Destructoid: Once again, Guerrilla Games has brought forth a fresh fistful of DLC for Killzone 2, providing us with two more maps in which to throw our grenades and spam our rocket launchers. The "Flash & Thunder" map pack takes a pair of popular maps from the original Killzone, graphically updates them, and expands them to create two fresh experience for KZ2 fans.
How are the new maps, and are they worth $5.99 of your hard-earned cash? I've given both maps -- Beach Head and Hilltop, a run through, and am now sharing my first Jimpressions of the environments with you, the loyal Destructoid community. Read on for more.
The Flash & Thunder pack has impressed me a lot more than Steel & Titanium did, and I can recommend this pack to any Killzone 2 fans out there. The maps are large, chaotic and fun, both of them being very well designed areas that add a new style of play to the game. If you're into Killzone 2, then this new pack is worth $5.99 of your money.
PSychic Gamers' review for the hit 2009 first person shooter, Killzone 2.
So many things were removed from kz2 that were patched into it from kz3. It's a head scratcher.
huh? go take a look at killzone forums, alpha male has made a near complete list of items from kz2 MIA in kz3.
KZ3 actually has slightly worse graphics than KZ2 because it added the 3D crap feature. There was enough power for that, but NOT enough power to including Online Campaign Co-Op without sacrificing graphics.
lol u dont have HD 108p do you (with HDMi) i can say kz3 looks better but kz2 looks crispier but kz3 looks better ~_@
Barely anything was 'removed' (changed) from KZ2. (tighter turning, tighter reticule on single shot rifle. 2 things.)
And people are high if they think KZ2's graphics were better. The only flaw in KZ3 is the background has aliasing a bit more than it should at times, but techincally is using better AA than KZ2, which used the old method that blurred the screen and made it look lower res. KZ3 is also so much colorful in the right ways while keeping it KZ. So much more detail in the characters, more effects, more everything.
I know, but The_Stacked_Nerd only recently got Killzone 2 - in fact, he only recently got his Playstation - and wanted to review it for our site.
With the release of kz3 kz2 has got more popular check the lobbies theres more people online on kz2 then there was when i got the game a year ago and if killzone 2 is still avalible how is it late? i looked at reviews for it last year a year and a few months after release
Yeah - loads of people are always on. And it lets me move through the ranks quicker!
Great game, it is a shame Black Ops has sold 4 times better than it on its exclusive platform in 4 times less the time, shocking, but true.
Lets blame it on the noobs right? Yeah, this game is noob-unfriendly. Thats the reason
wanted to put 9.4-9.7 but R834 posted it...
Tis a good game - I am going to hopefully plat it next week...
KZ2 online > KZ3 online
KZ3 graphics > KZ2 graphics
KZ3 controls > KZ2 controls
KZ2 difficulty > KZ3
Anything else?
RespawnAction: " The Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package Downloadable Content (DLC) comes out in a few weeks, and many gamers are crying foul. With only three new maps, and two rehashed at a $15 price point, and the original game still plagued with glitches, it isn't hard to see why. Plus the fact that other shooters have graced their games with free DLC as of late. So with that, I think we should all see what first person shooters actually did DLC right. Whether it is free, additions that were caused by community demand, or added a lot to the gameplay, these are the games from this generation (so far) that I feel did DLC right."
No mention at all of TF2's 25 additional maps, 300 achievements, 30 or so weapons, dozens of hats, and bunch of new game modes Valve has relased for the glorious price of $0?
Tsk tsk.
I totally forgot that, and I had it written down too. Gonna go add that in. Thanks for reminding me, lol. TF2s greatness. I deserve every disagree I get for not adding TF2, lmao.
Bubs too for ya
Well you pay for quality... of wait no you pay for arrogant publishers ringing out every dollar from the franchise before running it into the ground destroying everyones interest.
Guitar Hero?
Tony Hawk?
What in the world ever happened to patching a game, throwing some new maps in, and repeating the process every couple of months FOR FREE. somewhere, an indian cries
While I do agree, there are those times where the cost is justified by a great DLC package. And in the article there are two great examples of free DLC.
Check out how many games on the list, are on a system that starts with a W and ends with an i.
A big 0!
What about GTA IV's? They were not bad, the storyline of The Lost & Damned alone was 5-8 hours more, which is as long as a Call of Duty campaign. And it has an intersting storyline convergence with the other "episodes".
Playstionunlimited writes: " There is no denying Killzone 2 was THE definitive marque first person shooter when it first arrived on the PlayStation 3. With Graphics to-die-for and rock-solid game play mechanics, the game ultimately lived up to the infamous E3 2005 trailer, and further solidified that the PS3, is in fact, the graphical BEAST that it initially proclaimed itself to be.
