Surgency Games

The title, developed by Guerilla Games, gets a lot of things right. Really right. The look of the world – dirty, lived in and, at times, oddly beautiful – recalls early James Cameron sci-fi epics. It all feels real and looks real, even though it is about as far from our own conceptual reality as you can get before aliens and ogres and hobbits start making appearances. If this is not our world (which it isn’t) it’s close enough that we inherently understand the parallels between the game and ourselves. We get what they’re going for.

Characters move exceptionally well, and it’s these little details that really sell the world and sell the fiction as believable. What’s on display here is a lot more satisfying – visually, instinctually – than in other titles within a similar narrative genre. Bullets kick up dirt, explosions have a weight to them you don’t normally see and the lighting always feels just right. I have trouble remembering a single moment in the game where I turned a corner and found myself thinking “That doesn’t look right…”

Thrills are to be found here. There are moments of extreme action and amazing forward momentum where the game truly shines. Where everything clicks and you start moving through the levels at an interesting pace and you’re making choices on the fly as to what to do next and where to go and what enemies need to be taken out first because they are the most threatening to your continued existence. When the game works, it is smooth and easy and consumable and, most importantly, fun. Engaging. Worthwhile.

The majority of the time, the game does not flow this easily. You get stuck on a collision, like one of you're fumbling teammates. You’re shot through an object that – logically – you should not be able to get shot through. You’re sidekick is killed (through no fault of your own) and you must backtrack to revive him. You shoot through a dozen guys, spinning and shooting and somehow perservering against all odds; and then, from somewhere else, a badguy you can't see gets one lucky shot, you’re killed and the moment that started out at satisfying, becomes frustrating.

Kinks, runs and holes in the fabric of the game become apparent quickly. Holding the L2 button can be used to press up against cover, and then using the analogue stick, you are able to pop out, fire on some enemies and then duck back down into cover. A great concept. In fact, in my opinion, a mandatory system for most every shooter released after Gears of War. Unfortunately, you have to hold the button down to stay in cover. I like cover. I love cover. I want to use cover when it is available to me. But to hold down the L2 button on the PS3 controller for anything longer than thirty seconds is an exercise in arthritis. There is no option to change this feature. You’re either holding down the L2 button, or you’re not in cover.

This leads to some other problems. You lose a finger to interact with the game while in cover. You are unable to use cover and zoom in or out with a sniper at the same time. If you want to duck instead of snapping to cover, you must not be anywhere near an environmental object, otherwise you'll take cover instead, which may not be helpful at that moment in time. The need for this (to duck without taking cover) rarely comes up, though I died more than half a dozen times throughout the campaign because of this. A death that is not my fault, and can obviously be blamed on the game undermines the integrity of the experience.

The campaign follows the exploits of a single squad of characters during their invasion of another world. I’m not up on my Killzone lore, so if I’ve left out any details, I apologize. The analogies between the game and the current Iraq conflict are easy to spot, but the game has little, if anything, important to say about war, the effects of war or the underlying psychological effects war can have on individuals. The game ends with the realization that war never ends and that the characters who thought they were fighting for something quickly understand they fight for no other reason than just because.

This “theme” is developed and presented within a single cutscene at the end of the game, with almost no set-up or character development throughout the piece to offer glimpses or foreshadowing of what is to come. The end feels like a final bit of irony for the sake of irony, doing little to offer a compelling or cathartic release to the game. I guess this is to be expected. The game starts at climax (the war of the future presented viscerally and intensely) and continues forward towards ever-increasing, ever-expanding climaxes. There is no way the game could possibly provide anything other than anti-climax at the end.

The shooting in the game is fun, especially in a level where you equip a lightning-gun that can cause serious damage to dozens of enemies simultaneously. The world looks great and the details really shine. But as an experience, the single-player campaign is hollow. It has no narrative resonance, and shallow, uninteresting characters that like to curse a lot and speak only in jingoistic turns of phrase. There are a number of potholes in the moment-to-moment gameplay that, depending on how many you run into, can severely impact your impressions and overall satisfaction with the title.

Killzone 2 is entertaining as a distraction, frustrating in large doses and infuriating when thought about for an extended period of time. Even as I write this, my ire for the game I experienced grows.