Killzone: Shadow Fall (PS4): A purdy look'n, functional, but unoriginal affair.

There are usually 3 reasons I buy or play a first person shooter. Most of the time, its because its something I was genuinely looking forward to (See: Left 4 Dead). Other times its because a game has gotten so much attention, I have to poke my head in to see what the fuss is about (See: Bioshock Infinite). The third, and least common of the solutions is "well, I have this new system. I need something to play on it."

That's how I found myself with the original Resistance title and that actually ended up being a shooter I kinda liked. Well about a month ago when I got me a shiny new PS4 I found myself in that same situation. I had 2 games reserved but one of them got pushed back, so to give me something else to play I took a chance on a series that I have never played before in.....

KILLZONE: SHADOW FALL(PS4)

Shadow Fall takes place after the "Terracide" of Killzone 3 where the ISA basically render the Helgan planet uninhabitable. The ISA grants the remaining Helghast survivors refuge on the planet Vekta and allows them to colonize half of the planet. The relations are tumultuous at best as they build a massive wall to separate the Vektans from New Helgan, and covert military operation is rampant on both sides.

After the walls construction, Lucas Kellan and his father are trying to escape New Helgan and come across a Shadow Marshall named Sinclair, who tries to aid their escape. Despite being promised safe passage they are spotted by the Helghast and Lucas' father is killed in the scuffle. Sinclair takes Lucas in and in 30 years trains Lucas to be a Shadow Marshall as well.

Tensions are extremely high between the Vektans and Helghast, and Sinclair uses Lucas as his shadow operative to infiltrate the Helgan forces and retrieve classified information, pertaining to a bio-weapon created by Dr. Hillary Massar. It then becomes a race between the VSA and the Helghast to get to the weapon first.

The opening could basically be futuristic Nazi Germany its so locked down.

Why do shooters always have the most complicated and convoluted fucking story lines? I just wrote that shit and I still don't understand it. Fuckin' Left 4 Dead makes it easy: Here are some zombies, fucking kill them. I can get that. Resistance was like that too: Aliens are attacking, fucking kill them. No problem.

But with games like this, I'm reminded of when I tried to review Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.  I had no eff'n clue what it was I was explaining if I even bothered to understand it. It had Micheal Rooker in it, that's all I really remember. 

So the first thing that comes to mind when I play a shooter is what kind of shooter is it? Since I don't often play very many FPS games I try to narrow them down to one of two categories: Classic FPS or Modern FPS. Classic I consider games like Bioshock, Left4Dead, Resistance 3, etc because they are one that usually don't require scope aiming, cover, and have fixed health meters. Moderns are like Call of Duty with one to five hit kills, regenerating health, two weapon slots, and required scope aiming for any accuracy.

And I would say that Killzone: Shadow Fall is in the latter category of the more modern shooters. Not typically the style of FPS game I really enjoy but it suppose necessity makes for strange bedfellows. I will say because many of these games follow very similar control schemes, it didn't take me very long to find myself familiarized with what buttons do what. Generally if you have played a shooter in the past 5 to 10 years most of this game isn't going to be lost on you. 

Before I get too far into the game, something I feel I should address is that this was the first PS4 retail title I loaded up into my system. There was a bit of buzz about the fact that the game took up almost 45 gigs of space right out of the box. Since the PS3 is notorious for long install and load times, this was a concern. 

Thankfully, it wasn't an issue here. It installs a bit right from the moment you pop the disc in, and say about 30-45 seconds later you are able to start the game. The installation process continues and does so while you watch the opening cutscene and the first level. It was a very expedient process and I was very happy about that. 

Back to the game. Since it falls under the category of modern shooter, naturally there is some concern over the game having a pretty shitty palette basically devoid of color as you go from dilapidated location to dilapidated location. And while there is no shortage of these locations, it does spruce up some of the locations with a few splashes of color (such as the forest or modern city), and the Helghast uniforms usually have some vibrant glowing red on them so they are somewhat easy to make out.

I will say that this game certainly doesn't feel linear to me. I can't say it feels as wide open and vibrant as say some of the Halo maps are, but they do feel very big in their own right. Quite a number of times I found myself just completely lost in a level. I'd be following what appeared to be a natural path to my object to find myself nowhere near the location I needed to be at, and to further explore the map to figure out exactly which way I needed to be going. While it's occasionally frustrating, I would much rather do this than deal with a series of short linear maps.

When you get away from civilization, the environments are beautifully done.

