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The Killzone franchise arrives on the PSP in fine form. While the original Killzone was inappropriately hyped as the PS2’s Halo killer, Killzone: Liberation lets the gameplay speak on its own. Thankfully this is a finely tuned action game that fits the PSP perfectly.
Killzone: Liberation’s story isn’t gripping but manages to fit in with the universe that the original game started. Once again, you’re a human soldier named Templar. In Killzone, we learned that a group of humans wanted to be their own government and left to a new planet called Helghan. Over time they changed from being human to being a race called Helghast. In the original game, you were tasked with defending a planet called Vetka from Helghast invasion but in Liberation, you are trying to put an end to the Helghast.
The gameplay in Killzone: Liberation is top-notch. Although you might expect the game to be a little light on shooting elements given its perspective, Killzone is a shooter through and through. In the game’s mission you’re given some objectives to complete but by and large you’re shooting your way through these levels killing a number of different enemies. The shooting mechanics, particularly the enemy lock-on, work very well. The A.I. enemies are actually quite smart and you’ll see them try to surprise you, take cover, and even duck. The top down perspective lets you have a good view of your surroundings so that you can take cover and plan out your attacks. Although you can conceivably go through the game just running and shooting, you’ll find that using some strategy will save you some time. At times you’ll be joined by an A.I. character that does a good job of helping keep you alive and generally stays out of your way.
The game’s singleplayer campaign could have been a little longer and the missions could have used some more variety but this is a classic example of great gameplay just letting a game shine. Once you complete a mission in the campaign you can unlock the same mission in the cooperative mode. The missions are identical to the main singleplayer campaign so you have to be careful with ammo since you aren’t given any more. Aside from unlocking a cooperative variant, completing campaign missions also unlocks a new challenge in the game’s challenge mode. The challenge mode is, as you would expect, a series of challenges for you to complete. Most of these challenges focus on a particular skill and completing them allows you to get upgrades in the campaign mode. Some of the available upgrades are unlimited ammo and increased health.
The game includes an excellent multiplayer mode. You’ll find the expected gameplay modes such as deathmatch, team deathmatch, assault and capture the flag. The multiplayer mode supports up to six players via local wireless multiplayer. The reason that multiplayer is so good is because the gameplay easily lends itself to a multiplayer setting. Given that the gameplay is great, it’s easy to see that playing it with others would also be fun. The only complaint in multiplayer is that you can’t play online, although Sony promises to add this feature into the game.
Killzone: Liberation is one of the best looking PSP games currently available. The character models are very detailed and the animation system is splendid. It’s a shame that the zoomed-out camera hides some of this. The game’s lighting and particle effects are amazing thanks to superb explosions. The environments look good although by design they aren’t made to catch your eye. Killzone: Liberation makes great use of ragdoll physics to make the shooting seem even more powerful than it would have otherwise been.
The sound is just as good. The sound effects are great with gunshots and explosions sounding particularly threatening, as they should. The voice acting is pretty good and you’ll hear a good chunk of it as you go around shooting people. The soundtrack is a typical military score which flows with the game very well.
The worst thing that can be said about Killzone: Liberation is that we want more of it. We would have liked a longer single-player experience and we would have liked online multiplayer, but the gameplay in the game is so well done that you would be doing yourself a disservice if you let that stop you from getting the game. Action games do not get much better on the PSP. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Nov 3, 2006
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