Critique of Killzone 3 Beta

First, I want to thank my friend Cloud_Fury for giving me the code. He generously gave it up for me to enjoy, and I really owe him for it. Thanks a lot bud!

Onto the impressions:

This is purely a list of critical complaints. It doesn’t mean I don’t like the game or enjoy aspects to it, but I won’t mention them because I won’t be saying anything new that everybody else has already said.

I will not be mentioning graphical bugs, or anything that can be fixed with basic polish. This is, for the most part, about the core gameplay.

This is a first-impressions, I've only played for around 3-4 hours so far. The following is a combination of experience and what I've seen in videos.

This is a quick look, I haven’t prepared anything or proofread so forgive me if I say something difficult to understand.
So immediately it’s the controls you will notice, and a lot like K2’s controls this is going to be controversial. However this time, it’s going to be the K2 fans complaining, not the labeled “COD” fans.

And indeed it’s a stark contrast. While K2 was slow, sluggish, and heavy, K3 is light, fast, and floaty. It’s got a more “BC2” feel than a “COD” feel, but it’s definitely not unique. And while I was critical of the unresponsiveness of K2, I was more than satisfied with the post-release patch they did. Now the controls are even sharper, and the missing feeling here Is that “meaty”, heavy feel. And I actually miss it.

Part of this is due to recoil. When firing a gun you have that gritty feeling Killzone is known for—the M82 actually sounds more like a drummer drumming than the firecracker sound in Killzone 2, and putting bullets into enemies is just as satisfying with the gorgeous blood and hit detection animations. But while all this is fine, the actual satisfaction of killing enemies is diminished. It’s hard to explain, but to pin the tail, it’s really easy to get kills. The lack of recoil makes it easy to rack up lightning quick double and triple kills. And part of the fun of shooting in Killzone 2 was feeling that kick in your gun. In Killzone 3 it's gone. The floaty feeling and the lack of recoil make the feeling fall flat from Killzone 2.

Along with this is a lower base health making killing much reckless. The COD comparisons are imminent. And sadly K3 feels more like a BC2/COD hybrid in terms of gameplay than it does K2.

I honestly don’t mind the sharper controls. Killzone purists on the other hand are already up in arms about Killzone 3’s “lack of identity”

But if I were to complain about controls then I definitely will have to agree that recoil and damage need a buff.

The real issue here is the LMG. This is by far the most versatile gun. It’s pretty much a sniper at mid-long range and can mow down any enemy with ease. The lack of recoil is disturbing and it’s entirely possible to go full-auto and expect to get kills from good distances. Reckless behavior is essentially rewarded and this ought to be fixed. Expect to drop within a blink of an eye from more than snipers when you are in an open field.

In fact, headshots in general are undermined. Whilst in K2 body shots had you putting an entire clip into an enemy, body shots in K3 put an enemy down fairly fast. SMGs do a fair job as the standard gun. Low recoil compared with the fact that this can actually get decent kills at even long-mid range makes the SMG a weapon that is all too commonly used on the battlefield. It’s the “standard” weapon for all classes but it’s a little too strong for my liking.

Again, a good boost in health should solve this.

Then there is the sniper rifle. Once again a single registered shot, from what I’ve experienced, rewards you with a kill. And while this was fine in Killzone 2’s more control-challenging game, it’s way too overpowered in K3. The responsiveness of the controls makes it all too easy to stay at a distance and pick off players. Again, it’s a case of rewarding impatience and recklessness. One Hit Kills should go towards headshots, but I shouldn’t be rewarded a kill if I should at a limb (if my experiences were wrong please correct me about this conclusion).

I also fear that the sniper is a little too anti-teamwork this time around and while the spot ability contributed to the team in K2, the marksman in K3 really doesn’t mark anything or do anything for the team, save for Bodycount matches. This is really a matter of how the community uses the marksman. Hopefully the class is not treated as it was in Bad Company 2.

I’m still debating whether the removal of the spot ability from this class was a good idea. It makes sense to give it to the marksman class but at the same time the class already has a mega-advantage with the one-hit-kill sniper.

Speaking of classes, the poor tactitian has been dumbed down for the sake of gameplay sanity.

Killzone 2’s spawn grenading was a genuinely great concept marred by a ridiculously stupid community. And since it was evident that the community never learned how to use the damned thing, the spawn system has been completely changed. It’s a sad sacrifice that removes the tactical potential Killzone 2 offered the class, but the chaos it brought was the double edged sword of this class. The pros were outweighed by the cons.

But now there is yet another potential issue. While the new spawn system guarantees less chaos, it’s actually become too quiet. What you can experience in Warzone is a wave of contrasting pacing.

This is especially evident in Search and Destroy which has become impossible to win. It's a difficult mode by design that requires teamwork. Unfortunately the game is played in a disjointed manner (part of this due to the party system which I will explain later).

In K2 the solution was simple: throw spawn grenades and hope that your team outspammed the chaos against 31 other players in a room.

