Killzone 2 pre-release discussion thread

[Phil]

I will test the demo and compare.

Weighty means that when you move it feels like you are a real person - rather than COD etc where you feel like a mosquito.

I find it ironic to talk of realism when you're ultimately talking about mapping the movement of a gun and direction of a player/head movement to two analog sticks. Not only is it difficult to map the "pin and point" movement to a stick that can only change the speed of movement (unlike a mouse where you can actually map that movement) - it's even harder to "simulate" what it feels like to move a weighty gun around.

The problem though isn't to what you describe as being "weighty". I don't have a problem with the slow controls either. The problem is the lag, the dead-zone and the accelerated movement. You might compare CoD to feeling like a mosquito (and criticize at it all you want), but it certainly is the reference among FPS outthere. I'd take it, over any sub-par 30fps game any day of the week. That you can't have all the fidelity and technical finness that makes KillZone 2 the impressive game it is without a tradeoff in framerate is a given and understandable. If you compare it to say R:FOM though that doesn't have the problem with the lag, deadzone and accelerated movement, you can surely see where the criticism is coming from.

I suspect the lag is coming from all the post processing that takes away a few frames before you see the result of what your movement results in on the screen. I could probably live with that. Most unfortunate is the unconfigurable dead-zone and the accelerated movement which I find most annoying. It makes aiming difficult, unprecise and unresponsive and doesn't convey the weight of the weapons any better or worse.

It's a shame indeed. I had high hopes for the game, but having these controls can really make or break a game. Singleplayer might be playable, but I fear for the MP gameplay with these controls and quite frankly, next to a game like COD, I'm not sure if I'll be spending much time with it, eventhough I already think it's a much better game. In fact, it pains me to say, but I even think it could be most complete FPS I've played...

Though the scripting does bug me. When I first played the demo, I grenaded the two chatting Grunts in the warehouse and thought myself clever that I beat them to the punch. Then I tried sneaking past to no avail. Turns out that on arriving at the warehouse, the are so busy chatting and reading their lines from the auto-cue, they won't pay attention to anything. I stood on the galley and waved, and then jumped off and started some fisticuffs with them (midget that Sev is, I could only really hit an uppercut ). So there's no sneaking or positioning or celverness like that. Just lots of set-pieces, and then some reasonable AI firefights.

I'm a bit amazed by the level the game is being critized at. Maybe it's because it's probably the top most flagship title that's being launched for a console over the last few years, but to criticize some of the scripted events is a bit unfair IMO. We're still playing games right? You will have scripted events here or there to immerse the player into the plot. Some games chose to go for the scripted non-interactive cut-scene that stops you from playing and has you watch the scene as it unfolds, this game KillZone in this particlar instance in the hangar went for the scripted event that unfolds while you're still very much in control of everything and can chose to find a strategic point in the area to start the fire fight. It's not as if the scripted event takes minutes to unfold either - that scene with the two Helghasts (Helghans?) talking in the hangar is maybe 5 to 7 seconds and they certainly react to a flying grenade towards the end of their little speach.

Also having to fight all the bad guys off when your partner tries to open the door in the hangar - would we rather be able to run through the game without a challenge or have the game alter its 'script' dynamically depending on the hundreds of different ways a player might chose to play the game? If it's the latter, I'm sure it's obvious enough that we're still a few years away from this due to more than enough boundaries such a complex engine would require.

Ugh...I hated this when I played through Portal and HL2 on consoles....ick.

Have you even played the demo? If that is anything to go by, it's definately not worse (or better) than the original Half-Life on PC! (Never played HL2 either on console or PC).

The loading blips, present or not, is hardly an issue. Certainly worlds better than a forced loading screen.

If a developer decides to make a first person shooter 30 fps rather than the 60 fps it should be, at the very least the developer should ensure that the framerate is stable. I'm sick and tired of developers prioritizing IQ over responsiveness and playability.

...and if a person decides to criticize a game for something they obviously haven't seen themselves or played the freely available demo first, they should stick to holding back their judgement.

If you've played the demo (and if that's anything to go by), I think you will find that the framerate isn't an issue. I didn't get any slowdowns at all (except for the loading blips mentioned above). SUre there will be some framerate drops just in every other game outthere, but for the most part, it'll be a non-issue I'm sure. It's extremely impressive that they got the game looking this good and with such a constant framerate (during the demo anyway).

