It's perhaps not a huge surprise. PS3D has been common knowledge for some time now, and it makes perfect sense that one of the platform's flagship series be earmarked for the technology's release. What is a surprise is how well it all actually works.
I manage to plumb the centre seat, which apparently gives the best impressions of the 3D magic at work, but the appreciative noises emanating from the journos either side of me are reassuring. We play through the same section again, although the pad remains firmly in the hands of the studio representative.
Straight away there's an immediate impact. The weighty, long-barrelled minigun has a real presence in-screen, highlighting the fact that the majority of Killzone's 3D trickery is done via the impression of depth rather than projection. Shuffling behind cover emphasises the effect superbly, each vanishing line and focal reference point making the illusion ever more real.
The game's particle effects really come into their own under the influence of the active shutter glasses too. Snow seems to swirl very distinctly in front of the screen, its fluttering hypnotism starkly punctuated by the bullets which zip and zing towards you. We're told there's a lot of work to be done on the perfection of the 3D yet, and in certain effects that's obvious, but generally the whole effect is a mesmerising one, drawing you into the screen and surrounding you with it, generally just in time to recoil from a projectile or ten. It also adds a competitive advantage, allowing players to judge the jetpack jumps with much greater accuracy. How that will skew the playing field between 3D enabled multiplayer users and their dimension-poorer counterparts remains to be seen.
In one of the more static moments, our demonstrator places a D-charge on the AA battery, the focus and lack of movement allowing a more advanced 3D technique to be used. It's startling how much depth is added to the scene. This is a fairly strenuous technique in terms of brain capacity, though, and we're informed that it's something which won't be happening too often. "If we were to do this during a combat scenario, your eyes would tire, your brain would malfunction. This is a game we want people to be able to play for hours at a time."