f13.net

Demo tonight (already up for the EU).

Game out in 3 weeks. YAYYYY.

Yet another cool looking PS3 game.

Damnit.

I'm really excited yet pissed off that I'm not downloading it now or anytime soon (fuck work).  Resistance 2 was the first shooter I genuinely enjoyed playing online on a console.  I'm hoping it wasn't just a fluke.

BTW, free dedicated servers are kicking my ass.  After XBLive I really didn't think I was going to be able to play most console MP shooters, lobbies fucking piss me off.

Demo was awesome!

Graphics and sound are the best for a shooter. Controls can be tricky at first and somewhat sluggish but once you tweak the sensitivity it becomes much smoother.

I wish the demo were longer as it only takes about 10 minutes to beat. They should have thrown in a multi-player map or two.

The only thing it is missing is the secondary fire from the original. The Helghast assault rifle used to have an awesome shotgun underneath that came in handy a lot.

I must be doing something wrong, because I couldn't find the demo anywhere on the store.  I checked the demos section, nowhere to be seen.

It's like the big huge picture at the front of the store? Check in Latest.

Anyway, downloading now.

I'll update this when I download it but I've heard very good things, which is great since I wanted the original to be good and it wasn't.

Not seeing it  :heartbreak:

Odd. Where are you? Are there different store fronts in different areas?

(http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1359/kz2demoll1.jpg)

Turns out it's not up on the US store yet. I do NOT KNOW WHY.

It's not up because EB struck a deal with Sony where their pre-orders got the demo before people who didn't pre-order.

Well, that explains that. I guess EBStop should take their few victories where they can with the coming age of digital download. Can't blame them really.

Well that's shitty. Sorry for the huge pic.

First thoughts on demo: too short for a 1Gb+ download, looks great, needs more colours, it's a shooter and a good one but I wouldn't expect much more than that. If it's long enough it'll be a must-have if only as a tech demo, if it's really short (like, 5 hours of gameplay) then it'll be a renter.

Oh well.  Foreignia waits for cool shit all the time, I can easily wait for this.

Supposed to clock in around 6 hours.

Actually supposed to be closer to 10...which is doable considering the first was at least 15 hours.

For those who did not pre-order at EB just create a Euro account since the demo is freely available on there.

I have to say that being relatively new to console games I'm finding the cost:playtime ratio a bit shit in general. I mean, in the UK a new PS3 game is £40 (about US$60 atm). At minimum wage (which is what I was earning when I was working as a photog. assistant) that's about 8 hours of labour to buy a game that probably takes me less than that to complete.

And out of the games I have, the shooters seem to have the least replay value too. So why all the huge hype over the latest & greatest FPSs? Sure, KZ2 looks pretty, but I ain't plonking down 8 hours of labour value on a 6 hour game!

WoW seems like such a bargain on this scale  :oh_i_see:

What makes PC shooters any different? Its been ages since I played a shooter that was more than 12 hours and even then I don't know if I would want to play a straight up shooter for any longer than that.

The key to longevity with any shooter is the muti-player and CoD, Halo, and Socom have proved that having great multi-player will make a game last. And going by the reviews Killzone 2 will be another game to add to that list.

Do you not play multiplayer in any of the FPS's you buy?

Yeah it's the same for PC games I suppose. Thing is I've spent so long only playing MMORPGs that I'd forgotten just how expensive games were here. And yeah, I do play multiplayer a bit, but I'm very, very bad at straight-up shooters  :oh_i_see:

I guess I'm just feeling skint atm. Would like to buy KZ2 and Valkyria Chronicles but I just can't afford them right now and it's annoying!

The SP game can be summed up as Gears/Gears2 gameplay in a FPS.  It's not revolutionary by any means but it's definitely still fun and sets the standard for shooter visuals on consoles.  I'll buy and play it but the people expecting this title to be a game-changer are crazy.

Made it to Sergeant last night, so I set up Bat Country, in case anyone is actually playing this.

I am not good at console shooters, but I'm at peace with that, so I'm having a damn good time with this so far.

Apparently people had problems saving scores over the weekend?  I never saw any of that, all of my matches saved fine, and there were plenty of people with (potentially bot-hack inflated) high scores.

