Early Killzone 3 Impressions

There's a small but vocal segment of my blogging audience that likes to hear what I think about the video games I play, and so this post (like so many others) is for them!

I've now logged about an hour of Multiplayer Killzone 3, which I'd not ventured into when trying out the beta/demo that was released earlier in the month. I stuck to Botzone then, and I'm wondering now if I should've done that indefinitely! No, no, Matt, don't be like that! That's just the frustration talking, as I sit on a Kill-to-Death ratio around 0.5 after nearly a dozen Team Deathmatches (called Guerrilla Warfare in this game). My first game saw me finish with 1 kill and 7 deaths, followed by one in which I had 2 kills and 9 deaths. Quite the comedown from my 1.40+ KTD in Call of Duty: Black Ops over the holidays!

The truth is, though, this is a very different game. The roles - or 'careers', as they're referred to here - are quite specialized, with you choosing to operate as an Engineer, Medic, Infiltrator, Marksman or Tactician. Each type has special abilities associated with it, although most of those are initially locked and can only be accessed once you've earned enough 'unlock points' (by playing and accomplishing stuff) and then decide where to apply them. In my Botzone time in the beta, I tried each type, but found that I liked the Marksman and Engineer best. So that's where I started yesterday, in both the Botzone and Multiplayer arenas for the full game.

What I've found so far - besides the fact that I suck - is that I can only enjoy the Engineer role if I don't worry about my KTD. The reason is simple: a good Engineer spends his time repairing ammo dumps and turrets, and setting up his own turret... all of which are activities that leave him a sitting duck for any enemy who happens to spot the poor slob while he's doing so. As such, I did well in terms of helping my team, but lousy for my own personal stats. I'm pretty sure that's how it's supposed to work, but it's awfully tough on the ego.

As a Marksman, which I've yet to try in Multiplayer, you can go semi-invisible as long as you don't fire on anyone, which seems to work well against bots. When I try it against human opponents, though, I expect I'll die a lot more. Still, that's the next thing I plan to attempt, as my poor Engineer just seems to be cannon fodder most of the time.

I have to say that online Killzone 3 is a tough place to excel, thanks to the weighty controls and long reload animations. Even as an Engineer, using a gun with a large clip in it, I still tend to automatically reload after each kill... which leaves me completely vulnerable for what seems like about 5 seconds (it's probably not quite that long). Whatever the delay, it's an eternity during which I often get slaughtered. And I've lost count of how many times I've come upon an enemy suddenly, tried to swing my sight around to him, only to either melee in the air or perform some other unnatural act that allows him to slowly and carefully put me out of my misery. I'm sure I'll get more used to it than I am now, but it's hard to get past the frustration at the moment.

Despite that, I'm happy with the game after my first hour. I'm hoping to start the campaign on the weekend when Tammy's here, as the game offers a split screen Co-op version of it. It was really the single player campaign experience of Killzone 2 that won me over, so I'm looking forward to that, as well, when Tammy's not available. And I'll keep trying to improve at Multiplayer, as I know that dozens of hours can be joyfully lost there if I can ever get the hang of it.