Has any young franchise ever labored under so many freighted expectations? Long before Guerrilla Games' completed Killzone in 2004, back when word was slowly was starting to leak about a mysterious first-person shooter from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe named Kin, that same grapevine carried word that Sony was calling this shooter its "Halo killer." Sony credibly denied this, saying that the frenzy was being whipped up instead by gossipy game journalists, yet the damn-near-impossible-to-live-up-to label stuck, as much from the desires of shooter-bereft PlayStation 2 owners as from the derision of Halo fanatics. And while the end result had several compelling attributes--its riveting opening movie; its muted, blown out color palette; its painterly art direction; and its deliberate evocation of major wars and conflicts of the twentieth century within a futuristic setting--the first Killzone was ultimately much too ambitious for the PS2 to handle, resulting in one of the best mediocre games we've ever had fun playing.
Next, when Killzone 2's mind-blowing E3 2005 trailer turned out to be a computer-generated movie, the hearts of all but the stoutest of Sony fanboys hardened, with many predicting that Guerrilla would never be able to live up to its own hype. In the wake of that perceived betrayal, neither 2006's well-received PSP installment (Killzone: Liberation) nor an intriguingly promising but not-quite-there-yet technical demonstration of Killzone 2 multiplayer's physics system did much to sway journalists' opinion. But through it all, SCE and Guerrilla kept pushing for what they firmly believed they were capable of achieving. And when the "Killzone 2: Mission Accomplished" slide came up at the end of the 20-minute demo, followed by loud, sustained applause from the skeptical crowd of journalists, the gesture transformed itself from a "F--- you" to a statement of fact: for the moment, Guerrilla's promise had been realized.
When we arrived at SCE's Santa Monica studios for our world exclusive first hands-on session (see here for our report), we were escorted into a conference room to sit down with Guerrilla managing director Hermen Hulst, producer Steven ter Heide, and game director Mathijs de Jonge. We began with another playthrough of the level with de Jonge at the controls and ter Heide manning a keyboard plugged into the PS3 development kit, periodically slowing down or pausing the action so that we could discuss a particular detail.
First, Hulst wanted to show us not only that everything from the level's introductory cinematic to the actual ground combat was in-engine, but also to note the amount of detail in the level. So we paused the game with the intruder landing vehicle still airborne so that de Jonge could move the camera through the clouds and all the way down to the city square below--seamlessly. There were no tricks, the entire level was there, already loaded into memory so that we could eventually enjoy a seamless transition from the cinematic to live gameplay. As we zoomed back out to the clouds to resume the demo, we asked de Jonge about the three tower-like ships hovering above the cloud cover at the beginning of both the trailer and the demo. He informed us that those were the Vektan cruisers, from which the ISA is launching its invasion of Helghan. He added that the game itself will begin in media res, with the invasion of Helghan already in progress. The majority of the Helghan citizenry will have already fled their homes--a convenient explanation for the generally empty cityscapes many shooters generally feature, de Jonge acknowledged--but the game's opening will provide further details on that particular story element.
As he pointed out the game's Mohawk-sporting main character--stressing that there are more polygons in a single character model in Killzone 2 than in an entire level from Killzone 1--it finally clicked that we would no longer be playing as Jan Templar, the hero of both Killzone and Killzone: Liberation. The new lead's name is Sev, a veteran of the Legion, which are the ISA's equivalent of Special Forces. Only Rico returns from the first two games for a major role. Hakha is nowhere to be found, but Lugar will make a small appearance, while Evelyn from Liberation will serve as you point of contact on the cruiser. Gamers will periodically return to one of the cruisers between missions, which will serve as a hub of sorts.
When de Jonge hit the ground and began playing the game, Hulst said that they added the brief checkpoint-style pause at that point specifically for the demo so that journalists could see for themselves that the game is real. The final game will have a seamless transition from cinematics to combat. As de Jong continued to lay waste to the Helghast, Hulst and ter Heide explained the game's extensive post-processing system, which allows for a more subtle film grain effect than the one in the first game, along with blur and depth of field. What was most striking was when they turned the post-processing effects off: the level looked almost completely different, as if it were taking place in the mid-afternoon. It's clear that while Guerilla's painterly art style is still very much in effect, it's not just the PS3 that makes the planet of Helghan look different from that of Vecta; the designers have art directed them differently as well.
When ter Heide turned the post-processing effects back on, we finally understood the uneasy feeling that the level evoked within us; their careful real-time calibration of the game's light, shadow and color--"we replace the sunnier colors with darker, grittier colors," says ter Heide--combined with the art direction and level design to create the oppressive gloom that they wanted. "The planet is meant to be hostile," said de Jonge. "The desaturated colors suit it." We hope that SCE and Guerrilla eventually release some video footage showing the difference that their post-processing effects make, because you have to see it to believe it. And from what sources in the know tell us, it's a similar special sauce that has Activision and Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare looking similarly hot.
The cover system that we praised in our hands-on post was coded by the same programmer who handled the cover mechanics in the PSP game Killzone: Liberation, showing that the franchise's detour to handhelds provided some additional benefits. They switched to a third-person perspective (that's just a developer trick; the final game will be first-person only) so that we could see all of the cover animations, by way of explaining that the cover system was designed by first animating Sev from a third-person view, then tweaking the look of it from a first-person perspective. "We expected it to be complicated," said Hulst, "but our programmer took care of it pretty quickly."
One of the things that made us believe in Guerrilla's potential, even when it hadn't yet been fully realized, was the company's attention to detail. Looking up above, we see cables that look like power lines or telephone lines, swaying in the wind. (There's practically not a jagged line to be found on the power lines, or any other lines, for that matter; we're told it's because Killzone 2 is using the Cell's SPUs and the RSX graphics chip to achieve 4x full-screen anti-aliasing.) There's a glow decal that happens when bullets make contact; right now it's applied to all weapons, but they're planning to dial it back and only have it apply to certain weapons. Even the tracer fire seems specific to Killzone 2, as if it has a slight upward arc the further it gets from the muzzle. When you kill a Helghast, a red pool of blood not only forms to indicate that he's dead, but it also turns yellowish over time. The dramatic light and shadow in the previous screenshot of the Helghast vaulting over a rail, which has been the subject of much chatter online, comes from the game's multiple dynamic lights. There's even a complete Helghan alphabet, seen on signage throughout the level, which was created by the game's concept designers. And while we don't think it will replace Klingon anytime soon, it's still evidence of how much specificity the people at Guerrilla want to bring to the Killzone universe now that the console they're working on finally matches their ambition.
From the time that we've spent with the folks at Guerrilla following Tuesday night's media preview and yesterday's exclusive hands-on session, the impression that we've gotten is that they're proud of their achievement, while recognizing that they still have many miles to go. But what Guerrilla managing director Hulst, ter Heide and de Jonge seemed happiest about is the excitement that the extraordinarily positive reaction has created among the rest of the team back home. We're happy that they're happy, but we'll be even happier when they finish the game--so that we can judge the finished product for ourselves.
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nice that you cleared the doubt. And yeah virtual keyboard sucks