Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Keith Schleicher

The developer Guerilla has been shrouded in controversy.  When Guerilla was purchased by Sony, they were developing Shellshock: Nam ’67 for Eidos.  Once the purchase was complete, Guerilla hurried to “finish” Shellshock and left Eidos with a turd of a game.  When it was announced that their next title was Killzone, it was quickly dubbed the PS2 “Halo-killer.”  When it was released, the reviews were mixed.  The notion that Killzone was a “Halo-killer” was quickly shot down.  Then Sony decided to show off Killzone 2 on the PS3 at E3 2005.  The video clip looked amazing, but it was later revealed that the video was pre-rendered and not actual in-game footage.

Now Guerilla is bringing the Killzone univers to the PSP with Killzone: Liberation.  Instead of trying to create a first-person shooter on the PSP like other developers have done, they have taken a new approach with Liberation. Playing from a top-down perspective, the game has an action-RPG feel to it.  Does Liberation bring the Killzone experience into your hands, or is it just another disappointment from Guerilla?

The graphics make you believe you have entered the war against the Helghast.  The landscape is barren with makeshift wood planks used as platforms to traverse across plateaus.  Barbed wire entwines the area and impedes your progress across the environment.  Explosions sprinkle the landscape, giving the impression of a constant state of combat.  Everything feels dirty and gritty from the casualties of war.

Your character blends in with the grittiness of the environment.  His animations are precise, moving to one knee when positioning in a shooting stance or lobbing a grenade up in the air.  The ensuing explosion and subsequent flight of any bodies in the area is satisfying.  The characters do seem a bit small though, especially compared to something like X-Men Legends II.  Watching the cutscenes really brings out how rough the graphics look close up, so they look much better zoomed out.

While the graphics match the environment well, they could use a bit more variety.  The color scheme of the environments feels like the original Quake with the amount of brown, grey, and light green used.  Sand dunes, bombed-out buildings, and abandoned warehouses all seem to be common areas you explore.  The variety of enemies you fight is limited too, much like the original Killzone.

The game opens up with a bang.  The music has a militaristic feel to it, but it has more of a futuristic feel than something you’d find in games like Call of Duty 2.  The crescendos build up the feeling of tension while the percussion drives the beat, giving the music impact at the right spots.

Once you get into the game, the music stops.  That’s when the sound effects take over.  The different guns fire at a different rate, and the depth of their shot depends on the type of weapon.  Rockets fire off with a whoosh.  Mines blow up with a loud burst.  While each of the weapons have a good sound, they don’t pack the punch that they should.

The mission briefings are given while the level loads.  These don’t have any voice-overs.  Once in the mission however, a female voice tells you where to go and your objective for the level.  You meet up with other members of the ISA and interact with them.  When commanding them on where to go, they respond.  The Helghast yell insults at you.  A little more variety in the interactions would have been nice though.  Just a word of warning.  While the game is rated T for Teen, the language is a bit rougher than most T-rated games and could almost go into the M for Mature rating area.

The controls map out well for game.  Movement is handled with the analog nub.  The further you move the nub, the faster your character moves.  X interacts with the environment, Square shoots your weapon, Triangle reloads, and Circle aims and tosses grenades.  While some interactions with the environment require a quick push of X, other actions like mounting C4 or defusing traps require the X button to be held for a certain length of time.

Liberation has an auto-aiming mechanism that makes hitting enemies easier if you aren’t quite lined up correctly.  While the auto-aim is helpful, other abilities can be used to assist shooting.  Using the R button moves you into a shooting position.  While you have a steadier aim in this mode, you can’t move out of that position.  You can change your aim, but it’s difficult to adjust using the analog nub.  You swing around wildly which can cause you to be a sitting duck while getting shot at.  Hitting L lets you strafe while aiming at a target.  This allows you to make yourself a moving target, but aiming at your enemy while strafing isn’t very easy.  Also, it's too easy to fire a grenade when you want to cancel out of it since Circle is often used as a cancel button.

Liberation is set about two months after the events of Killzone.  You reprise your role as Templar to take part of a covert operation and save hostages captured by Metrac.  You assist the ISA troops to achieve victory in this fight.

Liberation is played from a third-person perspective, similar to Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance or the X-Men Legends games.  You move your character along the landscape fighting enemies, getting weapons, and completing objectives.  The Helghast come at you from all sides.  You need to aim carefully to defeat all the Helghast that come at you.  You don’t have any direct control of the camera, but the camera works extremely well for the game.  While there are times you wish you could adjust it, they are few and far between.

The interface is minimal.  The lower left corner shows your health and the number of health syringes you are carrying.  The lower right corner shows the weapon you have, the amount of ammo, the number of grenades or other secondary weapon you are carrying, and how many C4 packages you are carrying.  This is nice in that you don’t have to worry about the interface covering the action.

During the game you’ll gain squadmates or hostages to control.  While you can order them to follow your path directly, you can command them using the D-pad.  First you hit Down on the D-pad.  Then time slows down and you use Left and Right on the D-pad to command your squadmate to either move to a specific area or to attack one of the enemies on the screen.  This is especially helpful during escort missions. 

Liberation is very linear in nature.  While there are some areas where you can destroy boxes to collect money to upgrade weapons, you don’t have to stray far from the beaten path to get through the objectives of your mission.

While progressing through the game you find equipment crates.  These crates can hold medical supplies, ammunition and weapons, and health packs.  While accessing these crates, the game isn’t paused.  Instead you experience a super slow motion mode, similar to what you experience when you are giving orders.  This gives you the ability to grab what you need from the crate while still putting pressure on you to get what you need as quickly as possible.

While most of your time is spent on foot, occasionally you might be lucky enough to hop into a tank and command it.  The possibility of piloting a hovercraft exists as well.  This is a nice change of pace from the action and gives you a little breather.  Controlling these vehicles does take a bit to get used to though, especially since you can rotate the turret on your tank.

Gathering money allows you to upgrade your weapons.  That isn’t cheap though, and most of the time when you find a cache of money, it only brings in about 1000 money units.  When the upgrades cost $75000 and up, it takes a while to earn the upgrades.  You can also gain abilities by completing challenge modes.  These abilities include carrying more grenades or being able to set C4 twice as quickly.  This gives you incentive to play these challenges.

Liberation has 16 single-player missions included, and each of the missions has several chapters in it, so solo gamers are going to get their money’s worth.  24 challenge games are included as well.  The challenge games give you an objective. You can earn a Bronze, Silver, or Gold medal for each challenge.  While these challenges are included to hone your skills, completists will find a big challenge earning a Gold medal.

If that isn’t enough, there are six multiplayer maps included for online gameplay.  The four modes of play during multiplayer include Campaign Co-op, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Assault, and Capture the Flag.  Liberation handles both ad-hoc and infrastructure mode for up to six players.  It also includes a game sharing mode where your copy of the game can transmit a demo of Liberation to a friend's PSP.

Killzone: Liberation breaks the mold of the original Killzone and creates a new experience on the PSP.  If you are looking for some fun action against the Helghast, then you’ll definitely want to take a look at this title.  The controls are easy to get used to, though the aiming can take a little to adjust to.  The missions are straightforward, but do provide a good challenge.  Even if you aren't familiar with the Killzone universe, this title is easy to pick up an play.  While Killzone: Liberation isn’t mindblowing and has some flaws, it's a good action game for a game system on the go.

Gaming Trend Score

79

1. Graphics: 82
2. Audio: 78
3. Controls: 72
4. Gameplay: 80
5. Value/Replay: 84
6. OVERALL:79