Tonight, Sony Computer Entertainment finally pulled the curtains back from its highly-anticipated first-person shooter, Killzone 2. The console giant has been entirely mum on the game since its debut at E3 2005, and though it started with tremendous hype, gamers have grown more and more weary over its status as time has gone on. The issue up until now has been that as impressive as the trailer was, it was all pre-rendered, and being that no one has really heard about the game in nearly two years now (aside from an SDK demo at this year´s GDC which was in no-way indicative of the actual title), gamers everywhere have simply had to speculate as to whether or not it would live up to the extremely impressive trailer. And perhaps more so, whether or not said pre-rendered footage would doom the game to become a disappointment.
Tonight´s demo opened very similarly to what we saw two years ago. Clouds canvassed the screen until a soldier´s head crept into view. He and others on his "cargo" vessel converse in short and abrupt sentences about how they´re on their way to certain death. The scene is extremely similar to the lead-up to the invasion on Normandy Beach - certain hell is ahead, and the soldiers can´t help but hold on to their helmets and hope to make it to the war zone intact and actually have a fighting chance.
A couple more vessels come into view, engines kicking below their flat surface while soldiers can only crouch and hold on to the thin railing. There´s no protection here, nor even seats. Just as the clouds begin to part, one of the vessels is hit by incoming fire and begins plummeting to the very expansive city below. After falling for what seems like an eternity, it finally lands in a ball of flame as soldiers on the other vessels talk about how they´re certain to die. Their commander tells everyone to lock and load...
The opening was once again fantastic, but we couldn´t help but sit there and think, "When are we finally going to see some in-game footage?" The only thing was that we had been looking at in-game footage. As soon as our soldier hits the ground and his gun comes into view, very much like what we saw with the opening to Resistance, we couldn´t help but think, "Holy hell, all of that was in-game?"
Indeed, it´s quickly apparent that Guerilla has come much closer to the original trailer than most anyone thought possible. It´s not 100% identical to be sure, but there are times (quite often) when it´s really, really damn close.
While not featuring as much normal mapping in pro-pixel leatherization diffusion as Gears of War, it bests it in other ways. For one, there´s more polygonal detail in, well, everything. Soldiers´ faces looked unbelievable, and while you can pick out polygons while studying their shoulders, we must repeat that you have to study them. Streets and buildings are lined with stuff, and there´s not really a better way to encompass that. Power lines, boxes, railings, window sills, trash... it´s all there. While there aren´t as many effects going on as we´ve seen in some UE3 gamers, there´s unmistakably more detail to everything.
The lighting is also smoother. While UE3 games like Gears boast realtime lighting for everything, Killzone 2´s lighting scheme mixes realtime and pre-canned lighting for an extremely smooth and, frankly, extremely impressive lighting model. The art direction, what with its dark colors and overly-gritty feel, keep the game from looking "real", but that doesn´t mean it isn´t absolutely immersive. I will personally say that I can´t remember seeing a more impressive lighting model than this. More realistic? Maybe. But more impressive? No.
Now for the gameplay... Do you remember what it felt like to first play Call of Duty, with bullets flying everywhere and feeling like safety or even pause was nowhere to be found? That´s Killzone 2 in a nutshell. The bullets only stopped when a hallway was cleared and you haven´t gotten to the next corner yet. And that didn´t happen very often.
Taking place in the streets of the city, inside its alley-flanking buildings, on second- and third-story balconies and on a rooftop or two, there were always Helghast about and bullets were always in the air. One theme is clear - you´ll never stay put. The demo-er rarely stopped moving, and when he did it was only to take out a single soldier. As soon as that one was dead, he was on the move again.
A cover system looks to be in place in some fashion, though it´s a little unclear as to how "deep" it is. You´re able to lean around the sides of cover or corners to take out enemies, and you can blind fire around and over it (with your soldier holding his weapon sideways as it kicks bullets into uncertain territory). It didn´t kick you out to a third-person view ala Rainbow Six: Vegas however, so we´re not sure how much you´re intended to rely on it.
Speaking of not switching views, there were only two points in the demo where the view was not in first-person. One was at the very end of the level to show off a nice explosion, and another when the level´s mini-boss appeared. When the player approached one of the alleyways, the camera pulled away and zoomed in on a massive, chaingun-wielding Helghast soldier, replete with nearly a tanks-worth of armor. He took down a number of AI soldiers before the Guerilla rep was able to stun him with some bullets to the face and then take him out by shooting some energy packs on his back. We expect the rest of the game to play out in a similar manner where most cutscenes leave you in a first-person view, while specific scenes or characters of importance are highlighted.
The big explosion at the end that we referred to has to do with the destruction of an electrical canon, the end-goal of the level. Throughout the mission, the sky lit up repeatedly with lightning that lit up the environment. We originally thought this was solely the work of mother nature and unrelated to the battle, but once we finally got a view of the city from a few stories up we saw that some of the electricity was coming from something man-made, or Helghast-made, to be precise.
The Helghast are capable of utilizing, and perhaps even controlling, the weather. This level has you seek out an electrical canon that first absorbs lightning, and then re-use the energy as an offensive weapon. We´re not sure how much weather will play out in the rest of the game, but at the end of the demo Guerilla noted that weather will indeed play a part in actual gameplay, and that the Helghast will certainly make use of it.
Aside from the very nice use of lighting and polygons, Killzone 2 has a few more tricks up its proverbial sleeve. The animation system looks to be blend of pre-canned and ragdoll animation. Helghast would fly back up against a wall, roll down stairs and the like, but we also witnessed one dying soldier crawl on his hands and knees for a bit while breathing his last breath, and another seemingly attempt to catch himself with his arms as the rest of his body went limp. The animation system was mind-blowing in any way, but it also fit nicely into the world.
Physics on objects look to be what you´d expect these days. Chairs and boxes kicked, moved and would spin as you would expect, but they don´t dent or deform or anything of that nature. There are destructible segments of the environment, though they look predefined and not dynamic. Planks of wood, a number of which were nicely placed for effects-value, would break and splinter when shot, but they look set up to do so. Pillars and other solid but breakable objects were similar. You can chip away at them, but don´t expect to write your name in the rubble.
Though the demo was so action-packed that it was hard to pick up on a number of details, we did notice a few more subtleties. For one, the health system works like what you´ll find in a number of shooters these days - that is, there is no finite health meter, but rather if you take enough fire over a short period of time you´ll perish, while taking cover and waiting it out for a bit will bring you back up to speed. Also, at one point during the demo we noticed that you´re able to sprint. It´s unclear how far or often you can, though your weapon is lowered and moved to your side, so we´re assuming that the inability to fire is your reason for not sprinting constantly.
The demo we lasted was the extent of an entire level and lasted over 15 minutes in length by our count, but remember that it was played by a Guerilla rep and that it´ll take a newcomer a good bit longer to get through. Though there were a few pauses for loading at certain spots, Guerilla says that it´ll have its streaming tech implemented by ship time and that you won´t see any loads mid-level. When you see just how much stuff is here, you´ll understand why this may not be an easy task.
If you would like a number to go with that, try 2GB. That´s how big the single level was on disc, to which the Guerilla rep noted that the game´s level of detail would not have been possible without Blu-ray.
As for multiplayer, the only details that we saw were part of a short PowerPoint presentation at the end, but Guerilla promises an "extensive multiplayer component", one that will make use of Home in some fashion. Sounds good to us.
Want to see the game for yourself? Head to the PlayStation Network at 3pm PST on Wednesday and you´ll find a brand-spanking-new trailer waiting there for you.
