Killzone: Liberation

Reviewer's Ratings

0.0 Graphics

0

Unrated

0.0 Sound

0

Unrated

0.0 Gameplay

0

Unrated

Killzone: Liberation right now is one of my favorite PSP game right now. As the name obviously implies, it takes place in the Killzone universe, but the twist is that it isn't a FPS. Liberation brings in a whole new type of gameplay by making it a third person shooter, with an isometric, point of view. This might scare you, but the system works incredibly well and feels alot better than Killzone 1.

You move with the analog stick, shoot with square, grenade with circle, perform actions with X and reload with X. Crouching (with R1) will stop you from moving, but also allows for increased accuracy, crouching behind cover, then shooting will cause you player to automatically pop-up and take the shot. While running, you can double tap L1 to roll.

Though the game has an isometric view, it's entirely 3D. But shooting at enemies higher than you sounds impossible, right? No, the game will automatically lock-on to enemies in your direct view, no matter how high or low they are, it works very well.

Another highpoint of the game is the AI. The intelligence of your team-mates and enemies is very good. They will take cover, pop-out to shoot, use the environment to their advantage and interact with everything around them. Your team-mates will be able to take care of themselves, and so will you enemies.

Due to the fantastic AI, the game is quite hard. And it doesn't help that Helghast soldiers can take in a clip and half before they actually die. Adding to that, you're always out-numbered. Let's see, there are two enemies in front of you, with nothing but each of your sandbags for cover, on a higher ledge there are three other soldiers, two with homing rocket launchers, and all you have is a measly assault rifle. If that's not fair, I don't know what is...

Luckily sometimes you'll be accompanied by a fellow soldier, usually the wise cracking Rico. By pressing the up button, you slow down time time so you can choose what you want Rico to shoot, where you want him to go and what you want him to blow up. Like everyone else, he's quite smart and can take care of himself, but he can still die, so you better bring a large supply of syringes. Just remember, commands only slow down time, it doesn't stop it.

The graphics in the game are very good and show off the systems graphical capabilities. All the textures look right, and there's a decent amount of polygons in each level. Blurs and shiny surfaces only only add to the already hefty amount of effects. Plus, due to the PSP's small, wide, high quality screen and the games zoomed out view, you can't see any washed out textures or models. A points in the game, it can even look like a downloadable 360 game.

The sound is also quite impressive. It isn't quite as good as Medal Of Honor or Call OF Duty, but the guns sound just right. The voice acting isn't that bad either, hearing Helghan soldiers screaming and dying will ever get annoying. The music is your basic military marching song, so ther isn't much impression in the music section.

Finally, the multiplayer. The game has a large and well designed multiplayer mode. You can play only by Ad-Hoc, at first, but downloading the patch will give you extra characters to use fir multiplayer and an Infrastucture mode, to play over Wi-Fi. Playing online is fun and with lag most of the time. You may see some hackers, but not as much as in Fireteam Bravo 2.

Last but not least, the game isn't that long. There are four mission (with an extra mission available for download) each with four parts. A good player can beat the game in 5 hours, but with the amount of times that normal people will die (it will happen, alot), you can get nearly 10 hours in campaign mode. But if you downloaded the patch, the infrastucture mode will give you many more hours of enjoyment, making the replay value quite high.

All in all, Killzone: Liberation is a very good game and is definately worth an investment!