Since everyone else is doing it, I figured I would as well.

This thread is about my impressions of Killzone 2 after 2 hours of game time (1 hour on the first day I purchased it, and 1 just then)

NOTE:

1) This is an IMPRESSIONS THREAD, not a review. As stated above, this is only after 2 hours so this is not my final opinion of the game.

2) This is for the SINGLE PLAYER MODE only. I've yet to tackle multiplayer.

3) I won't touch on everything in the game (i.e story), just what people want to hear.

Graphics:

Easily the most discussed aspect of Killzone 2 prelaunch. To be honest, I've been both awed and underwhelmed in the 2 hours I've spent with this game. Why? well, for starters, it's definitely not a bad looking game, I think it has to do with the fact that I've been following this game for a while now and have seen many videos showing gameplay footage, the wow factor has understandably declined.

On top of that, there are actually some parts of Killzone 2 that aren't that great looking. Firstly, the indoor environments. There's alot going on screen in these parts, but to be honest, the textures on the interior (walls/floors/objects) aren't top-notch. They are still great, but given what others have said, I would say that I've seen better on home consoles. Also, there's been alot of talk about the effects (lighting, motion blur, grain filter etc) which don't shine through as well in these sequences. Basically, it's great, but not the best in this aspect.

The second noticeable patchy area in graphics are the character models. I don't really get why some of them can look amazing, such as rico, whereas others (like Natko) can look so damn ugly. We aren't talking intentionally ugly, we're talking Halo 3 character faces ugly (though not as bad). But I must say I cannot complain about their attire, very well detailed and it looks amazing.

Now, where the graphics shine is definitely the outdoor environments. Massive battlefields, with amazing textures on the ground and because of the distance between you and most objects, things that don't look that good indoors (objects you hide behind) you don't notice outdoors, because you're focused on what's going on around you. I haven't been this awed by an outdoor environment since Call of Duty 4 playing as the USMC when they storm through the middle east battlefield/town at night.

Is it the best looking console game? Honestly, I can't really decide. We've seen games with a better levels of consistency(indoor/outdoor), yet we've never seen a game with such an amazing outdoor "experience" on home consoles.

Whether that outweighs the great but not excellent indoor areas, I'll leave that up for you to decide.

Loading:

This ones a minor thing in the grand scheme of things, but I have to mention it. Loading in this game happens way too oftenly (in the first 2 hours that is) and it really breaks up the experience and immersion. Also sometimes, the loads will actually move your character forward, I've been disorientated numerous times because I end up being 5-10 metres from where I actually was after a load. I really wish they did a MGS4/Halo 3 and just had a massive load at the start of each level.

Enemy AI/Friendly AI:

Bit of a mixed bag this one, ranging from the standard you would expect today and pretty damn good (So read, definitely above average all round, but awesome in some parts). I'm playing on veteran at the moment (or whatever the highest difficulty you can choose from the start is).

The enemies will do what you expect. Sometimes they hide behind cover, sometimes they wait to be shot. They will flank you occasionally, but the game is good at not overwhelming you when it knows you can't handle it. One thing I dislike about enemy AI is that it seems that the programming tells them "If human is behind cover and not completely exposed to you i.e they hid on the wrong side of a object, you must always miss". It's a little strange considering in any game with a cover system, you're not 100% covered from all angles. I hid behind a stone with two enemies on my two sides and neither of them actually hit me.

Also, if there's only 3 or 4 enemies around, Rushing them is much more effective then anything else. I would have thought basic instinct would have meant they would be programmed to shoot/melee me or at least attempt to as I approached. They do it sometimes, but it feels more like a lucky dip as opposed to how quickly I rushed them. AND it's not like I'm rushing them from short distances, one end of a room to another with me in plain sight the whole way.

Now onto the good stuff. Your team mates are far from useless (especially when you are with only 1 or 2 of them). My butts been saved a number of times thanks to these guys. They have a tendency to get suicidal sometimes and stupid (covering behind a wall with an enemy right next to them, not on the other side of the wall, ACTUALLY NEXT TO THEM), but overall they are very good.

One thing that amazed me about the enemy AI was that, if you steathly flank them and appear behind them, if you don't manage to kill them, they actually act surprised and run (similarly to the grunt in Halo, but a lot less cowardly) before regrouping and attacking again. Unlike the grunts in Halo, these guys actually get disorientated, but they are intent on killing you.

It's weird that they react like you'd expect from a stealthy move, but when you rush them they act like idiots. But when you play as the game intended (cover system and all), the AI is actually rather good.

Also, one awesome thing occured when I decided to rush in one of the outdoor sequences. After killing 5 or 6 enemies, one of them finally got me down. As those of you who have played this game will know, when you die and land (if you flew in the air), the screen stays there for a bit before it fades to white. Well, I happened to land in front of a helghast soldier, who to my suprise (and amusement) celebrated the kill by raising his two arms up in the air in triumph.

It was as if it was celebrating the fact that the idiot AI finally managed to take down the player.... (just kidding. AI is good, aside from when you rush them, I just thought that celebration thing was neat.)

Cover system:

Awful, just plain awful. I get that Guerilla tried something new but it just doesn't work.

Okay, firstly, sometimes you'll hit crouch and you'll go into the cover, but the cover's so low that you can still see on top of it. Your gun is pointed upwards like it was resting on the cover, but it's not actually resting on anything, it's just straight up. This would be okay but wouldn't this mean that if you can see over the top of cover, that the enemy can see you? This happened to me a few times in these 2 hours and it gets annoying when clearly the enemy should be shooting at you but because you're "in cover" (you held crouch) they don't fire.

