top left Killzone 2 The Guerilla offices are all abuzz with activity. Dozens of journalists from both the Netherlands and abroad have come to Amsterdam, famous for its red light district and coffeeshops, after being notified there would be playable nearly finished code from Killzone 2. All of us are packed in the lobby, where we all wait in excitement for the final guests to arrive. It is a historic moment: after four years of development today will be the first time the game will be shown to the press. top right Shortly before we enter the presentation room, the broadshouldered Hermen Hulst, managing director at Guerilla joins our side at the Benelux-delegation. Some pleasantries are exchanged, which tells us the man is confident at the upcoming event. Four years of his life he has worked on this project, and now he is ready to confront the outside world with it. And the famous E3-trailer from 2005? He actually brings that up himself: "That damned trailer", he starts, and shows some footage: It easily surpasses most expectations. Tabula Rasa It hasn't been easy, as relative unexperienced developer Guerilla had a long way to go; the team had to find the essence of what makes a FPS tick. "How do you envelop the player in the chaos, action and intensity that is shown on the screen" was the main question the guys at Guerilla asked themselves. Their answer? To make sure the player is interrupted as little as possible from the experience, and that is why it is essential everything happens from a first person view, even the "duck and shoot" system and the interaction with the environment. A second priority was to make the player statisfied with the effect of firing a weapon. In killzone 2 every bullet has a destructive impact, just just on the environment, but also on the characters. To this effect, Guerilla developed a so-called "hit response system", a technique that combines motion capture animations with impulses of the physics engine in a dynamic way. The reactions of the enemies when hit are near endless due to this. The enemies twitch, turn and tumble realistically when pumped full of load, and one can even decaptitate them in a final climax of bloodletting. Deep-rooted hate With this the core of the gameplay should be set, but oviously the settings of fights (lower left page) play an important role. While we had to defend our own little planet from a blitzkrieg invasion in the first part, and on the PSP in Liberation the colony Vecta played the battleground; this time the ISA (interplanetary strategic alliance) puts on a great display of power and goes fro Helghan, homeplanet of the Helghast to root out the core of the evil. It goes without saying you don't undertake these suicidal mission alone, During the game you are always assisted by AI controlled buddies. You should be happy for this, because from the moment you kick in the proverbial back door of the helghast, it becomes apparant you shouldn't expect a warm welcome. From the first moment you put foot on Helghan you feel the immense threat and the deep rooted Evil for the ISA. You may think you are on the good side; but for the Helghasr this is a battle for survival, a last chance to defend their planet and they won't hesitate a second to blast you to pieces. Spoiler alert It will not be a short battle, since Helghan isn't exactly the smallest planet. By putting a lot of variation in the levels, Guerrila hopes to give a feeling for the immenseness of the planet. In total there are 10 scenarios, with five strongly different environments. Some of these were already shown in previous expositions such as the E3 and Leipzig, but today we are shown the final four levels. Before we can even yell "spoiler alert!" the videomaterial is shown. In a first level we are on a train that races through a bleak landscape (Don't we know this from Gears of War people?). The feeling of speed of amazing and this has an effect on the fighting. Granates cannot be thrown as far by the wind blasting by and might actually come back to the sender in the worst case scenario. Next we are shown the refinery level. where we get a glimpse of the "Arcweapon" for the first time. The arcweapon is a huge weapon that generates bursts or electricity in the direction of the Helghast. Since their bodies are excellent conductors, you don't even have to aim. Furthermore, they even conduct these burst to other Helghast nearby if they are close enough. Convenient maybe, but we fear a bit this makes it too easy. At the end the fighting becomes intense: the elite soldiers of the Helghast (famous for their hand-to-hand weapons) penetrate you spaceship and apparantly losing a war is not part of their dictionary. In the last level finally an immense final showdown is happening in which everything is on the line. By that time you have access to over the 15+ weapons in the game so you should be able to give a good reckoning for your hide. But enough about singleplayer, since there is a lot more to this game. Lower right page: Original Mix In online multiplayer Killzone 2 is a lot more ambitious than its predecessor. The game contains 8 maps and supports from 2 to 32 players. Notable is the fact that bots are also available, in case you are short of players or just want to practice to avoid getting called "noob". Looks neat, but we have to add that the AI of the bots isn't exactly up to standard yet. A few of the computer generated players walked by us, missing us inches without taking the effort to actually shoot at us. Guerilla aims to create an experience that is at least as intense and chaotic as the singleplayer campagne is, while at the same time giving enough options to the player for customization of the game experience. The player can play as ISA or Helghast, and there are different classes, which all have so-called badges (comparable with perks in COD4) to choose from. There are 5 different mission modes (each customizable) that start automatically during gameplay. During our time playing with the game the game switched from "conquering areas" to protecting a randomly chosen member of our party. The way in which these modes switched seamlessly was impressive. Online extention But the total experience goes further: to serve the community, killzone.com is launced together with the game. This is a community site with a detail rarely seen. Killzone 2. the game, tracks about 100 stats from the game, both single and multiplayer which are available both from the game and the site. Furthermore, the developers will put up blogs, backgroundinformation and a whole range of "clan tools". It is possible to create your own page, recruit members, start a forum, set up matches and a lot more. To round up his presentation with style, Hermen refers back a final time to the trailer from 2005: "I want to show you guys a last video, which isn't real time or in-game to emphasize that this time" he mentions with a smile. It is a ultimate closing act of a promising game that will cause a lot of commotion next year. In short: It happens only rarely that a developer shows everything at a previewevent, but it shows something. Guerilla want us to know it has nothing to hide and that they are very proud of their work, and rightly so: what we have seen and played so far is nothing short of the top of shooters at the moment. Short stories: team fortress 2 + cod4 = killzone 2? That killzone would be inspired by other blockbusters in the genre is no suprise. Except for a few original additions killzone seems to be a mix of TF2 and COD4. Just like TF2 you can deploy turrets and the classes play a crucial rule. Just like in COD4 rankings and perk-like abilites are available. One cool feature is the possibility to bet on matches: whoever dares to bet high and actually come through in the matches can climb the ranking ladder very fast. "This game isn't even possible to run on inferiour processers like the Xbox 360...". This game has to be a benchmark for othergames.
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