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Killzone 2

GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
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the only thing bad about killzone 2 is that its to gooooooood please make NEW Killzone
 

fallingdove

Member
Gunplay and visuals were great. Characters, story, voice acting and some of the level design was questionable. (Rico dialogue and the faux tough guy dropping fbombs ever 5 seconds was incredibly grating)

I wouldn’t mind seeing a return to the universe so long as it had another studio working on it.

A Killzone from Bend (with the help of Bungie or a 3rd party like Respawn) where the Hellghast are invading earth and a ragtag biker militia have to retake strategic military positions.
 
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The one thing that feels like a missed opportunity with the Killzone franchise, other than the obvious port/remaster collection that's needed, is the fact that they never remade Killzone 1 in the Killzone 2/3 engine.

In terms of campaigns Killzone 1 is probably the best one with the best variety of locations and encounters, but it is held back graphically from the grandiose nature that KZ 2 and 3 share.
 

JORMBO

Darkness no more
I think Horizon 1 sold more than the whole KZ series.
Yeah :(

  • Killzone (2004): Approximately 2 million copies sold.
  • Killzone: Liberation (2006): Sales figures are not publicly available, but it is generally considered a moderate success for the PSP.
  • Killzone 2 (2009): Over 1 million copies sold.
  • Killzone 3 (2011): Sales figures are not publicly available, but it is believed to have sold less than its predecessor.
  • Killzone: Mercenary (2013): Sales figures are not publicly available, but it was generally well-received.
  • Killzone: Shadow Fall (2013): Over 2.1 million copies sold.
  • Horizon Zero Dawn sold over 20 million copies.
  • Horizon Forbidden West has sold over 8 million copies.
 

Zuzu

Member
I thought it was pretty average when I played it back then on the PS3. It didn’t come close to the best the genre offered at the time like the Halo trilogy or Half Life 2. I enjoyed 3 more.
 
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I still think there is money on this.
The part about changing the ending defeats the purpose of the feelings those games give off. War itself is messy and Killzone does a good enough job of portraying this, especially 2 (and somewhat 3) where you just mostly see and hear gunfire, death, and explosions everywhere you turn.

Mercenaries and Liberation both helped expand this idea of messiness (I still need to play Shadowfall).

If they had just taken the concept a bit further (and they were hinting towards it with 3's ending) they could have had a multi-game campaign story that rivaled Spec Ops: The Line. But as it stands now Killzone just feels not quite there.

I think what should have happened is that they should have given Templar his own Captain America-esque trilogy (since he is literally painted as morally good/heroic at all times in KZ 1 and Liberation) and then keep Rico as the glue between the events of KZ 1/Liberation and KZ 2/3/Mercenaries/Shadowfall to show the darker side of how war can change a person for the worse.
 
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violence

Member
Good series. I think Guerrilla is set up for Horizon games now. I’m not expecting another killzone for a while.
 
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Linear first person shooters is pretty much a dead genre, besides Doom. It just wouldn't be worth the 200 mil for Sony to invest in
 
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I wish the aiming wasn't trash in KZ1 & 2.

KZ2 is still an impressive campaign but that aiming makes it so hard to go back to.

edit- Resistance was the better franchise in terms of gameplay. Both unfortunately completely botched the overall story/lore.
 
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Linear first person shooters is pretty much a dead genre, besides Doom. It just wouldn't be worth the 200 mil for Sony to invest in
Call of Duty would make for a better comparison and you're right, it would probably take that much money for an AAA if they want it to be a graphical showcase.

KZ2 is still an impressive campaign but that aiming makes it so hard to go back to.
Agreed on this. They should somehow keep the weighty feel but make the gameplay feel of aiming better. Maybe taking away the crosshairs would help. It shouldn't feel fast and arcadey, because that's not what KZ is about.
 
Remember the butthurt over it's initial E3 trailer from... oh shiiiiiiit, almost 20 years ago? (fucking HOW!? the psychic damage...)

It'd be an interesting experiment to see whether we could finally replicate those visuals real time 20 years later (seriously, HOW? remember when 20 years ago meant fucking NES games!!!???)
 
Killzone 2 is still the best fps I've ever played. I get why some people can't get into it with the weighty controls, but for me, it makes it unique. Especially when it released in CoDs hayday. Everything felt like it was trying to copy CoD and KZ2 just did it's own thing and did so perfectly. Also, I mainly talking about online, the campaign was fine, nothing special but the online was HIGHLY addicting.

But I understand why it's no longer a thing. KZ3 was a huge step back and shadowfall, while I thought was better than 3, was really limited being a launch game. Iirc, I don't even think it has voice chat for a couple weeks/months after launch.
 
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Pidull

Banned
The visual style of Killzone 2 kicked ass, although the fire effects didn't meet the expectations of the concept trailer, the rest is the visuals certainly did. I distinctly remember Hermen Hulst's presentations talking about deferred rendering, the number of light sources they could have, the number of polygons being pushed, and more.

The only thing the game could've done better was the input lag.
 

