business knowing how to fly a Helgast fighter (and neither did anyone else that went into space with me, by the way).
There were some character designs that seemed out of place too. Mostly the Helgast military's leadership. We figured out that the Helgast are supposed to be space Nazis in Killzone one. You don't need to give half their leadership Hitler mustaches and the other half Stalin mustaches. We can figure out that their horrible people without that visual aid. Helghast aren't supposed to have hair anyway if Killzone one still means anything, but again, maybe it's just me.
That's it for my little rant, I'll go back to loving Killzone and tolerating Killzone 2 and 3 now.
Killzone 2 happens and you no longer have alternate fire on any weapon and can only play as one character. That wouldn't be so bad, but the new cast seems so much less lively than Templar, Lugar, Hakha, and Rico were. Rico himself isn't nearly as entertaining without Hakha's personality to play off of. Savjenko wasn't a bad character, and I thought it was really cool story wise to have Templar get promoted and he died like a badass, but where the hell are Lugar and Hakha? They were a huge part of Killzone 1 and I get no mention of them for 2 whole games. They were my buddies. I miss them.
The story for Killzone 2 was about as good as the first game. Nothing brilliant in there, but it worked well enough with only a few things that made me think, wait really? I don't care how much fun it was to pilot that exo-suit thing or how fun it was to blast people with a lightning gun, they both still came more or less out of nowhere and really felt like they were just someone's pet idea. Which brings us to Killzone 3. Holy shit did the pet ideas take over.
I'm kinda glad I stopped taking Killzone seriously about the time I saw Radec use a personal cloaking device/teleporter in 2 because damn did it get silly in 3. I'm not sure how taking over the leveler from Ferngully to save a bunch of marines from some kind of radiation tower mine field that only kills you if you move by driving over it made it's way into the script, but they had room for fighting the bastard love child of an AT-AT and Metal Gear Rex, so maybe it's just me.
The jetpacks were an okay idea in theory, but in practice they were just awkward and really only served to introduce a new enemy that was more obnoxious that interesting. Speaking of obnoxious, that whole last level seemed kinda obnoxious to me. So now I'm the gunner in a Helgast space fighter and Rico is the pilot. Rico? Really? Rico doesn't fly shit, he kicks doors in and shoots people with a minigun! Then he swears at them. He has no business knowing how to fly a Helgast fighter (and neither did anyone else that went into space with me, by the way).
There were some character designs that seemed out of place too. Mostly the Helgast military's leadership. We figured out that the Helgast are supposed to be space Nazis in Killzone one. You don't need to give half their leadership Hitler mustaches and the other half Stalin mustaches. We can figure out that their horrible people without that visual aid. Helghast aren't supposed to have hair anyway if Killzone one still means anything, but again, maybe it's just me.
That's it for my little rant, I'll go back to loving Killzone and tolerating Killzone 2 and 3 now.