I'd personally would prefer toned down graphics and framerate at 60 fps though, but hey... can't have anything. Graphics sell over gameplay I guess (though ironically, it's usually the gameplay that makes you go back to a game over and over again), which is why I'll probably stick to CoD4/5 most of the time. :/

Still, the game is a day 1 purchase for me and I'm highly impressed by what they have achieved. I don't agree with some of the design choices, but admire them for what they delievered. Without doubt, it is already a lot better of a FPS than many games are.

 

[Phil]

Also, one game I found a different gun, a high-calibre, low ammo sort of thing. Haven't found it since. Is this available in the right place, or a random drop?

I belive one of the enemies drops that weapon, if I'm not mistaken. There is only 1 of those in the demo, I believe.

The guy in the hangar standing on top of the building has the only weapon. If you shoot him from behind, he'll fall over and you can then pick up his gun. If you shoot him from front, the weapon will drop on the building, meaning you won't be able to get it...

 

[vanquish]

I played the demo again, and I'm pretty sure there is actual lag, not just perceived.
Whether this is intended or not, it is a bit annoying, as I like responsive games.

They should definitely remove the acceleration though as it is highly irritating, and makes the effect's of the lag much worse, as you compensate for the lag by pushing on the stick more, only to have it overshoot the target due to the acceleration.

Perhaps Guerilla is using it as a way to increase difficulty as well, (eg. like RE5's no moving & shooting at the same time thing). Certainly the game would be an order of magnitude easier if it had the kind of responsive controls (that you don't even have to think about) of a regular AAA shooter.

Another thing I was not very impressed in the demo was the water effects. There is no water simulation going on, just splashing animations when you shoot the water, or chuck a grenade in it. Disappointing compared to shooters like R2, GOW2, H3, Bioshock etc., especially when they have impressive particle effects elsewhere, like the physics enabled sparks.

 

[Phil]

Disappointing compared to shooters like R2, GOW2, H3, Bioshock etc., especially when they have impressive particle effects elsewhere, like the physics enabled sparks.

Welcome to the world of boundaries where tradeoffs have to be made...

I think not having dynamic water, but having so many dynamic lights, great explosions, great AI, many enemies on screen, lots of action and team work with more than enough comrades on screen to be a very worthwhile tradeoff. The water looks great too - if and how you can influence it is kind of wasted resources since for one, you can't see your legs anyway and secondly, you probably don't spend any time in the water and third, it doesn't influence the gameplay (or what you're supposed to do) in any way... so why bother?

 

[vanquish]

Welcome to the world of boundaries where tradeoffs have to be made...

I think not having dynamic water, but having so many dynamic lights, great explosions, great AI, many enemies on screen, lots of action and team work with more than enough comrades on screen to be a very worthwhile tradeoff. The water looks great too - if and how you can influence it is kind of wasted resources since for one, you can't see your legs anyway and secondly, you probably don't spend any time in the water and third, it doesn't influence the gameplay (or what you're supposed to do) in any way... so why bother?

Well, that's true.

Are all the lights dynamic? I noticed a few that looked prebaked, you can't shoot out the lights or anything either.

 

[deepbrown]

I find it ironic to talk of realism when you're ultimately talking about mapping the movement of a gun and direction of a player/head movement to two analog sticks. Not only is it difficult to map the "pin and point" movement to a stick that can only change the speed of movement (unlike a mouse where you can actually map that movement) - it's even harder to "simulate" what it feels like to move a weighty gun around.

The problem though isn't to what you describe as being "weighty". I don't have a problem with the slow controls either. The problem is the lag, the dead-zone and the accelerated movement. You might compare CoD to feeling like a mosquito (and criticize at it all you want), but it certainly is the reference among FPS outthere. I'd take it, over any sub-par 30fps game any day of the week. That you can't have all the fidelity and technical finness that makes KillZone 2 the impressive game it is without a tradeoff in framerate is a given and understandable. If you compare it to say R:FOM though that doesn't have the problem with the lag, deadzone and accelerated movement, you can surely see where the criticism is coming from.

I suspect the lag is coming from all the post processing that takes away a few frames before you see the result of what your movement results in on the screen. I could probably live with that. Most unfortunate is the unconfigurable dead-zone and the accelerated movement which I find most annoying. It makes aiming difficult, unprecise and unresponsive and doesn't convey the weight of the weapons any better or worse.

