Killzone 2 isn’t the best game ever made. Killzone 2 is the best thing ever made. It is a masterpiece. It is a messiah. It is the game that finally – finally – justifies the money you spent on a PS3.
Metal Gear Solid is for film-school faggots. Little Big Planet is for child molesters and scare-mongering games journalists. Final Fantasy is for Japan. But Killzone 2 is for YOU. It was made especially for you. It is everything you like about videogames, and movies, and the universe, rolled into one.
You like good stories? Killzone 2 has a GREAT story. I don’t know what the story equivalent of an Oscar is, but Killzone 2 deserves at least five of them: three for the Space Nazis, one for the concept of interplanetary war, and one for the burly heterosexual hero. Oh, and give it one more for being called Killzone, because that is just a fantastic name. Some might think it sounds like the debut album from a German thrash metal band, but to the discerning ear it is like epic poetry condensed into a single word.
KillZone. Killllllzone. KILLzone.
There are as many ways to say it as there are to play it. I know the screenshots, videos, and reviews make it seem tedious and uninspired, but the reality is that it’s the most subtle and sophisticated game ever made. Limitless possibilities await the creative gamer. For example, there are Space Nazis to shoot, but where do you shoot them? In the face? In the chest? Or what about the legs? Or the groin? And which gun do you shoot them with? There’s something like three thousand weapons in this game, and all of them are amazing. I’m particularly fond of the Space Sniper Rifle, which is a lot like a regular sniper rifle, except it comes from space. (The Space Machine Gun is similarly fantastic.)
Visually, Killzone 2 is (as you may have already heard) a mix of equal parts breathtaking and brown. Made entirely of mud and rusted iron, the war-ravaged homeworld of the Space Nazis is at once inspiring and terrifying to behold, with environments that run the gamut from cramped industrial corridors to crumbling blood-soaked trenches to majestic metal hallways decked in galacto-fascist propaganda. In all honesty, the only criticism I can make of the graphics is that all the Space Nazis look the same. For the sake of diversity, it would’ve been nice if some of them wore capes, or carried lightsabers, or rode around on Space Horses or something. But of course, they are Nazis, so perhaps developer Guerilla Games is entitled to some slack in that respect.
Although it's not like they need it. Even if the Space Nazis were just floating photos of Hitler with guns drawn on top, even if the soundtrack consisted entirely of dying babies screaming in pain, even if the whole game was just a remake of Pac-Man rendered in shades of brown and grey – the verdict would be the same. Killzone 2 would still be a timeless masterpiece, Guerilla Games would still be the undisputed King of All Developers, and the PlayStation 3 would still be the best console in the entire universe.
There. That’s exactly what you wanted to hear, and now you’ve heard it. You can all shut up now.
FINAL SCORE: 1000/10