Although this game is one that I thoroughly cherish , I couldn't help but to feel that even though Guerrilla took a giant leap from the earliest chapter, that they still did not (and please don't hate me for this :/ ) push the game as far as they can go.
Now, its been almost a year since the release of Killzone 2, and with the recent rumors buzzing around on web about Killzone 3 being released sometime between 2010 – 2011, I felt that it is only fitting to create our own Killzone 3 Wishlist."
My wishlist:
1) Co-op play
Whether it's incorporating singe player, having a whole different side story via Resistance 2, or giving us objective scenarios, Killzone NEEDS a co-op mode. K2 teased us with it, and now it's time to deliver it. They can make great use of the classes from competitive mode or reinvent it all together. Whatever the case, it seems that the competitive multiplayer modes always need a dance partner, and co-op play is just the answer
2) A more fleshed out, serious story
The atmosphere of Killzone 2 was often off-set by the annoying characters. What am I, playing Haze? Kill off Rico.
Better than that, give us a whole new squad to play with. Perhaps a team who aren't a bunch of high-school jock meatheads?
I don't mind comic relief, but Killzone 2's supporting characters were a joke. The bad guys were at least bad, but who the hell makes a mom joke when Radec is about to execute you?
I'm not asking for Team Ico to help us with the story, but can the juvenile characters. Hated them with a passion.
And am I the only one who thinks it would be great to play as/see the side from the Helghast?
THEY are the good guys who lost everything because their fellow species screwed them over. Sure their leader is a maniac, but I hate the ISA.
-Improve on Multiplayer
This is a given, but give us more modes. Killzone 2's multiplayer was unique and great, but pretty standard. 5 common modes, but at least they were intense and fun. Tinker with some new concepts, keep the same great map layouts, etc.
And for the love of God add a party room and tell us how long modes are in a game. I hate joining games where every mode is chosen to last 30 minutes. I mean come on, I dont want to play Capture and Hold for 30 freaking minutes and then go through the rest of the modes. Some people like that, hell I wouldn't mind if I planned ahead, but let me see more match specifications when someone hosts a game.
Match specifications must also be patched to K2 whenever GG gets back from their "break".
Anyways, K2 was pretty good, but now that they got the most important and time consuming parts down, they can work on spending more time and resources on giving us an even better game
I pretty much agree with everything you said, especially killing off rico..
The two things i would love most would be..
A) Something similar to Killstreak rewards in the MP
B) A sort of dual campaign.Example, you play a full 10+ hour campaign as the ISA, thinking the games over you return to the main menu and be greeted with the option to play a whole other 8+ (at least) campaign as the Helgast.
Co-op would be welcome too..
Haha I didn't want to put Killing off Rico, because I didn't know how people would feel about that. I completely agree though
-Kill of Rico, slow and terribly. Make some Helghast Barbarians torture him for information.
-Improve the melee. It's pretty useless in Killzone 2. Hell people make matches with just pistols just to GET the badge, which shows how useless it is. Problem A) Two hits to kill an average player (that is, two hits to kill somebody who isn't an Assault class/is sitting on health packs) I don't mind having to melee someone twice on the front, but smacking someone across the back should be an instant assassination kill.
Problem B) The biggest problem is actually the button mapping for the melee button which leads to point #3:
3) Completely customizable button mapping schemes. My set up has me aiming with L1 and shooting with R1. The biggest problem is melee hits are mapped to R3. This becomes a nuisance when I'm trying to chase somebody while moving and having to press R3 multiple times to ensure a melee kill. I would much rather have customizable button mapping, though the list they provided is not too bad
4) More guns! And not necessarily anything over the top, but make them feel different/have variations! One sniper rifle for both teams makes no sense. I would like guns that had different variations which would mix up the gameplay. Again, nothing over the top, but more variation in guns would be nice.
5) Balance out the classes a little more.
I for one never liked Assault classes because they truly were unbalanced. I mean, I understand he is a heavy but the fact that he was super fast AND overpowered with a rocket ticked me off. Some people don't mind him, and team work usually takes them down, but I felt that the class way exploited for this reason:
He can pretty much suicide without consequence and still manage to get +points.
It pretty much makes dying useless. I think they should have made it so that if you commit suicide, you get an extra long spawn delay. So instead of 7 seconds it would be something like 14 seconds, and every consistent suicide would result in longer spawn times.
This way, the assault class could keep it's extra health and maybe even speed, but people who used the would actually have to be CAREFUL and use strategy.
