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[Musashi Wins!]

And thought I'd chat about it. Probably not a good idea since both the hatred and the praise are way out of proportion around here. Still, it's been on my radar and it was nice to get a taste before release.

It has a lot of style going for it. It's very futuristic and fun to look at (even with several graphical flaws in the demo). Even though it's a bombed out, gritty reality, it has a certain fashionable flair to all the scenery that makes it feel like a mix of Aliens meets Calvin Klein. It's hard to explain if you haven't looked at a lot of the media, but it works. It works so well that it sort of raises the rest of the game beyond the pretty average gameplay.

Using the demo as an example...the AI is atrocious, though it's acceptable in the sort of Helghast (sp?) are marauding animal enemies set-up. The weapons are animated quite well, but the visceral shooting feeling of the best shooters is lacking. It's not really helped by the PS2 controller either. Again, the graphical design is very nice, I like the reloading, the weapons themselves, etc. It has several things I like...the Halo like health bar, crouching, grenade baking, etc. But it's heavily flawed by the poor throwing physics, lack of ability to jump over the smallest obstacles, and if the demo is any example an EXTREME linearity. Seriously, the environments are pretty nice but you are so hemmed in to the path by doors and ridiculous obstacles that it brings back memories of the absolutely horrid Shellshock. It's a shame that there's no freedom on display to explore the beautiful buildings or battlefields to any great extent. Perhaps multiplayer will remedy that.

So...it's pretty. Not as pretty as it has "nice art" as there was pop-up and slowdown aplenty on the demo at least. And it's distinctive especially on the PS2. But honestly, for as many shooters get produced, most of them suck and if the online portion is meaty this has a chance at grabbing my interest eventually. It's not the next big thing going on first impressions, but it's far from the bottom of the bucket.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

I was starting to get into the demo and then it timed out on me. Which is possibly the thing I hate the most, demos timing out. It is the worst way to do things. I sometimes wonder why they bother putting out demos, because so many of them make stupid mistakes like being too short and abruptly timing out. Given even the shortest games can end up being at least 5 hours there's no excuse for ten minute demos that don't give a good feel for the game. Your trying to sell your game so why are you slapping the player in the face.

A good demo should form a distinct section which a player can play as quickly or as slowly as they wish and it should have a clear and signposted end so you don't rip them away from the action and they should a decent length. This isn't a trade show, you don't have a queue of people waiting and nobody who is enjoying a demo ten minutes in is going to think I've had my fill of this game 20 minutes later.

So annoyed was I at this slight that I haven't bother with demo since. Which means I'm in less of a Killzone place, which is not good for sales.

So devs, think about what you are doing when you are putting these things together. Don't just bung your tradeshow demo on a disk, it's a different circumstance.

 

[Lord Error]

it's heavily flawed by the poor throwing physics

AFAIK, they redid the physics completely in the builds after that demo. The game now has ragdoll physics for enemies when they die (blown away by an explosion, etc). It looked nice in one video I saw. The dying animations they had before were pretty crappy.

Does anyone living in Canada knows if anyone here is giving this demo away with preorder?

 

[Defensor]

AFAIK, they redid the physics completely in the builds after that demo. The game now has ragdoll physics for enemies when they die (blown away by an explosion, etc). It looked nice in one video I saw. The dying animations they had before were pretty crappy.

Does anyone living in Canada knows if anyone here is giving this demo away with preorder?

The Circuit City Demo does have the ragdoll physics in(IIRC I don't remember the E3 demo having it). Plus doing a well placed headshot actually kill an enemy with one shot. Marc, I did see a new Playstation 2 Jampack demo disc with a red cover that has playable demos of Killzone, MGS3, and along with more of the upcoming games at Toyrus tonight. I was about to pick it up but since I had the OPM demo disc with MGS3 and the CC Killzone demo I backed out.

 

[sc0la]

played it a few days ago. Was going to post impressions, but I just couldn't convince myself to keep playing it long enough to flesh those impressions out, besides the MGS 3 demo was begging me to take out killzone and put it in instead

The graphics are nice, but the draw distances are nothing to write home about, and the enemy AI was pretty much shit tastic, with the exception of their aim which was remarkably ood.

the controls are a bit stiff, and the whole play experience feels a bit weighted down. some noticable stutter especially when turning, loading into and out of the pause screen was also quite annoing.