It's a shame indeed. I had high hopes for the game, but having these controls can really make or break a game. Singleplayer might be playable, but I fear for the MP gameplay with these controls and quite frankly, next to a game like COD, I'm not sure if I'll be spending much time with it, eventhough I already think it's a much better game. In fact, it pains me to say, but I even think it could be most complete FPS I've played...

And I am telling you as a proud owner of the final game, that the LAG does not exist, but the weight does...I will do more tests.

Different things.

Moreover, the controls are both faster and different in the MP.

 

[deepbrown]

Have you played the demo? Does the retail version you have not exhibit the same issues?

Sorry, that's something I still plan to do. I didn't have time to get in anyway game playing last night, which sucks (actually the telly was hogged by housemates )

 

[goonergaz]

The guy in the hangar standing on top of the building has the only weapon. If you shoot him from behind, he'll fall over and you can then pick up his gun. If you shoot him from front, the weapon will drop on the building, meaning you won't be able to get it...

I shot him from the front...not sure how you can get behind him anyway? What I did was 'tease' him over to the edge of the building - not quite sure where I was hitting him - but when he died the gun fell forward off the building.

I can't believe how little people appreciate the AI as being a massive step forward for FPS's. Surely it's the biggest improvement a game can of any genre can have...enemy that actually acts like it's a real living thing!? It means nothing is predictable and it also means great replayability.

 

[deepbrown]

I shot him from the front...not sure how you can get behind him anyway? What I did was 'tease' him over to the edge of the building - not quite sure where I was hitting him - but when he died the gun fell forward off the building.

I can't believe how little people appreciate the AI as being a massive step forward for FPS's. Surely it's the biggest improvement a game can of any genre can have...enemy that actually acts like it's a real living thing!? It means nothing is predictable and it also means great replayability.

http://i40.tinypic.com/259epo6.gif

 

[vanquish]

I shot him from the front...not sure how you can get behind him anyway? What I did was 'tease' him over to the edge of the building - not quite sure where I was hitting him - but when he died the gun fell forward off the building.

I can't believe how little people appreciate the AI as being a massive step forward for FPS's. Surely it's the biggest improvement a game can of any genre can have...enemy that actually acts like it's a real living thing!? It means nothing is predictable and it also means great replayability.

Such gushing about the AI, just shows you obviously haven't played many fps (other than ones on the PS2 or rubbish ones). What about Halo 3? Far Cry? HL2 etc.

KZ2's AI is not as big as an achievement as its visuals, though still impressive.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Such gushing about the AI, just shows you obviously haven't played many fps (other than ones on the PS2 or rubbish ones). What about Halo? Far Cry? HL2 etc.

KZ2's AI is not as big as an achievement as its visuals, though still impressive.

I have played Halo, Far cry, HL2 and I still think this game has AI which is miles ahead of those. I have played the warehouse around 5-7 times and the AI played it different every time, if I change my style everytime. They spawn at the same place everytime but after that its all undefined...... and that is great. Comparing HL2 AI with KZ2 AI is criminal. Try different strategies in the demo and check out the results.

 

[Phil]

Such gushing about the AI, just shows you obviously haven't played many fps (other than ones on the PS2 or rubbish ones). What about Halo? Far Cry? HL2 etc.

KZ2's AI is not as big as an achievement as its visuals, though still impressive.

I have on the other hand, and I think the 'gushing' is justified, especially in light of how much of the other things they are achieving at the same time. With this game, I was expecting great graphics with little to no substance at all. What I'm seeing on the other hand is quite the opposite: You can tell AI was one of their prime concerns, just as well as getting the attention to detail right with the movement/animation of just about everything to how things react when they are hit by bullets.

At one point, I was about to chase a Helghast around a stack of boxes before losing him and found, that he was infact chasing me moments later around the stack of boxes. Or at the end of the demo where if you wait too long without fighting them off, they actually come in on you and don't just wait and throw grenades from a safe distance.

The surroundings might not be as destructable as one might hope (or want), but inlight of what's technically feasable on current consoles, I wasn't expecting miracles anyway. In fact, in light of what my expectations were for this gen, I'm hugely impressed by how many boxes they are ticking already. And this is just by playing the demo and watching some of the technical presentations & interview on YouTube. From what I've seen, the best is yet to come in the full game. The demo is just a teaser.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Play the demo to death last night.

The only flaw i can notice with the controls is the acceleration.

