E3 07: Killzone 2 - first look

While the first Killzone was once called a Halo-killer, Killzone 2 seems to be the PS3's answer to Gears of War. The colors are bleak (partly a carryover from the last game, and partly because the game is set on the unforgiving planet Helghan), the environments we saw were crumbling industrial zones and, while there's no chainsaw-dismemberment (that we saw, anyway), the blood nevertheless has that same dark, viscous quality that made Gears so memorable. Even better, it sprays all over the place, and when the Helghast troops inevitably keel over, they'll leave a spreading pool of it that'll realistically trickle down sloped terrain - and up it, in the demo we saw. Given that, and several points at which the demo froze or got choppy for a few seconds, it's obvious the game still has a long way to go before its nebulous 2008 release date. (And also obvious that what we saw was not fake.)

Gameplay-wise, Killzone 2 looks largely unchanged from the first Killzone. It's still a semi-realistic first-person shooter, and the weapons you'll carry look suspiciously similar to the assault rifles and rocket launchers you could find in the first game (albeit with a steep visual upgrade). There are a few cool new additions - zooming in with an assault rifle fills your view with its green rangefinder lens, for example, and you can crouch behind cover and fire over the top, which is always good. The game's soldiers also appear to have a few new tricks up their sleeves, as we watched both Helghast and ISA troops clamber over high walls and fences realistically (something you may or may not be able to do yourself).

But overall, Killzone 2's big selling point seems to be that it's a much prettier, deeper and more intense take on the first game. Unlike the relatively flat environments from the first game, for example, your surroundings in Killzone 2 will be at least partially destructible, as we saw when a few bullets chipped the concrete off a couple of pillars, revealing the rebar underneath. Blasting a loudspeaker off the side of a building, meanwhile, silenced the stream of Helghast propaganda that was streaming out of it. The levels will also be huge - climbing up onto a high catwalk gave us a bird's-eye view of the action raging below, which was just as active and chaotic as it was when Sev was wading through the thick of it.

Gameplay-wise, Killzone 2 looks largely unchanged from the first Killzone. It's still a semi-realistic first-person shooter, and the weapons you'll carry look suspiciously similar to the assault rifles and rocket launchers you could find in the first game (albeit with a steep visual upgrade). There are a few cool new additions - zooming in with an assault rifle fills your view with its green rangefinder lens, for example, and you can crouch behind cover and fire over the top, which is always good. The game's soldiers also appear to have a few new tricks up their sleeves, as we watched both Helghast and ISA troops clamber over high walls and fences realistically (something you may or may not be able to do yourself).

But overall, Killzone 2's big selling point seems to be that it's a much prettier, deeper and more intense take on the first game. Unlike the relatively flat environments from the first game, for example, your surroundings in Killzone 2 will be at least partially destructible, as we saw when a few bullets chipped the concrete off a couple of pillars, revealing the rebar underneath. Blasting a loudspeaker off the side of a building, meanwhile, silenced the stream of Helghast propaganda that was streaming out of it. The levels will also be huge - climbing up onto a high catwalk gave us a bird's-eye view of the action raging below, which was just as active and chaotic as it was when Sev was wading through the thick of it.