Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Grows on you"

Killzone 3 has definitely been one of the most looked forward to and hyped games for the Playstation 3 this year, which is fair due to the high benchmark set by its predecessor in the realm of first-person shooters. Add the fact that it's a PS3 exclusive and you get the exiting result of a fantastic game that Playstation gamers can call their own.

Campaign

The single player campaign is a great solid offering, with great gameplay and movie quality set pieces, along with excellent controls. Throughout the campaign's length, although it is short, the action keeps itself intense with plenty of variety in gameplay and locale settings.

Visuals: If there's one word that describes Killzone 3, it's Beautiful. Each and every level is popping with gorgeous colors, lighting, and scenery that make for a very visually impressive game. The battlegrounds you play through, whether filled with alien plants, whirling snow, or futuristic machinery, all come alive with eye-catching visuals that will keep these levels in your memory long after you finish the game. The enemy animations are also worth praising, for their combat movements and dramatic death collapses are very realistic, and make it even more fun to gun them down.
The only minor flaw you will encounter in the game's visual immersion is that it will somewhat frequently pause without warning in order to load the next game section. These occurrences never happen mid-battle or more than a few seconds though, so it's not a big issue, but still a noteworthy one.
It's hard to compare Killzone 3's visuals to games like Call of Duty though, because Killzone goes for more of an exotic science fiction look instead of the increasingly more realistic graphics that most shooters aim for. But this game could definitely be a contender for best graphics in a PS3 game yet,

Controls: As any FPS veteran knows, one of the most important parts of any shooter is its controls. As most fans will be happy to hear, Killzone 3 has retained the signature weighty controls of Killzone 2, and in my opinion, improved on them as well. The controls have been tightened and sped up considerably from the previous installment, but still have a good amount of heaviness that keeps your aiming and shooting a bit slower than most modern shooters. It's not hard though to become deadly accurate within a short while of playtime, which will be very satisfying once you get the hang of it. Other movements such as jumping, sprinting, and climbing also feel down-to-earth with intended slowness and some shaky camera effects. The result makes you feel like you are controlling a real human being, therefore giving more satisfaction to your actions. Killzone 3 definitely has "the feel" all quality shooters have that make it fun to play, which is something many games can't say.

Gameplay: Controlling your character in the world of Helghan has never felt better, and luckily, the fight you face is enjoyable as well. Killzone 3's gameplay structure is not much different from your typical shooter, but the quality and presentation it gives makes it hard not to enjoy. After the lengthy tutorial at the beginning of the game, you are instantly thrown into the action as you fight your way through planet Helghan.
Each level basically has you advance through the determined path, taking out helghast along the way using your arsenal of weapons and readily available cover, all of which should be familiar to FPS players. If you get taken out by enemies along the way though, it's not always the end, for certain AI partners can now revive you if you are mortally wounded and not too far away from the group. Occasionally your AI partner will be unable to heal you for no apparent reason, even though he's standing right next to you, but the majority of the time the service works alright, and you really can't complain for the amount of second chances you'll get.
While the gameplay is fun, the biggest flaw in Killzone 3 is probably its level linearity. Each level pretty much has you follow the well-beaten path without any alternate routes or extra space for strategic maneuvering during battles. Occasionally you have an open battleground that you can use to attack from whichever angle you please, particularly during jetpack sequences, and these confrontations are the games finest. But the majority of the time, you almost feel as if you are just progressing through a baddie-filled tunnel, albeit a very scenic one.
This is unfortunate, because while your Helghast enemies are pretty smart and competent as far as AI go, they usually don't get the chance to show it due to lack of mobility options. There are however, a good variety of enemy types that each have different fighting styles. There are basic soldiers and heavy ones, along with aggressive SMG/shotgun berserkers, snipers, flamethrower wielders, and the intimidating capture assassins. There are also several larger boss enemies that are genuinely tough, but very satisfying to take down.

Despite the somewhat uncreative level design though, the core shooting is still some of the best and funnest FPS action out there, and besides that there is also plenty of other gameplay variety to keep you from getting bored. The stealth mission in Kaznan jungle for example is a good change of pace, making use of quiet assassinations and a silenced machine pistol.
The brutal melee system, of which assassinations are part of, is a new feature of Killzone 3 that has been showcased for its interactive melee kills. It's basically a fancy melee kill animation using your knife or the surrounding scenery, which you can perform from behind an enemy, or right in their faces. From a gameplay perspective brutal melee is interesting, but is a little gimmicky during the campaign, for you can only use it when the "L1" indicator shows up at the top of the screen. (You just perform a normal melee the rest of the time). It's also not a good idea to use when multiple enemies are around, for you are left vulnerable while you perform the lengthy kill. Also be warned that some of the brutal melee kills are pretty violent, such as stabbing an enemy in the face through his helmet.
Jetpacks are another new feature of Killzone 3, and are just as fun to use as they look. Jetpack moments include some good platforming sequences along with the expected aerial combat, which you perform using the jetpack's mounted turret. Another good thing about the jetpack is that the battlefields you use it in are bigger to accommodate your heightened movement abilities, and it's a blast to have dogfights with your rival jetpack users as well.
There are also a large amount of turret and vehicle sequences throughout the campaign, and the exoskeleton makes an appearance as a returning vehicle. These sequences are exiting and make you feel powerful using such heavy firepower, with only bad aspect being that they may get a little repetitive by the campaign's end, with only 3 levels being devoid of a turret segment.