Also, it's not particularly intuitive. Basically, you go up to an object, hold the crouch button to get into a stay in cover, you use your left analog to point a direction that you peak out of cover from, you click the zoom button once to aim down the sight and you click fire to shoot, all of this whilst still holding crouch to be in cover. If you want to go back into cover you let go of the left analog. BUT what annoys me to no end is that, when you poke out again, you have to click the zoom button again to aim down the sight. Simply changing it so that holding the button down to aim down the sight would have made it much much much easier.

Sure, some will say that I'm just not used to it yet, but the fact of the matter is when it's easier and more intuitive to just get behind cover and then actually leave the cover, click the zoom button and fire, you know your system is flawed. You may ask what's the difference, well when you leave cover you know you have to click zoom again, when you poke in and out of cover, you tend to hold onto the zoom button, which incidently does nothing once you get back under cover and poke out again.

If the functions of the left analog stikc and zoom button were combined into the zoom button, the cover system would be slightly less unique, but much more intuitive and playable.

Controls:

This is the most discussed topic post launch. There are some who say that the slow to fast turning in this game is to add weight and realism, to that I say BULL.

Why? well if you didn't notice at the start of the game, Sev isn't holding any weapons, yet the turning is STILL LIKE THAT. It was simply a poor design choice that was MEANT TO add realism but actually didn't. I've mentioned this a number of times on this forum, basically no matter how heavy the object your carrying is, unless you intentionally start slow then go to fast, if you're moving it from left to right, it should carry the same speed, your arms simply don't "accelerate" like that unless you use full force/swing, which you're not because you're holding something.

I wouldn't make such a big fuss about this if people (read sony fanboys) would just accept that they went for originality and it didn't work out well (like the cover system).

On a side note, I don't know whether to laugh or be annoyed by the fact that the games easier if you start turning before you actually turn a corner, so that you're facing foward (running sideways) immediately once you round the corner. Again I will mention realism, can you imagine people doing that in real life :)

Aside from that, the controls are pretty standard (which is good) except I have two gripes. The first is that you can't (or at least I haven't figured out how to) manually change the button config, there's only 5 (or so) pre-set configurations for you to choose from. That'd be fine, except I would have liked Fire to be R2, Zoom to be L2 and crouch R1. The closest is Fire R1 and Zoom L1 with Crouch R2.

Not a big issue, except why did sony bother to include triggers on the console when their biggest games by default don't use them as such (R1/R2 and KZ2). I know Call of Duty does this aswell by default, but at least you can switch it around, same with Resistance, this one you can't (from what I can tell).

Also, right now, I'm not sure how I feel about the only 1 weapon and pistol system at the moment.

Conclusion:

Okay, I admit I've pointed out the negatives more than the positives, but this is an impressions thread and I would expect that people would want to know the details of the games flaws more than the positives, considering most people here just speak of the positives, If i were in their shoes, I'd want to know what's wrong with the game (if anything).

So basically, I'm enjoying Killzone 2, it's got some flaws, but I think over time I'll get used to how the game works and how it's supposed to be played.

If you hate the cover system like I do, I strongly suggest running to each cover, getting into cover to recover health and then rushing out and doing a masterchief on their asses until you can get to the next cover, it's making this game much more playable/fun for me.

After 2 hours of play I give it a 8.5-9/10. It's a great game, production value is high. I salute Guerilla for trying new things, but the most important new things simply aren't that great. Who knows, my opinion may change over time.

I'll post an actual review once I've finished single player and tried multiplayer.

Feel the same way? Strongly disagree? Any tips on how to make my experience more enjoyable? State why/how and discuss.

Any chance you put this in the official killzone thread?

yea....u just completely nitpicked every flaw imaginable, furthermore making them seem much more important then they are.

u didnt spend nearly as much time on the outnumbering positives of the game. u almost dound as if u are trying to convince urself the game is terrible.

if u r not trying to rally up a flamebait thread i suggests u rectify that.

I think even Starcraft could write more positive impressions.

The OP comes off as incredibly fanboyish.

You make it sound like its a 6/10 game, but then out of left field you randomly give it 8.5-9/10 as if to try to save yourself from the flames.

Isn't even an impressions thread premature after only 2 hours of play?
And such a massive impressions thread at that?

Apropo targeting, starting slow and accelerating later. This helps me with precision a lot. When I first tryed out a FPS on a console it was very hard not to overshoot the target, or to make small, necessary corrections.

I feel that in this case, since there is no autoaim at all, this helps with accuracy after you get used to it.

Good Impression Summary, I've been holding off on this title since my library contains way too many first person shooters. I've heard a ton of good things, but I'm having a hard time believing that killzone 2 is everything that people say.

Too bad your impression has been fairly poor thus far. Let's hope it picks up in the later parts of the game, update us if ya could? Thanks.

lol relax he was just stating his opinions. Though i must admit i disagree. I actually think they did everything well. (of the things you complain about)
The controls feel like they were actually made for a console and not for a pc which is great, the cover system is a lot of use (maybe it's more in the later levels :P) and well..

I only have 2 small issues with the game. The fact that your allies are sometimes pretty stupid, and that some voice clips may seem out of place. IE Rico shouting "SEV GET TO COVER " while he is being fired at with a minigun and you are the one in cover already, or atleast not injured :P

Everything else i think they did awesomely. I hope you'll find a lot more positive things of the game as you get later into it :P i must admit that at some levels i was compeltely blown away in awe. Not the first couple, but later on.

How about the lag when you fire a gun. :P

stop with the lag complaints already. they are on purpose. fire a gun of similar power and u would know.

Does he actually liked any PS3 games?
Sorry I just never saw his positive opinions on the PS3 games he discussed.

He always got stuff to complain about, big or small.

Might want to add the printing of the cover art is a little off with the colors.
The yellow is not pantone color and the scratch on the logo doesn't look realistic.