Aiming was a bit frustrating and the "realism" that gun kick aiming error just added frustration. Why at 40 yards when I aiming directly at an enemy's body mass is he shooting the fuck out of me and I am not getting [hits on him? (edit)]

I chuckled at heavy machine gun fire not being able to penetrate chain link fences.

Voice acting wasn't bad, and facial animation was cool too, but the lip synch was sort of whack.

The sniper scope, goggle effects and relode animations were all awesome. But pretty isn't going to get me to play (or at least buy)a game that feels this cumbersome. Halo killer it is not.

Could be a fun rental for the graphics and grit.

 

[Gorilla Jones]

are any of the environments destructable? How about pop in? Thanks

 

[Lord Error]

Marc, I did see a new Playstation 2 Jampack demo disc with a red cover that has playable demos of Killzone, MGS3

Ah nice. I hope the Jampack MGS3 demo doesn't have the timeout.

 

[sc0la]

I didn't notice any destructab;e environments in my time with it.

no time out either, this was the gamestop demo. But maybe I just sucked and died before time out

Pop in was pretty bad on one of the stages, the trench thing with dust to mask enemy pop in. didn't seem game breaking in the other level however.


MGS demo in us playstation mag isn't timed.

 

[gmoran]

My expectations for this game have been a bit up and down.

Played the demo this week from the UK OPM. No trench level and the 2nd level is timed. I agree with much of what's been written in this thread.

The game looks great: despite only having medium PS2 IQ; and some visible polygon seams (like you used to get on old PS1 games). Ico goes to war is how I've described it before.

The other thing I really like is that it goes someway to conveying the feeling that you are seeing through the eye of a physical person not just a floating reticle with an arm and gun floating beneath. You bob convincingly when you move, when you run your weapon gets out the way, when you throw a grenade your weapon is out the way and afterwards you look down while you sort your weapon out, if you jump over a wall you look down and you place your hand on the wall, the reload's are brilliant and you look at your weapon as you do it. Also you can prime a grenade without throwing it by holding the button, green lights count it down, let go before it blows, which looks and works great.

Control is fine, not smooth like Halo but I didn't have a problem controling my player. Lack of auto aim hurts a bit, but I'm rubbish at FPS's and I managed to aim and kill. I like the way the muzzle rises on the assault rifle. In fact I like the way the game leaves you vulnerable with weapon reolads, and running, and using a grenade; it gives it a tactical feel.

My main disagreement with the posters here is about the AI. First off your companions AI seems pretty perfect to me, they rarely get in your way, they will cover for you, and they will fight, give them time and they'll complete battles by themselves. The Helghast AI is dodgier, sometimes they do really dumb stuff - like facing a wall allowing themselves to get slotted; but most of the time they fight with some degree of intelligence - and they seem coordinated as well; they take cover, advance in steps with others providing cover, use secondary weapons. They are not particulalrly difficult, but there does seem to be some genuine sort of AI algorithm in there; as opposed to scripted path finders. If I had to compare it to something, it would be Halo on easiest.

The slums level is pretty linear; but most console FPS's are? I mean Halo is a legendary game, but despite some open environments its pretty linear.

Also worth mentioning, the models used to choose your player are superb; they are not pre-rendered, yet look really natural, particularly the movement and skin textures. I think the models are pretty good in game as well, better than the people models in Halo (IMO). Lugers voice is ace as well: brit girl voice, great voice acting.

There is a bug vaulting over walls, in that if you dont keep moving forward after the jump you get trapped in the wall. Also I was killed and thrown into a block of concrete, and as it panned away you could see I was embedded in the concrete.

The best thing about it is the atmosphere, the urban look, great weapon animations, audio, particle effects. Gameplay is fine, do I need to say it isn't a Halo beater?

 

[Vashu]

Well, despite the obvious flaws (I received the demo 2 weeks ago, don't ask ) I kinda like this game. Though not a fan of console-shooters (I think Halo is a rather standard shooter, and I've started with Wolfenstein 3D mind you ), I know it's going to be a blast on the PS2. Sure, the AI is a bit dodgy, but the final code has only been completed the past week, so I think it's safe to say that it's been worked on. Also, note that the demo has been set on EASY, that's been confirmed by some high function guy (can't say who ) of Sony Europe.