In K3 the removal of the spawn grenades scatters teammates across the map.

Since you spawn so far away it’s too easy for the enemy to pick off the lone troopers trying to plant the bombs. Partly to blame is the placement of objectives. The objectives are way too close to each other. What results is all members of the defending team hanging around the objective area, patrolling the bomb site with ease.

Compare this to Demolitions in Call of Duty where the advantage for the offense team comes out of the lack of defense. In K3, defense can be airtight and impossible to penetrate because of the spawn system.

Way too often cloaked snipers hide and wait the few players who attempt to plant the bomb. The rest of the team is either running towards the objective or doing something else.

The potential for spawn-camping is also evident. In one match, our team kept getting blasted by a spamming exo-skeleton who would spam rockets and shoot our exit. I also want to mention that you spawn exactly at the same spot every time in your captured spawn point.

At the same time a spawn point is meant to be captured by enemy teams, so I don’t necessarily mind it. So long as there are multiple exits then it ought not to be bad. There is however the issue that if one team manages to capture all the spawn points, the enemy team will get dominated. I suppose this can be blamed on the team just being inferior. So while the new spawn system has its drawbacks, the importance of the tactitian is still vital to a good turnaround.

Then there is the new squad system, which by the way has a counter-intuitive invite system now. Everybody spawns with no squadmates (unless you create a party), and people who actually bother have to go through the process of getting taken out of the action to send PSN invites to people on his team. It’s slow, can't be done pre-game, and people don't bother with it. I personally invited all members of my team and we had a pretty sizable squad, which should offset the spawn system in Killzone 3 that slows down modes like S&D.

Two other things: In-game ribbons and “Special Abilities”.

In-game ribbons are different this time around. It seems that for achieving the requirements for a ribbon you actually get a bonus for that game you are in. For example, do the right thing to earn a "Faster reload" ribbon and you can actually reload faster for the remainder of the game. Consider it like perks you have to earn.

By any mid-game you should have silent footsteps, bullet damage, faster aim, better hip fire, etc.

I’m not sure how I feel about this system. I also don’t like the idea of extra bullet damage or the idea of having these sorts of advantages over others. Some ribbons like Silent footsteps seems like it has no real purpose, while others like extra bullet damage seem to overdo the already high damage you can do. Granted this is a unique take on it, but I am not exactly sure how beneficial they are.

And as for special abilities, they feel a little misplaced. Essentially they are a very small list of perks that you can spawn with, as opposed to the ones you earn in-game. Included are extra health, extra armor (I cant tell the difference between these two), extra ammo, two primary weapons, etc.

They feel a little tacked on and when you consider the in-game ribbons you really get this sense that by the end of a game some players will be intrinsically more powerful than others.

From experience I’m not sure if these are exactly that noticeable on the battlefield. However something like extra damage ribbons are something I’ll be looking out for.

It's worthy to point out that there is an evident choppiness to the gameplay. It's not lag (as tested against bot games), it's just that the framerate is a little choppy. Rest assured that this is because it's Alpha code as Killzone 2 was much smoother.

Brutal melee is the final big change, and while it's really cool to do, there are three concerns:

a) It's automatic, meaning you can't decide when to do the brutal melee. The issue here is that you could be wanting to get a quick melee and instead you could end up doing a flashy kill taking up valuable time, in which time you could easily get noticed and killed

b) Melees have a lunge/hit detection problem. Sometimes I wont be anywhere near making contact but I'll get a melee kill

c) It's one-hit kill. I'd much prefer if basic melees did damage while brutal melee did instant-kill. That way you'd get rewarded for doing a brutal melee instead of trying to just look cool.

And then there are the jetpacks. While incredibly fun, the jetpacks have a very limited fly-time. It's most like an attachable jump pad from what I've used. I wouldn't mind if the fly-time was extended. Maybe you can fly higher in mid-after after your initial thrusters deplete, but I haven't tried this and doubt this is possible. I will continue using them, perhaps I didn't fully grasp how to use them.

One final complaint: I hate the black and white draining when you lose health. It really is distracting, as worse as the “red jelly” in Modern Warfare 2. When you combine how fast your health can drop you essentially are even more disadvantaged to fight back because you become so disoriented by the blending in of the environment that you pretty much either run and fire like an idiot or accept that you will die. I feel that it should be removed.

In summary, Killzone 3 is far different from Killzone 2. Purists may be upset, and it’s evident that though it looks like Killzone, it doesn’t feel like the Killzone you may have adapted to. Some people criticize GG for caving in to COD fanboys, others praise the new changes, and yet others are bargaining for a more balanced compensation. I feel that while Guerilla Games had a few flaws with the controls in K2, they went a little too far out this time. While Guerilla Games may stand their ground with the new approach, there is nothing too wrong with the gameplay—it’s still fun—but don’t expect to be comfortable if you are a Killzone 2 veteran. You may either end up adapting to this new style or resenting Guerilla Games for feeling too similar to other shooters. Personally, I’m hoping Guerilla Games can make some significant adjustments