Terrible controls and poor design choices ruin what should have been a classic
Fantastic visuals and sound
THE BAD
Stiff, unresponsive controls - unexplicable arsenal limitations - uninteresting main characters and plot - repetitive action
Killzone 2 looks amazing: everything from the smallest detail to the largest explosion blends to create an incredible amount of eye candy. That's pretty much all there is to say in this game's favor, since the mix of terribly unresponsive controls, clichè storyline, frustrating sections and extreme repetition makes the 7-8 hours this game takes to finish a real chore to sit through.
The original Killzone was a mixed bag: on one hand it featured one of the most solid FPS experiences on the Playstation2, with good shooting mechanics, interesting characters and great multiplayer; on the other hand it became repetitive fast and had more than a few AI problems that stood out. In the end, it is still regarded as an overall good game. All Killzone 2 had to do was improve on the original formula to achieve fantastic result. Instead, looks like the development team had something else in mind.
The first thing that stands out is how the controls differ from the prequel: you can now jump and the crouch button also activates some kind of experimental first-person cover system, which in theory lets you take cover automatically behind anything, but in practice is just a big mess that will get you killed more often than save you. Basically you approach one of the overabundant hip-high walls and press L2 to take cover behind it, Gears of War style, the problem being your head will remain visible 90% of the times, so that enemies will still be able to hit you and prevent your health from regenerating. By tilting the left stick up or left/right you can lean and aim, unfortunately you'll often have to struggle in order to get it to work, since the character won't always cooperate. So, the cover system has problems, sadly running and gunning doesn't work that well either: when you tilt the right stick to turn or aim you'll notice a delay of a fraction of a second between input and effect, which seems trivial, but makes aiming precisely a real pain: the reticle will dart around the screen, making you feel your skill is gone and getting things going requires more practice than it ever should.
You click the right stick to toggle the aim down the iron sights, which is something pretty obsolete in this time and age. If you don't like this control scheme you can choose between a few presets. That's right, although Killzone 1 let you customize the controller layout in its entirety, Killzone 2 doesn't. Talk about a step back.
The steps back from Killzone don't end here: gone is the secondary fire on all weapons (like the grenade launcher on the ISA assault rifle and the shotgun on that of the Helghast), now you're stuck just with the standard fire. Also gone is the team based gameplay where you could choose which of the four characters to use at the start of each level; now you're stuck with a single companion, a cheap knockoff of Cole from Gears of War, whose function is to get killed so you have to go and revive him every two minutes. Needless to say, he's neither as interesting or well characterized as the silent sniper girl or the Helghast traitor you could control in KZ1.
As we said in the opening, the graphics are fantastic, but some of the real potential was missed: the game features amazing real time light and shadow effects you can fully appreciate by turning on your flashlight... too bad the light is only mounted on the shotgun and no other weapon, and forget about keeping it as a secondary arm, since you can only carry one (one!) weapon, plus a useless pistol and believe this: you'll want a machine gun at all times.
I'll conclude with a few more things that bothered me: the game mocks you with a trophy awarded for melee killing one enemy of each kind, but since they all pretty much look the same, it's hard to tell. At the 100th red eyed soldier you killed you'll be fed up with them and wish there was something else to shoot... but, exception made for the rare miniboss, there isn't. Even the final boss looks exactly like his minions (not a big spoiler, trust me).
The plot feels, once again, like they tried to replicate the Gears of War atmosphere, but failed to do so. I won't talk about online play, since I don't like it and so I only played a couple matches. Plus it takes a whole 1-2 minutes (!) to load each map, so I couldn't really be bothered, I apologize.
Killzone 2 is a waste of potential: the technical side is flawless, but the game design and controls are a mess. Sadly most among the reviewers that count praised it without a complaint, so I fear we have to expect the same soup from Killzone 3. If ever.
March 2011 EDIT: Well, Killzone 3 is out and guess what? They fixed the controls. Looks like complaining works sometimes.