I played it a bit this weekend and got up to Sergeant also.  I'd like an invite if you would.  PSN id is Ardh.  Like the game quite a bit, but man am I lousy at FPS's in general.  Getting better at staying alive now at least, and at least I figured out you could respawn at your squad leader, which puts me ahead of the curve for the people playing the game who seem to refuse to squad up.


There was more than bot hacking going on from what I've been seeing.  People are also setting up password protected rooms specifically to rank up.  Honestly, after all these years, I can't say I'm surprised to see this at day one, given it's not like Resistance 2 which forces you to play in random official matches to rank up.

The fact that *all* of the classes are locked makes me not mad at people finding ways to game the system.

People certainly don't seem to realize that you can pick your spawn point every time you die.  Squad Leader is a great option, and there is usually one Tactician in the games I've played last night and this morning, and they leave Spawn Points a lot closer to the action.

I'll shoot you an invite later.

I'm not really upset at people gaming the system to level.  It was more obvious that it was going to happen as soon as I saw how the game lobbies were set up.  I personally probably won't abuse it, but right now, I don't feel like I need the other badges unlocked to enjoy the game.

The only thing I wish they would change is to give a ooint bonus or some other incentive to be a squad leader.  Far as I can tell right now, you get mostly shafted if you're the squad leader, because you have to stay alive to be of any use, and you don't get a mobile forward position spawn point that the rest of your squad does.

This is honestly the worst-controlling console FPS I've ever played. That being said, after 10+ hours I am finally coming to terms with it. Mostly due to the multiplayer, which I am enjoying more and more - the controls made it very frustrating at first but I've improved and it has that CoD4-ish "just one more round" addictive quality.

Did they add a jump button this time around?

Yeah, you can jump.

And the controls are interesting.  Not having a real source for comparison, it seems that their main goal was to provide dramatically different feels to each gun type.  I hit Sergeant First Class last night, and ran around with the Shotgun for a game (note to self - check the map type before doing this again), and I was right back to sucking again.  I had actually managed 2 straight games in the top 3 after getting the hang of the assault rifle.

Not only can you jump, jumping often gets you over walls you might not think it would, and allows you to shortcut across chunks of the map.  Same with crouch, actually.

The shotgun is really map dependant.  I'm not high enough rank to start with them yet, but I've found a few lying around.  On maps with alot of close in fight in short corridors, it'll wreck people.  Over any sort of distance fighting, or against snipers, all you get to do is die.

I really want to like this game. It's multiplayer is somewhat fun. Somewhat in that the level/unlocking system is a direct kick in the nuts to anyone who isn't constantly playing it.

Shooters really need to get over the "we must be like an mmo" poopsock phase, quickly.  It's like that asshole self-important professor that thinks that his course is the only one you're taking all quarter long.

This is actually pretty great. And I like achievements.

Apparently the maps come in two modes: This is amazing and This sucks giant ass through a straw.

The two times I tried KZ2 multi, my PS3 locked up in the middle of the matches (losing what little progress I'd made towards unlocking anything but 'generic rifle dude'), though I hear that the recent patch is supposed to fix that.  Haven't booted it up since then - I decided to pick up Mount and Blade (finally) on Steam and that shit is fucking addictive.

I've played about 10 games in a row, no issues whatsoever.

I couldn't get into Mount and Blade. >_>

Post-patch (1.2)?

I guess, I just started today!

Glad to hear that that's fixed.  Regardless, I'm pretty sure that the multiplayer's got legs (though I'm not 100% that it's got CoD4-level legs), tho'.  Hell - the GAF crowd alone will keep it running until the cockroaches take over.  I'm torn because i *want* to like it a lot - it's a good shooter with amazing visuals, but I can't help but think it's missing 'something'.  I'm not sure if that's a product of buying into the hype or what, but whatever.  I don't regret the purchase, but it's not a 'go-to' game.

It's not that the game is missing something, it's that the level designers suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I haven't gone online yet but the only thing that I dislike about it so far is again, playing an FPS with a controller. I can deal with Killzone 2 being a slower paced game, but I just can't get good at fine-tuning my aim when I need to.

I really like the MP and I think I'll be playing it on and off for a long while (with RE5 and Demon's Souls inevitable), this is third on the list. That said, the SP is wholly mediocre.

Easily fixed (http://www.splitfish.com/).

I wonder if I should get a "review" piece of hardware from them.

Email sent. Who says you can't play press on the weekends.