The weapons in this game are a fucking snoozefest, and this is massive problem in almost every modern shooter I have ever played. You can give all the weapons in your game fancy UPC code names and its not gonna change the fact that I have automatic rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, and pistol. Fucking, Snore. At least Bioshock gives me plasmids to use, at least Resistance has crazy alien weaponry that can shoot through or around walls. Hell, even Halo has the goddamn Needler. I couldn't tell you the specific weapon names in Killzone,but they break down to the 4 majors I mentioned in this paragraph. 

You are given a little kind of helper bot though. you can sort of select your options for that on the touchpad and it allows you to fire ziplines, give you covering fire, stun your opponents, and hack terminals for you. So it sometimes works to provide distractions but more often then not I would forget to use it. Its really the only future-y thing about combat. Actually that's not true, you also have this Sonar Pulse kinda thing where you can see enemies around walls and floors, but if you hold it too long it screeches and alerts your enemies.

You probably saw this section at E3 already, but I can't capture until HDCP protocols are removed.

You would think something like that would make the game too easy. Nope, not the case. Killzone: Shadow Fall did not hold my hand going into this game. I died, and I died a lot. You pick up adrenaline packs along the way so when you drop, your little helper bot can bring you back. If you go into iron sight everything slows down to bullet time for a few seconds and you can mow down your offenders. It took a little bit of getting used to, and didn't save me from getting my ass kicked thoroughly every few levels.

There is one particular shard of glass in my urethra late in the game where you basically have to drop from pace and then glide once you've entered the atmosphere. You have to maintain swooping motions while avoiding collapsing buildings. The amount of times I screamed fuck trying to get past this fucking portion was ridiculous. I cannot fucking stand it when a game throws in a brand new set of mechanics late in the game with an unreasonable set of difficulty. Its infuriating. Have it at least scale so I can sort of get a handle on it first you fucking pricks. (I captured this sequence on the PS4, but unfortunately, I can cant pull and edit it, and I can only share it to Facebook. A massive oversight in this internal capture process.)

I feel the character design is a little wonky, but I'd say that's really my only visual complaint. Usually every humanoid character is completely covered in armor, so you barely get to see any actual people to begin with. I was surprised to find out that this game was Mo-Cap'd as well. I guess I have been spoiled but Uncharted, Last of us, and Beyond. Aside from that I think the visuals of this game are very impressively done and from what I have read, they actually didn't even use the full memory potential of the console.

While technically an enemy, Echo is the only real "Good Guy" in the game.  She's the only person who
really understands the gravity of the war, and is willing to fight against her family for the greater good

And much like the actual campaign section, the multi player for the most part seems pretty generic too. There is no shortage of 24 player team deathmatches to hop into, and the war zones basically cycle through stages of CTF, Assault, King of the Hill and team deathmatch. Performing certain accolades will allow you to unlock different add on to your weapon types.

Whats fucking annoying about this is you will no doubt get lumped in with a group of assholes who have grenade launchers on lock down. And I have to say it was infuriating trying to do anything in a multi player game because I would just constantly be blown up out of no where. It was really starting to infuriate me.

But at one point, I had a eureka moment. At some point I realized I wasn't a good enough shot to snipe, and my usual charge in, pray n' spray routine wasn't helping here. So why not try the support class? If there is anything I am good at in a shooter, is getting from one point to another. So I opted for a support class that can create spawn points and I make a habit of dashing to key hot zones on each map. To compliment my unsteady shot, I opted for the shotgun. Shit range but maximum damage potential.

In Deathmatch you will find popular spots people go to in nearly every map.

Worked like a charm. I get points every time someone uses my spawn (and usually I'm the only one), points whenever I revive some one, and once I get into a good position I can mow down enemies as they leave their base for at least 3 or 4 people till they figure it out. All of a sudden I am in the top 3 of nearly every game I am in. I guess sometimes you just gotta figure out what you are good at.  Grenade launchers are still cheap as fuck though.

So anyways, rating I guess. Well, the consensus on Killzone: Shadow Fall seems to be on of: "Hey this game is really pretty, but its nothing original." I'd say that is a pretty fair assessment. Nothing in this game really blew me away. The story was a bit above average, it was interesting when it really got going, and the ending was definitely a step from the norm. I find myself dropping into the multi player a bit now that I have a knack for what I'm doing, which is better than most shooters have fared with me. For a shooter that has no horror elements, its been worth the 60 clams.

All in all, I have to say that Killzone: Shadow Fall was a solid release for a launch lineup. It'll certainly scratch your shooter itch but if you are one of those frothing "I can only play Call of Duty/Halo" types its probably gonna leave you wanting. I got it on a spur of the moment impulse, but I overall I wasn't dissatisfied. 8 out of 10.

Would have liked the chance to be the Helgast girl more though....