Since its debut as a tech demo at E3 2005 (and then again at E3 2007) Killzone 2 has been a shining ray of hope in the Playstation 3’s list of upcoming exclusive titles. With its jaw-dropping graphics, and Guerrilla Games’ promise to actually give gamers the “Halo killer” that Sony hyped Killzone 2’s mediocre predecessor to be in 2004, expectations for Killzone 2 are understandably quite high. After all, in the wake of the Free Radicals’ embarrassingly bad Haze, the Playstation 3’s library of quality, exclusive first person shooters as of late has consisted of Resistance 2. And that’s about it.

But does Killzone 2 finally deliver to gamers a revolutionary, next-generation first person shooter that can rival the likes of Halo 3, or is it another disappointment doomed to obscurity like Haze?

Killzone 2’s plot picks up after the events of the first Killzone. After repelling the Helghast invaders from the colony planet Vetka, the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (ISA) has decided to return the favor by launching a full scale attack on the Helghast home planet Helgha. You play as Tomas “Sev” Sevchenko, a Sergeant in the ISA military, who is tasked with leading a unit behind enemy lines to fight the Helghast and eventually square off against their charismatic leader, Emperor Visari. The story is pretty weak over all, plagued with predictable plot turns and some genuinely terrible writing. All it really does is give you an excuse to venture to a new location and kill more enemies, but I suppose that’s all a story really is supposed to do in a sci-fi first person shooter starring space marines.

The single player campaign is nothing special, electing to adhere to the conventional norms of the first person shooter genre instead of daring to explore uncharted territories. Armed with the standard armaments of your average sci-fi shooter (including machine guns, sniper rifles, and a few weapons unique to Killzone 2) you go from one objective to the next, killing anything that happens to get in your way. Things are mixed up a bit with scattered opportunities to commandeer gun turrets or robot suits, but the campaign never really brings anything to the genre that we have not already played a dozen times before in different games.

Fortunately, what Killzone 2’s campaign does feature it executes extremely well largely due to its impressive enemy AI. The Helghast are vicious and smart. They won’t just stand in the open waiting for you to shoot them. Instead, they will take cover, flush you out with grenades, and pin you with covering fire while their comrades attempt to flank you. Killzone 2 does not encourage tactical thinking under enemy fire -it mandates it. Charging your enemies, guns blazing, may work in other shooters, but not in Killzone 2.

What other sites are saying:

TestFreaks: 8.5/10
MetaCritic: 9.1/10
GameStats: 9.4/10