Being an office of many magazines, we all get to see the big competitor games when they come in. So, in the past year, between all the 360 love, well, we’ve seen LittleBigPlanet. And that’s about it. 2009 is already shaping up to be a little more varied though, and it began today when I noticed Killzone 2 preview code casually sitting on a desk in our sister magazine Play’s work area.

Naturally, I asked for it to be put on, and twenty minutes of beautiful, gritty, heavy gunplay later, I’m back to post my impressions. It’s good. Really good in fact. this is the genre that has belonged to the 360 since its inception, but it finally looks like Sony has an Ace in its deck. Visually, Killzone 2 is quite something - besting even Gears 2 in the motion-blurred grey battleground stakes, and the weight and purpose of everyting from the weapons to the characters is somethign to behold. Most importantly, though, it’s really satisfying to play. The enemy AI, coupled with a well implemented cover system (unusual for an FPS) means Killzone 2’s skirmishes are uniquely challenging and gratifyingly meaty.

Of course, the key to success in this genre is variety, and having only seen a snippet of the opening mission, it’s hard to judge whether Killzone 2 will switch up its speed and set pieces enough to enter the Pantheon of truly great shooters. But for a first impression - wow. Halo ODST has a lot to live up to.

Source: "http://blog.360magazine.co.uk/uncategorized/competition-check-killzone-edition/"