I really hope they did fix the really really really really really really (think you get the point by now) bad ragdoll physics. Bodies would just move in all sorts of weird manners just to get down the ground, legs and arms sweeping out of control to lay in one sort of position.

The demo has it's flaws, but considering it contains material not yet finished (as with more demo's) it does the job well. Atmosphere is great, music in the menu is bombastic enough to get you in a sort of: I'm ready to go to war-feeling and the models are richly detailed. Controls need a bit of getting used to, but once you do, it's quite easy to control. Auto-Aim is, as far as I know, an option in the full-game, though I'd probably leave it off.

All in all, seeing how the demo worked out, Guerrilla did a pretty good job with this game. Hooray for my fellow countrymen!

 

[Baron]

I picked up this demo at Circuit City yesterday, played it for only a short bit so far. Actually, I picked up three of the demos, complete in case, for the total of 3 cents - 1 cent each, heh. Figured I could always use some replacement game cases.

Does the demo let you go online and play? I couldn't see any option to do so.

 

[joshschw]

Did any of you actually get stuck at all on the trench level, I got stuck twice, just by invisible walls apparently. one was the 'field' after you get to the place with the roof and go up the stair case, and the other I dont remember.

 

[unkasa]

I love the game, so far. The AI could be improved, but it's far from terrible. Killzone is suffuse with atmosphere, from the staggering attention to detail to an ambience that draws you in from the outset. Having played the demo, I can't quite grasp why the game was even compared to Halo. It plays nothing like Halo, nor does it appear that the design team sought to make it do so. If anything, this game is the natural evolution from Call of Duty; it has everything that made Call of Duty great, only with greater detail and more impressive visuals. If they're able to iron out the few wrinkles that appear, this game has a real chance of being the next big FPS.

 

[Baron]

BUT DOES THE DEMO LET YOU GO ONLINE AND PLAY?

 

[Defensor]

BUT DOES THE DEMO LET YOU GO ONLINE AND PLAY?

nope.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

I love the game, so far. The AI could be improved, but it's far from terrible. Killzone is suffuse with atmosphere, from the staggering attention to detail to an ambience that draws you in from the outset. Having played the demo, I can't quite grasp why the game was even compared to Halo. It plays nothing like Halo, nor does it appear that the design team sought to make it do so. If anything, this game is the natural evolution from Call of Duty; it has everything that made Call of Duty great, only with greater detail and more impressive visuals. If they're able to iron out the few wrinkles that appear, this game has a real chance of being the next big FPS.

It's definitely striking, I'll be sorely tempted to pick up the final version, but I just don't get the contrast in experience in AI or graphics. Though I'm crazy about some of the environments. I'm not the largest fan of CoD, but in my brief demo experience it didn't even compare. And it doesn't have to compare to any other game, hopefully it strikes it's own, pleasing path. But...hmmm.

 

[Truelize]

MGS demo in us playstation mag isn't timed.

No but if you let Snake stand still for too long while you check out the paths of the guards the game times out. That's what he meant. Really frustrating for someone that likes to really take a look at what's going on.

I haven't had a chance to play any Killzone demo but I thought this thread was appropiate for any comments I had about the video footage that is on the EGM dvd that I just watched. The AI looked pretty bad. Several times the player was shoot an enemy in the side of the head and the enemy didn't turn and face the gun fire at all. And none of the enemies ever seemed to even try to get out of the way of gunfire. They just kept running into it. Even when the player was controlling a heavy gun turret. I was not impressed at all.
It's funny that so many people bash Halo and can't wait for a Halo-killer but no one can seem to make a FPS that has A.I. that acts as intelligently as Halo's.

 

[sc0la]

No but if you let Snake stand still for too long while you check out the paths of the guards the game times out. That's what he meant. Really frustrating for someone that likes to really take a look at what's going on.

:lol really? thats why I suck at the game. I have no patience I will crawl around through the grass and do dumb shit like hie behind tress then dive in mud while trying to scope the patterns :lol

I never sat still haha.