The weapons themselves are another staple in every FPS, and the guns in Killzone 3 do not disappoint. Every gun looks and feels great, being accompanied by beefy sound effects unique to each gun. There is also a good variety of weaponry available to you at any given time, so you usually never feel like the game is making your gun choices for you. Most of the weapons are veterans from previous installments, such as the trusty M82 assault rifle, and its StA52 Helghast counterpart, (although the latter has now been fitted with a holographic sight). The amount of guns you can carry at once has changed however. Now, there are 3 weapon slots available for you to hold different guns: one for primary weapons, one for pistols, and a new slot for heavy/special weapons. The new third slot lets you equip weapons that are normally emplaced, like a minigun and W.A.S.P missile launcher, as well as the normal heavy weapons such as light machine guns and rocket launchers. Conveniently, less used weapons such as the sniper and flamethrower are also assigned to the third slot, so you never have to replace your all-purpose weapon with a "specific use" one. This new system is a good improvement to the traditional weapon formula, and enhances the gameplay all the more.


Story: The plot of Killzone 3 has you, Thomas Sevchenko (a.k.a Sev) along with what's left of the ISA, attempting to escape the planet Helghan following the failed capture of the planet's ruler at the end of Killzone 2. The story is by no means bad in my opinion, but as a whole it seemed to be lacking in impact for a AAA game such as this one.
The primary way Killzone 3 tells its tale is through numerous cutscenes, and believe me, there are a LOT of them. On one hand they benefit the game by helping to immerse you in the game world, and making sure that you always know what and why you are doing something. On the downside however, many of them seem a bit forced, with things happening a little too fast to be believable, and the lip-syncing being surprisingly off time in some instances. These issues are probably due to the fact that there were so many cutscenes, the developers could not make them all of the highest quality. This could have easily been avoided though, for many of the clips are unnecessary, and some of them even interrupt the game's pacing, such as the two new Helghast leaders' long bouts of cheesy and sometimes confusing banter. Another negative aspect of the cinematics as a whole is that there is a lot of heavy and unnecessary cussing thrown in there for no real reason. I really didn't notice much foul language during gameplay, although there is some, but the cutscenes are where the majority of it is at, and it's a shame the developers thought that putting profanity in your face during these scenes was necessary for the experience.
Despite its flaws though, the story is usually pretty clear and lends itself nicely to the experience. The Helghast are given more of a focus than in previous installments of the series, and by their words and actions, you can really feel their resentment and hatred for the rest of the human race. This gives them an even more striking image of space nazis than before, and shows that they are a truly evil enemy that must be defeated. The rest of the narrative focuses on you and your ISA companions, and is pretty effective, but the way it thrusts you into their troubles without any build-up makes it hard for you to really care about the peril they face.

If you don't take the storyline too seriously, the campaign will be a lot of fun while it lasts, but there really doesn't feel like there is enough "game" to flesh out everything the plot tries to cover. On Trooper difficulty (Normal), I was able to finish the game in around 5 hours, which is not enough time to truly develop the campaign or make it feel like a complete experience. Like I said before though, the gameplay and presentation is top notch, which pretty much evens out any story or longevity flaws. So even if the campaign is a mixture of maximum action with minimal emotional development, it is still a good experience that any shooter fan will enjoy.

The campaign also supports offline split-screen co-op for two players. The only issue with this is the occasional lag, which was very severe at one point during the campaign. But other than that, and the fact that the screen is inconveniently split vertically instead of horizontally, playing with a buddy is definitely more fun than by yourself, especially considering the fact that you can heal each other when one is mortally wounded.

Multiplayer
Killzone 3's campaign is good, but realistically, a 5 hour campaign is not enough content to justify a full-fledged purchase. Its competitive multiplayer however, compensates for the campaign's shortcoming in length by providing many hours of addicting gameplay that make Killzone 3 worth buying.

