Killzone, Killzone 2 and Killzone 3 – A brief history of Killzone franchise – Part 1
The Killzone series has gone to become one of PlayStation’s and the gaming world’s most popular franchises, though the ride was not a smooth one for the award winning series.
When the first game, Killzone, was in the process of being marketed for release, the hype created by Sony for the title was phenomenal. Many believed it to be a Halo killer; The Halo series was Microsoft’s premier first person shooter and had set the bench
mark for games in the genre.
Sadly though, the hype ended up stifling the game, though it was not because the game was not any good - in fact it was a solid first person shooter. It was because the expectations were raised so high that the game just could not deliver on the promises.
The gameplay was as solid as any first person shooter on the market at the time, the atmosphere created in the game was something that would go on to be a trademark in Killzone series and the variety in levels was admirable.
Guerrilla Games were not afraid of experimenting either, as they brought in a new gameplay mechanic for the scope in sniper rifles. Rather than having the reticule fixed, players could maneuver the cross hairs around while the scope stayed fixed in the same
spot. It was something new, though ended up being more of a novelty and did not return for Killzone 2.
What let the game down though was a number of glitches; the enemy AI would falter at times and would take a large amount of damage without moving, seemingly oblivious to the barrage of bullets ripping through his body.
In the end however, what Killzone did provide was a truly atmospheric first person shooter, which although not perfect, was solid enough to hold its own and secondly it gave the console an icon in the form of the red-goggled Helghast.
There was however, one slight issue with the game’s storyline; whenever one gamer would try and explain the plot to another, it seemed rather far fetched. An army from another planet, who were very similar to a certain group from World War II, had invaded
and were attempting to take over another planet.
The plot just ended up as a bit of a joke, rather than something gamers could take seriously.
Reflecting back on the title, it cannot be termed a failure or a flop in any sense. The game received an average score of 73% (according to Game Rankings), with critics seemly torn between range of 9.5 out of a 10 and 6.9 out of 10. It became a love it or
hate it title of sorts.
Killzone disappeared for a few years until E3 2005, where a trailer at the Sony Press Conference had everyone’s eyebrow raised as high as they could go. It was later revealed that the, aforementioned, trailer was actually pre-rendered and to some extent
killed the excitement.
However, when the full blown in-game trailer was premiered at the same event, two years later, it had the audience in awe as to how similar it was to the previous pre-rendered one. In fact, some even considered it to better.
This article and the history of Killzone is continued in: Killzone, Killzone 2 and Killzone 3 – A brief history of Killzone franchise – Feature – Part 2
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