6) Reduce the amount of damn grenades you can carry. You can carry two from the get-go after you get a badge/ribbon, but after that you can even have three.
I prefer if you start with NO Grenades and have to rely on the Engineer to get two maximum. Grenades were spammed a little too much sometimes.
Or at least give hosts the ability to take out grenades.
7) REPLAY MODE!!!!
Halo 3 came out in freaking 2007 and it was jam packed with awesome features. Replay mode DOES exist on Killzone 2's WEBSITE but it's 2-D and not as exciting/accessible. Give us a theater mode PLEASE!
8) Split Screen
I don't care if you have to sacrifice graphics. If it's for gameplay, then I'm all for it! Split screen would be awesome. I know that "K2 was so full of awesome sauce that even the PS3 couldn't handle split screen" but surely there can be a way to modify that. If we can land an astronaut on the moon (go away conspiracy theorists), then it is possible to have an amazing looking game have split screen.
I even remember talking to Uncharted 2 developers (on Best Buy, they actually have these events) where he said they would have liked to put in split screen but they couldn't. I can forgive Naughty Dog for two reasons:
1) I love them
2) They offered a multiplayer in UC2 to begin with, so I was already super satisfied with UC2
Anyways that's my wish list. Sorry for the wall of text :P
all i want is
4 player co op
better grafix with colors
better multiplayer and map editor
Vehicles in the MP
better SP
and better AI
Downvote him and ignore him
The AI was a magnificent achievement I must say - havent seen anything like it before or after
Replying to 1.1
Please, no killstreak. The reason KZ2 multi was so good is because of the highly tactical element, with continous movement and squads trying to outflank each other and very little camping. I hate CoD's multi, so much camping, all because of killstreaks
The dual campaign idea is brilliant, especially because it would enhance playtime without adding much development cost, and most gamers would love to play both sides. I suspect the majority would prefer the Helghast!
Nice list dude.
Only one i don't like it, the splitscreen.
Why not two PS3 with two games and two 42" Sony Bravia Full HD TV's ;) and connect the two PS3 and you have a nice coop with youre own TV :)
- 2 Primary weapons and a secondary. At least in single-player
- More weapons
- More game modes
- Co-op story
- Co-op mission mode (a la resistance 2)
- Co-op survival mode
- Elimination of "kill lag"
- Elimination of badges
(Badges were cool and all, but I think that if they eliminated them they could do a lot more class-wise. Such as give saboteurs knives, make tacticians spawn points, etc.)
- Die faster...why does everyone absorb bullets like you are shooting paintballs?
- Increase maximum players, but have each map have a limit (again kinda like Resistance 2)
- More mature story, if you are going to get your game rated M, it shouldn't be because it has more curse words than Bad Boys II.
And I think that is it and although it seems like a lot only a few of them are necessary. Others are just icing on top of the cake
no need to improve the melee, regardless of how many hits it takes, you can continuously melee for as long as you want. I get like 30% of my kills each game from melee, so it's not too useless.
i played codmw2 for three hours straight, straight away after completing the game i put on killzone 2, i realised that kz2 controls are a bit clumsy, CODMW2 controls are very easy and the player enjoys and gets satisfied by the controls. in killzone 2 the controls are hard to master, its very hard to kill enemies 1 afterb the other usually we spend shooting more bullets on walls than the actual enemy
The controls are one of the things that make KZ2 great, as you said COD is easy, too easy, which is why it gets boring and unsatisfying very quickly. To get good at KZ2 you need to be good, it takes time and effort and skill, a requirement sadly lacking from MW1 & MW2.
It make me cry two times(maybe because I play kz1 and read the history on killzone.com)
I was more into it
but many of you jst for hating miss the great
experience, Rico is just bad as that's his job
you guys talk about history on games like you
know something stfu
what I agree is to make single player more deep
mode cutscenes longer cutscenes
I didn't feel anything for the characters.
What do you mean Rico's just bad? It's his job to be bad? I'm confused :S
Do you mean he's a bad ass? If so, I disagree, he comes off as a meathead. He reminded me of some frat kid. Compare him to the atmosphre of the game and he just didn't fit. And it's not just him too. If you want bad ass, play God of War or something, but I was certainly annoyed with Rico. I don't recall him exemplifying anything "bad ass", Unless saying the S word and F word count as "bad ass", which I don't think they do.
That's the thing, the dialogue was just forced and they tried to make it look "cool" to 12 year olds.
1) Co-op
2) Bigger variety of enemies
3) Snow Level and as too tall said, a jungle level. Overall, I wanna see more colors in the environments.
