Product Features
- Genre
- Action and Shooter
- Publisher
- Sony
- Release Date
- February 25, 2011
- Available Platforms
- PlayStation 3
Related Items
Killzone 3 Move Compatible
Killzone 3 brings you back into the action where Killzone 2 left off, with Visari, the vicious Helghast dictator, lying dead at the feet of Special Forces soldiers Sev and Rico. The battle may have been won but the war is far from over. Visari''s death has left behind a world of political scheming, infighting and outright murder. Meanwhile his parting gift, a nuclear bomb detonated in Phyruss, the Helghan Capital, has decimated the ISA invasion force. With no re-enforcements and supplies quickly running out, you must now fight against ruthless Helghast war machine alone. Huge environments throughout the game, including nuclear wastelands, alien jungles, and arctic vistas. Levels are up to 10 times the size of those in Killzone 2 Fully enhanced game engine, with new optimized data streaming...
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Dave Wallace October 29, 2012 PS3
At first glance, Killzone 3 might look like any other generic sci-fi first-person-shooter you could name. There are plenty of them about these days, after all, and it's not as if there's anything obvious to immediately set this game apart from any of the other titles that feature heavily kitted-out space marines waging war against pretty much anything that moves. However, when you take a closer look, there are actually quite a few subtle touches that elevate Killzone 3 above the average, and which make the game well worth checking out for anyone who's looking for a decent shooter with which to kill a few hours (no pun intended).
Firstly, there's the game's fairly complex political storyline, which adds welcome depth to proceedings. For gamers like me who are checking out the franchise for the first time with this third instalment, it might be initially off-putting that there's a certain amount of referring back to events from the previous two games - but after a while things begin to come into sharper focus, and these details are explained a little more fully. Against an epic backdrop of interplanetary war, we learn about the history of the ongoing conflict between the ISA (Interplanetary Strategic Alliance) and the Helghast. And whilst you and your ISA colleagues are nominally the good guys, the game succeeds quite well in conveying the idea that war is never as clean-cut as that, and that there are moral shades of grey on both sides.
As well as the story being interesting, there's a pleasing amount of variety to the gameplay, too. Rather than consisting of nothing but on-foot sections (like a lot of shooters I could name), Killzone 3 makes an effort to sprinkle its story with several vehicle-based levels, in which you get to take control of jeeps, tanks, spacecraft and even a personal jetpack to achieve your goals. Whilst there's admittedly a sense that most of these levels are 'on rails' - allowing you a certain amount of freedom to move the vehicle and target weaponry, but never letting you deviate from a fairly tight course that's been plotted for the vehicle - it's still a laudable way of adding an extra dimension to the game. And the most fun vehicle - the jetpack, obviously - is an exception to that complaint, as it's completely free-roaming, allowing you to boost yourself around to your heart's content (I spent far more time on that level than I really should have done!).
Also worth noting is that this game has been designed to be compatible with the 'Playstation Move' motion-sensor accessory - but since I don't own one, I sadly can't attest to how well it works with the game. However, I can still appreciate the gist of the idea - because Killzone 3 also makes use of the more basic "six-axis" motion-detector technology that's included in regular PS3 controllers. For example, certain tasks within the game (like turning wheels or setting detonators for bombs) require you to use the controller's shoulder-trigger buttons to 'grip' an object, before turning the pad in mid-air to rotate it on the screen. It's a fun little touch that again adds a bit of variety to what's otherwise a fairly straightforward sci-fi shooter - albeit one that's incredibly polished in terms of its presentation.
That polish is most apparent in two areas of the game: its graphics and its voice-acting. From the very start, the game looks amazing, with a cinematic pre-rendered opening sequence giving way to gameplay that actually manages to match it. I've lost count of the amount of times that video sequences like these have massively oversold how good a game looks, leading to disappointment when the game is actually required to render everything in real-time. But Killzone is one of the few occasions where everything really does look as great as the slick videos make out. Textures are incredibly detailed; costumes, vehicles and characters benefit from some great, striking designs; and there's some beautiful architecture on show, especially in the city sections.
Talking of which, another area in which Killzone offers a lot of variety is in the differently-themed levels it presents you with. From an alien jungle to an arctic planet to a semi-destroyed city to a giant space station, there are certainly a lot of different environments to get used to (and appreciate the beauty of) here.
As well as the lovely graphics, the game boasts a classy A-list cast of voice actors who demonstrate why they're a cut above your standard videogame talent by actually providing believable, emotional performances to flesh out their characters. From the opening voiceover of Brian Cox's Scolar Visari, to the robust thuggery of Ray Winstone's Admiral Orlock, to secondary characters like ISA Captain Jason Narville (voiced by James Remar, perhaps best known as Dexter's Dad from the Dexter TV show), there's a pleasing level of quality all round.
And special praise has to be reserved for the character of Stahl, Orlock's weaselly main rival for control of the Helghast armies, who has clear ambitions to topple his opponent. Voiced by Malcolm McDowell, he's played like a cross between Peter Mandelson and Julian Assange - and he's just as creepy as that description suggests. The interplay between the two characters is the most enjoyable relationship in the game, and ends up making the villains' side of the story far more engaging than that of the heroes (although I'm not sure that was the intention). There's just a lot more intrigue and complexity to be found in the Helghast camp, and if anything I wish the game explored the Shakespearean drama of their power struggle a little more fully.
However, these complicated political machinations, whilst interesting, are also one of the main problems I had with the game. That's because the only truly significant story developments and plot twists are contained exclusively within cutscenes between levels, effectively robbing you of any power to alter the story, and making you feel as though your actions don't really affect how the game will play out one way or another. I accept that not every game is going to offer the wide range of choice and branching storylines of (say) the Mass Effect series, but even the most linear games can provide the illusion that the player's contribution is important to the story. Sadly, it feels as though the producers of Killzone became so in love with creating the movie-style elements (which seem to increase in both length and frequency as the game goes on), that they forgot to couple them with the gameplay in a satisfying way.
The only other real problem I had with Killzone 3 is its sudden, anticlimactic ending, which builds up to a giant interplanetary battle before unceremoniously dumping a downbeat damp squib of an ending on you. It might be an effectively atmospheric and bleak conclusion to a story that seems to pride itself on showing the horrors of war as well as the glory - but it doesn't really leave you with the feeling that your actions (over the course of all three Killzone games) have ultimately achieved anything of value, especially given the post-credits sequence cop-out that effectively reverses one of the most important character deaths in this game.
Still, despite my couple of complaints, this is a fun sci-fi shooter that sticks with the tried and tested mechanics of the genre whilst gently innovating in a number of areas. For example, the standard regenerating-health approach is boosted here by an added function that allows your teammates to revive you when you go down (although whether or not they succeed is a little unpredictable), and there's obviously been a lot of thought given to the wide array of weapons that you get to use in the game (along with regular ammunition-recharge points that mean you're unlikely to be stuck with unusable, empty weapons for long).
Little touches like this are much appreciated by players like me, who have been around the block a few times and who enjoy seeing games try something slightly different - even if it doesn't always work. Still, Killzone 3's hits are a lot more common than its misses, meaning that this is a game that I can definitely recommend, especially to fans of the sci-fi first-person shooter genre. -
Matthew Moroney October 27, 2011 PS3
This was a decent enough game to get me through a few days, but what really pushes this game to its limits is its Move compatibility. Playstation Move works brilliantly on this game and is really what kept me going through the game. Killzone 3 was clearly not the best game of the year, but is definitely good enough to keep people interested in the series.