POSTED 8/1/14


KILLZONE: SHADOW FALL

Sony

It’s the calm before the storm. It’s the snoozle before realising you’ve gotta rise for work. It’s the teensy fart before last night’s burritos go splat.

It’s 30 years on from stuff that happened in Killzone 3, and the crimson-eyed Helghast and Starfleet wannabes the ISA are sharing the planet Vekta, with an anti-fascist protection rampart erected between the two to hopefully stop them popping each other’s clogses. It doesn’t work, things go Bono, and you’re left mopping up messy messes.

You’re Lucas Kellan, a young bloke who hates the Helghast. As you’ll learn in the interminable opening sequence, he’s justified in his xenophobia, for they done gunned down his daddy when he was kiddywinky. A horrible, horrible thing, sure, but when a game’s called “Killzone” the last thing anybody wants to do is sit around for 20-plus minutes watching a movie. Perhaps if it was called “Chillzone”?

Anyway, the upshot – and every other shot from the myriad weaponry you’ll shooty-shoot - is that this isn’t your typical “RARRRRRRRRRRRRR!” Killzone, as fights are more sporadic, strategic and smallerised. The areas in which you trundle, however, are more open world, giving less sense of on-railsiness, even if you really are if wishing to progress.

Being a now-gen launch title, does anybody care about anything beyond prettiness? If not, go nuts, you’ll love this competent FPS, although some hardcore fanpeople may find it a bit too languid for their liking. The shadows mentioned in the title, in particular, look delightful...

If you can look past shiny things to meat and spuds though, you’ll find some cracks. While competent, sure, Killzone: Shadow Fall’s just another FPS. It doesn’t add anything genre-wise, although it admittedly doesn’t subtract anything either. It’s just there.

While we hope devs will soon get the now-gen lead out, we remind the Helghast that Visine gets the red out.

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