4) Replay Mode is a MUST.
5) More engaging characters. I felt NOTHING for the characters except for the part when Garza died. Lets face it, the voice acting was crap with the exception of Sev, Templar, and Visari.
6) Match that infamous E3 2005 trailer graphically
I like how you realize that Rico is supposed to be a single faceted character. Most people are retarted and think "Dur, all characters are should be deep and complex". Rico's job was to be a kill hungry ultranationalist who want's to "get some". In other words, a marine.
If the helghast take the battle to earth we could well see some different and more colourful environments. It would be interesting to see how GG would pull it off graphically.
@walrus - I deeper story with better characters makes the game more engaging regardless of a stereotypical marine. The dialogue and characters made the game feel a bit tacky at some points. I'd love GG to listen to the fans and kill off Rico, it's the outcome we all want to happen in the game.
the big thing about Rico is, although he is supposed to be that way, it doesn't work for me and many others. His behavior is "encouraged" by the remainder of the cast except for Sev. I don't mind some humor and some muscle head marine type characters, but there needs to be a balance which doesn't exist in KZ2.
@stewgart
I'll admit that the dialog did feel tacky at points, so yes I'll give you that. In fact, I want to argue with you, but youre right. THe problem, IMHO, isn't that RICO isn't a multi-faceted character, but that every one of your comrades isn't a multi-faceted character. But, at the same time, GG wasn't aiming to make your fellow marines into characters. The charachter they're developing is the Helghast in general. That is, in fact, the unique thing about Killzone in general (not just KZ@) It's that the character that the story focuses on is in fact the Enemy, and not you. They do an interesting thing by making you go "These guys ar Nazi's. That means there bad" but then, in the end, it's you that turns out to be the biggist A-hole in the building, and the Helghast are really just fighting for survival (in this respect I think they did this better than AVATAR, in which the Smurfs were peace loving hippys and not man enough to punch them back in the face, as the Halghast were. I had no repect for the Navii and really just wanted to see the Humans take some names)
@ShadowRyu: Same thing.
Just know this: Be careful what you wish for; after Gears of War came out we were all like "We want a better plot" (wich I kindof like the plot and Dialog in Gears. the whole "your jut a cog in the gears of war" thing) so they sacked their writers and hired some other one who was like "I'm gonna make in all emotional, Da-hur" which resulted in havin to listen to Dom whine about his wife for half the game, and then panic because you think you might have to go through an escort mission (My brother sighed in relief when dom shot her and we didn't have an ashley tailing around us)
-Jungle level
-Helgahst Campaign
-Rico as a boss
-Different bases to spawn from besides your home base but still keep spawn grenades
-bullet penetration
-more options against bots
Vehicales in MP would be a big undertaking though. It would imo change alot of the online gameplay feel as KZ2 MP is more intimate and more grounded in reality imo. It could be done and the way the author explains it sounds really exciting but it will end up being more like Warhawk than KZ. Offcouse there is no harm in including this plus the same MP as is right now. Having the option is never a bad thing.
For me personally i wan't
1. Offline split screen co-op.
2. I want class based segments similar to KZ1.
3. I want more varied gameplay segements. The mech and turret segement in KZ2 didn't really wow me that much. Perhaps because they were too short.
4. Following from #3 KZ3 will need more OMG! action set pices like Uncahrted 2.
5. Better story that fully leverage the amazing KZ universe story with different takes from different perspective.
6. Get rid of Rico and the god awful mucho crap.
For one reason, players can already run REALLY fast, they can use the super speed class ability, they can run for a REALLY long time, and even when the run meter depletes, it just goes back up really fast.
Unless they slow down the running and make the maps MUCH bigger and balance the amount of indoor and outdoor sections, I wouldn't want vehicles in multiplayer.
Though, it would be interesting. I just worry it would ruin the gameplay.
I wouldn't mind transport vehicles though, but I always get concerned with tanks in games. The only real game where I didn't mind vehicles was Halo.
Actually, I change my mind. As long as maps are balanced for both running and vehicles and as long as the host as the option to add or remove vehicles I'm for it.
As an option its fine. The problem with vehicales imo is that it will require huge maps but then you will also need to have 32 plus players to be of any fun.
THIS GAME HASN'T BEEN OUT FOR A YEAR YET AND ALREADY HAS ADDED 4 NEW MAPS. WAY TO GO GG! KEEP IT COMING! THE NUKE BOMB EXPLODES IN THE NEW MAP. IT IS SO BLANKING COOL!
gg> gods of fps imo.