Eh, I returned the game after a week. I liked the MP for a bit but then it just got really repetitive and boring. Unlocking the Engineer was as far as I got. Of course, the two times I actually tried to play Engineer, I couldn't use their signature ability of placing a turret, since your team can only have two turrets down at once. Genius design, let me pick a class and join the game only to find I can't use my special ability. Anyway after that the game locked up two nights in a row on me and I just lost all interest.

I can't bring myself to continue. I love the IDEA of the MP and the actual control mechanics and some of the class stuff, but honestly, this game has the worst level design I've seen in years. In both SP and MP. I'm done with it.

I've got about 1/4 way through single player and got bored.

However it is very good for stoned play with my brother. One life each, when you die you swap controller for spliff and carry on. There's an art to dying at a REALLY tough spot for the lols  :drill:

So late here, but fuck me, this game is great looking. They actually did exactly what that old trailer displayed years back... I was almost sure this was gonna be ridiculous when it came out.

It's a cool game. Last boss so to speak is a bit retarded and the game is really fucking hard even on normal but it's pretty cool.

Multiplayer feels like it would be awesome as a PC game with tools so people could make levels that didn't suck.

On a sidenote, I've been wondering for awhile now if it's... hmm.. wasteful maybe? for one company to have so many shooter game engines.. on one platform no less. Admittedly, I don't know shit about the details about how engines work (or how the relationship between 1st and 2nd studios work), but is that even necessary? If you count them, there must be at least a dozen floating around, all pretty good and doing the same thing. Except in Killzone's case, it's a little understandable seeing that it's the newest/best one. But I wonder how much of even Guerilla's tech could have been used in early games  - or maybe how much faster games would have come out if they had pooled all of their resources together and shared code.

That's normally how things are done.

Gamebryo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebryo#Gamebryo_games)
Source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Engine#Licensed_Source_games)
Unreal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games)

The difference here being that Guerrilla Games has been purchased by Sony, which means they don't necessarily need or want to license their software to other companies because they can restrict it to their platform.  Incidentally, I'd expect a large number of shooters games on the PS3 are going to be using this engine, or at the very least significant portions of it.

No what I mean is why isn't talent/code being used across the board to all Sony related companies? Why does Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and Guerilla, for example not just work together under Sony's wing? That's what doesn't make sense to me. All three made good shooter engines, all three are Sony development houses, all three develop exclusively for the PS3.. But they kind of play around in their own little spheres - and it's all at Sony's expense too. Also, lets say if all three had taken part in the development of Guerilla's engine, then all of their games would look as good - not to mention would be released earlier than they were. The individual requirements couldn't have been that special to have needed their own particular engines, could it?

OK, I see.. Guerilla was only purchased by Sony in 2006... And apparently all 3 are actually working together more these days, among others (like Zipper and Sucker Punch).

While they may be working together more, different cultures don't always mesh well. And to say game dev houses have different cultures would be something of an understatement.

Not to mention that Guerilla is in Amsterdam, and most of the rest of the big name sony studios are on the west coast of the US or in Japan.  You try to support a game engine when you're physically located on the other side of the world from most of the rest of your potential clients.

Insomniac technically isn't a Sony studio, even though they're pretty much Sony exclusive.

They're definitely working with Sony's money though, right? I just think it'd be more efficient if there was one Sony owned engine for all of these games.. these type of games, I mean. instead of multiple things spread about. Seems like that can get pretty damn expensive.

Sony is their publisher, but I can't guess how much money they put into Insomniac's projects nor what the terms of the deal are.  They're pretty tight with the crew at Naughty Dog, but even then they've said that they don't trade tech with the Naughty Dog guys.  Insomniac does occasionally offer up bits of source code free for any PS3 developer though.  At GDC this year for instance, they announced that they put up the source code for their water tech from Resistance 2.

Probably by the time the PS4 is out, it might be a different story. Or hell, maybe PS3 development from here on out. Looking further into it, Sony has slowly been acquiring these studios and turning them into 1st parties. It just happened to be all within the same time as the PS3's release, so it was too late to have the whole ball rolling at first. Umm.. so I guess that answers my original question!

Like I said? :awesome_for_real:

Don't forget that studios occasionally break away from their owners. Look at Rare/Nintendo, Bungee/Microsoft. It's all clearly in the fine print that we're not privvy to.