THE VISUALS

Killzone 3 is quite possibly the prettiest PlayStation 3 game to date, its only competition being the Stellar Uncharted 2. The character models are well designed and beautifully animated particularly in the games cut scenes. The texture work is so tight you’ll really have to hunt for a low-res graphic. The environments are the most stunning change made to the visual presentation and are absolutely gorgeous. The last game was bashed for featuring a single city/industrial environment and some very brown and grey color schemes; the sequel changes things up with a huge set of different environments that are soaked with color. The game is so colorful even the early stages set in the Helghan city from the last game bleed with a full spectrum of color. The locales are so radically different you will sometimes wonder if your even playing the same game, you will have played through; jungles, dirty trenches, snowcapped mountains and space stations by the time the credits have rolled. Some of the effects from Killzone 2 such as the flamethrower fire were weak and this game improves upon them as well; sky beams, explosions and the fore mentioned flamethrower all look great. 3D

THE SOUND

The audio experience is a mixed bag. The music is as strong as ever and features some great themes that are energetic and heroic, the main track in particular is excellent, featuring a haunting violin sound. The games effects are well done as well; gunfire, explosions, footsteps and ambient machinery all sound fantastic and appropriately real. The voice acting however has some serious problems; the performances of Malcolm McDowell and Ray Winstone are the highlights and are as well done as any of their great film work. Those performances are the exception, the other voice work is cheesy, uninspired and laughable; the voices become seriously distorted when the actors speak any louder than a whisper. I tested this on multiple audio systems and found the distortion to be very jarring; it is as if the voices were mixed by a monkey or recorded with a two-dollar microphone. It seriously holds back the excellence of the game’s Hollywood talent.

THE GAMEPLAY

The gameplay featured in Killzone 2 is nearly mastered in this title. Killzone 3 has the strongest first person shooting gameplay available on the ps3 rivaled only by Modern Warfare 2. Killzone 2 had some very loose controls that are significantly tightened and tweaked here. The game can be played with the control scheme of the last game with the aim button (allowing you to look down your weapon sights for precise shooting) relegated to the r3 button or the much more convenient setup used in Call of Duty that uses the L1 button for this feature. The weapons in the Killzone series have always had a sense of weight to them that feels realistic and immersive, when you reload your weapon the screen will even whip around to focus on your weapon an immersive and well-done feature. The cover system from Killzone 2 returns and is extremely useful.