Gameplay: Killzone 3's multiplayer has a medium/large game type feel, with a 24 player count for its core game mode. The matches also feel large-scale because although most of the maps really aren't that big when you compare them to other big match games such as 'Battlefield', the slower deliberate feel of Killzone 3's campaign transfers to its multiplayer, which keeps players from zipping across the map quickly. The weighty controls feel solid and great in multiplayer though, the only slight issue being that there's a bit of hit-detection lag when shooting an opponent. This doesn't really hamper gameplay, but a lot of confrontations will end in both you and your opponent dying, because he didn't die until a split second after he should have.
Because of the slower pace, Killzone 3's online play is definitely not a run-and-gun gametype, and you must play strategically if you want to do well.
A few of the levels also have exoskeletons and jetpacks available for player use. I think they are a good addition and not too overpowered, but new units respawn a little too fast, resulting in a lot of matches that have too many people controlling these power-ups at once.

Game modes: The 3 game modes available in multiplayer are Warzone, Guerilla Warfare, and Operations. Warzone is the best of the 3, with 24 player rounds that constantly change in objective to keep the gameplay fresh. Each Warzone match pits Helghast against ISA in an effort to win the majority of the round's 7 missions. The mission objectives are all variations of FPS standbys: Bodycount, Search and Retrieve, Capture and Hold, Search and Destroy, and Assassination. (2 rounds of S&D and Assassination are played per match, sides being switched the second time.) After one side wins an objective, another random objective from the list is chosen as the new mission. This objective based gameplay makes each individual match feel deep and epic, and although you can't largely impact your team's success by yourself, you still feel like an important part of the team effort.
Guerilla Warfare is standard 8v8 team deathmatch, with smaller maps to keep players from getting too spread out, and this mode is a great way to get some quick action and/or experience points.
Operations is a 16 player objective match type similar to Warzone, although it has some unique features. In Operations, the ISA team is always the assaulting force, and the Helghast team simply tries to stop the ISA from advancing. There are 3 objectives the ISA must complete to win the match, and each new objective moves the battle to a different map area. If the Helghast thwart the ISA even once however, the match is over with the Helghast team victorious. Throughout the match there are also short cutscenes that put the top players' names from each team over the featured characters in the clips. This is a neat idea, but will lose its novelty fast after watching the same clips over and over again, for there are only 3 maps that you can play Operations on. So you probably won't want to spend a lot of time in Operations very often, but it's still a nice change of pace every once in awhile.

Classes: The way you play during each round depends on what class you choose, for there are 5 different classes available to you to use in every game mode:
Tactician: Able to capture tactical spawn points for their team, and temporarily mark enemy positions on the mini-map.
Field Medic: Able to heal mortally wounded players, and passively regenerate health faster.
Engineer: Able to repair usable equipment and create sentry turrets.
Marksman: Able to cloak themselves as almost invisible, and scramble enemies' radar in close-proximity.
Infiltrator: Able to disguise themselves as the enemy faction, and increase their sprint speed and stamina.

Along with these basic skills listed above, each class can upgrade their abilities and unlock even more as well. The available gun options are also unique to each class, so these along with class skills give plenty of choices to make when creating your loadout. The way you acquire each skill upgrade and weapon is through unlock points, of which you are rewarded 1-2 each time you level up, and can be used to unlock your rewards in whatever order you choose. There are 15 ranks available in your online progression, each of which contain 3 level-ups to progress through, and you will always be looking forward to your next level-up in order to get more unlock points.
As for balancing issues, it's arguable that the Marksmen's cloaking ability or the Infiltrator's disguise are somewhat cheap, but if you play for long enough you learn to identify these harder to spot enemies, so I don't think this is much of an issue. If anything, I think that the Engineer is maybe a little underpowered compared to the rest, but everything is pretty much balanced out if you learn the pros and cons of each class, and there is no game-breaking flaw in the design.

Along with the great graphics, the solid feel, and the allure of unlocking new skills and guns, the simple fun of Killzone 3's online play will keep you coming back for more. When you play smart and perform well, it's immensely satisfying to see your experience points rack up at the end of the round. But even if you don't do so well, it's hard to resist the urge to try again in the hopes of doing awesome your next match.
Killzone 3's multiplayer is some of the best I've played in a long time, and in my opinion, also currently the best PS3 exclusive online experience.

Overall, the Bad:
Campaign level design has a linear feel.
Many campaign cutscenes feel too fast paced.
Excessive cussing during cutscenes.
Campaign is short.

The Good:
Controls throughout all game modes have a great solid feel.
Amazing visuals with diverse settings.
Campaign has quality action that never really gets boring.
Multiplayer is well featured and holds a wealth of potential game time.

The Score: 9/10