Aspecially on high sensitivity its very noticeable. Small movements are very slow while slightly bigger movements (and all other movements) move at a near constant relatively high speed.

This makes it very hard to aim unless your used to it, because you will constantly either overcompensate or undercompensate unless you learn to predict the acceleration 100% .
In most games out there acceleration is only at the edges of the stick or not there at all. which means that few players wll find this natural. Its not necessarily worst and both can work, its just that you need to put in a lot more hours into getting natural aim in KZ2 if your used to playing games with the same scheme as say CoD4.

Some more impressions:

Game looks freaking awesome. It doesn't do anything new gameplay wise, but it does everything well.

 

[Pugger]

With regards to controls, I had minor problems and I agree with Ostepop, there seems to be a point where movement is apportioned to a point where it goes berserk and speeds across the screen. I have now played the demo through on at least 5 occasions and my opinion really hasn't changed. Graphically I'm dissapointed, for the life of me I can't see what the fuss is about, it very nice but so are lots of FPS, even the the animation all seems a bit slow mo to me. Gameplay wise it very good, its enjoyable but its all be done before which makes it feel like you have done everthing before.
I suspose the most frustrating point gameplay wise is the strict linear nature of the game. I understand most games are linear to a point but the demo is almost corridor like, I wanted to wade into the water, but invisble barriers just say no. I will get KZ2 becasue I think it will be an enjoyable romp but I'm pretty sure I have played better FPS.

 

[deepbrown]

Such gushing about the AI, just shows you obviously haven't played many fps (other than ones on the PS2 or rubbish ones). What about Halo 3? Far Cry? HL2 etc.

KZ2's AI is not as big as an achievement as its visuals, though still impressive.

I've played all of those games, and the AI is nowhere near as good as Killzone 2. It really is uncanny what they do. Far Cry 2's can be good, but often times they are dumb.

 

[goonergaz]

Such gushing about the AI, just shows you obviously haven't played many fps (other than ones on the PS2 or rubbish ones). What about Halo 3? Far Cry? HL2 etc.

Yes I have. Don't forget this demo is set to normal level of difficulty, I played H3 on normal (I play all my games on normal) and found the AI laughable - sidestep city...in this they are looking for cover, and when you shoot near them they re-evaluate their options. I've had one of them sneak up behind me, using some boxes for cover - I've not noticed anything like this in a game before...sorry if you think it's misplaced gushing, but it seems I'm not the only one gushing!

 

[Mize]

I played the demo again last night and stand corrected. There is a small lag between first motion and first site movement. Why I hadn't really noticed the first time through is probably just how easy the demo is. With that lag it won't be a "twitch" shooter, but will still be fun I would wager.

 

[goonergaz]

does anyone know if the retail requires (or has an optional) instaltion? And if so how big?

Thanks in advance

 

[vanquish]

Yes I have. Don't forget this demo is set to normal level of difficulty, I played H3 on normal (I play all my games on normal) and found the AI laughable - sidestep city...in this they are looking for cover, and when you shoot near them they re-evaluate their options. I've had one of them sneak up behind me, using some boxes for cover - I've not noticed anything like this in a game before...sorry if you think it's misplaced gushing, but it seems I'm not the only one gushing!

You played H3 on normal (which is actually easy according to Bungie), on Heroic or Legendary it's much more of a challenge, and the AI does much more interesting things, like flashbang you when you set down a bubble shield so that they can enter and take you out.

FEAR is another game with good AI.

KZ2's AI is definitely impressive, but not such a big leap over every other shooter as you claim it to be. Certainly in the demo I had no problem handling them, as it is still very much a game of whack a mole with them, (although one where the holes change and the moles move around). As far as demo's go the difficulty was easier than something like the Uncharted demo, where the AI was truly pesky, with their constant dodging.

PS: there is no installation mandatory or optional, thank god.

 

[catisfit]

You played H3 on normal (which is actually easy according to Bungie), on Heroic or Legendary it's much more of a challenge

...

KZ2's AI is definitely impressive, but not such a big leap over every other shooter as you claim it to be. Certainly in the demo I had no problem handling them

Surely the argument applied to one should apply to the other? The Killzone 2 demo is on difficulty level 2 of 5.

If you're telling someone else to play Halo 3 at a harder difficulty level to appreciate the AI, surely you should do the same with Killzone 2 before playing it down?