Sintoid

Member
It wasn't Halo
It was too heavy to control
It had lag control
It wasn't Call Of Duty
It wasn't like the first trailer
Make something different, we had enough of FPS
Are the first comment that come to my mind about launch days reception

Time is a gentleman, let's see in ten years if same enthusiasm will be held for Horizon
 

Radical_3d

Member
The part about changing the ending defeats the purpose of the feelings those games give off. War itself is messy and Killzone does a good enough job of portraying this, especially 2 (and somewhat 3) where you just mostly see and hear gunfire, death, and explosions everywhere you turn.

Mercenaries and Liberation both helped expand this idea of messiness (I still need to play Shadowfall).

If they had just taken the concept a bit further (and they were hinting towards it with 3's ending) they could have had a multi-game campaign story that rivaled Spec Ops: The Line. But as it stands now Killzone just feels not quite there.

I think what should have happened is that they should have given Templar his own Captain America-esque trilogy (since he is literally painted as morally good/heroic at all times in KZ 1 and Liberation) and then keep Rico as the glue between the events of KZ 1/Liberation and KZ 2/3/Mercenaries/Shadowfall to show the darker side of how war can change a person for the worse.
I think that killing your most charismatic character on the second part was a mistake.
 
  • Horizon Zero Dawn sold over 20 million copies.
  • Horizon Forbidden West has sold over 8 million copies.

Jesus, I really dont think the protagonist as gaf likes to cry about was the issue here. Open world fatigue seems more likely. Im curious if the final part in the trilogy will sell even less especially in the current gaming climate.
 
I think that killing your most charismatic character on the second part was a mistake.
Wait who, Garza?

If that's who you're talking about I barely remember him. Templar, Sev, Rico, and Narville were always the ISA standouts in the trilogy and Liberation. There have been multiple moments in Killzone 2 and 3 where it shows sometimes doing things by the book works and sometimes doing the impulsive thing works.

I feel like the whole point was that it was messy and there was never any right way to doing things, just about finding ways to ensure that you're slightly ahead of the enemy.

Killzone 1, Liberation, and 3 are why I was never fully on board with the Rico hate. They even emphasize this in 3 with Narville having multiple moments where he failed to give an order promptly, including failing to give the right order at critical moments, which is why sometimes Rico eventually, literally Sev
took control of the situation near the end of the game.

For example Narville was ready to
quickly wave the white flag the minute he got the surrender order in 3, even though he knew that would end in the torture and deaths of his entire squadron. If Rico had not left on his own path when he did in that game, he wouldn't have been able to take his own squadron to save Sev and eventually Narville later on.

That doesn't happen without Rico being Rico and the game would have ended 1/3 of the way through part 3.

It's up to each player to feel whether or not certain characters made the right call, but that's the intrigue behind these games. A part of me feels it would have been more appreciated if the player had dialogue options and separate consequences like a Mass Effect game.
 
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Denton

Member
I hope Nixxes will start porting these PS3 and PS4 classics to PC and PS5, now that they ported most of the stuff from PS5 already.
Really want to play KZ2 and 3 in 4K 60.
 

EekTheKat

Member
The art/design for Killzone was actually pretty incredible back in the day. IIRC there was enough art and lore floating around to flesh out both sides of the conflict pretty extensively, but the games only ever touched on a small bit of what they created. Music was also pretty incredible as well.

It certainly helped that the series were propped up by a pretty amazing cast of English actors that I really like. Brian Cox, Sean Pertwee, Malcolm McDowell, Ray Winstone. Old school Brits made for amazing villains back in the day, and the formula certainly held for Killzone.

Strangely, Killzone has the pieces to make a pretty good strategy or RPG game set in that universe. I'd certainly give that a go if they go with another game in a different genre.
 

Ceadeus

Gold Member
I think Horizon 1 sold more than the whole KZ series.
Money money money money

I do understand though that they wanted to go in a complete new direction after Killzone, the studio was tired of working on grimdark."We were done with it as a team. As a studio, we needed to refresh the palette," .

But I think we're many wishing they could split Guerrilla a bit and form a team who could also work on Killzone. Guerrilla could test the water by working on a trilogy remake (master chief collection style?)

And if it works well it would greenlight a new installment. Anyway, it's just wishful thinking from me..

About the trilogy, I'm sure people would dig going back on those multiplayer maps again. It would sell.
 
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To me, it was one of the greatest gaming experience of my life.

But no, I don't want no remaster.

This game was sooooo tailor fitted with PS3 hardware and TVs of the era,

that simply turning it to 4K 60 will only make the magic disappear
 

DirtInUrEye

Member

I was never big into KZ (Halo player), but I always regarded this as the best gun model in video games.

Killzone 3 and Shadow Fall I did play online quite a lot, very underrated and missed. I loved the distinct heft and weight of the movement, it was a nice change of pace for an online shooter.
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
Killzone 2 had the best multiplayer game mode system in a shooter. I am still disappointed that more shooters (especially the big boys like CoD) did not think about switching game modes on the fly in the same match. It was a ton of fun and really kept the matches from getting stale as you could always win the next objective or round.
 
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