Killzone : Liberation PSP

OK, so this game plays great, with a generally stable frame-rate, however, it may become a little choppy during major action, and sometimes general connection lag in online play. One of the things that surprised me, was that this game has a top-down, third-person perspective of the action, unlike its PS2 counterpart (first person view) which makes the play pretty interesting, as you know when to pop your head up and let of a round whilst behind cover. A great aspect of the game is, as just slightly mentioned, the cover system. OK, so here's a scenario: Two Hellghast (the enemy race for those of you unfamiliar with the series) are shooting at you, about 20 metres ahead of you. There is a supply crate in front of you. Ideally, in a game, you go up to the box, and manually crouch, then pop up and shoot, crouch then pop up and shoot and so on. But in this game, with the default control scheme, you run up behind the box, hold the R button (crouch) then, while still holding the R button, press and hold SQUARE to pop up and shoot. when you release SQUARE, assuming you are still holing the R button, you will automatically return to the crouch cover position. Genius! There are also a few realistic features, such as explosive barrels, that you manually shoot to damage nearby enemies. As you would expect in life, a bullet would go straight through a wooden box, but this does not happen in most games. Killzone Liberation is an exception. With a few shots, the wooden box is destroyed, usually revealing some ammo or health, and it is now no longer cover. Overall, the game play is really good, with a few hidden features: in every level you find bonus 'Vektan Dollars' in random briefcases, which are situated in the wooden boxes throughout the map. Collecting these is well rewarded, upgrading you weapons and unlocking new, more powerful ones. Now to the graphics. Although slightly fuzzy on the edges, these graphics are lovely. They are generally smooth, with easy-on-the-eyes textures and very, very good looking blood effects. One of the major, neat surprises I found in this game was the Havok 2.0 graphics engine, which employs rag-doll physics into the death animations. It looks absolutely awesome when you shoot an explosive barrel and you see Hellghast flying across the screen, arms flinging everywhere, and then landing and rolling over a few times, before the slide of the of a bridge to a watery death. Muahahaha. Sound is also a good aspect of the game, especially if you can be bothered to plug them into speakers. You hear the typical enemy grunt, along with the occasional 'get him' and sometimes even a string of cussing. One of the funnier comments made by a Helghast was 'I'll tear you a new one', if you play the game and hear that, trust me, in the context and pace of what's happening, hearing something like that will make you laugh. Yes, a great game, but it is fairly short. You'd get a good 15-20 hours out of it, assuming you download the later mentioned Chapter 5, achieve all unlocks, and complete all challenge games, but if your just in it for the play, and not the real in-depth features, this is not really the way to go. This game has 4 in built chapters with 4 relatively short missions in each. As you complete each chapter, that chapter's set of challenge games is unlocked. These range from target practice, to obstacle course-like games, where you shoot all of the targets on the way to get more points. The whole idea of these challenge games is to get points, and then unlock abilities, for use in single-player. These abilities include carrying extra grenades, unlimited ammo, having extra health, and so on. In the online side of single-player, you can download an additional 'Chapter 5', which includes another four missions and the challenge games. This chapter also reveals a major story-line plot twist, which I will not reveal here. (There are spoilers all over the internet). Another rewarding factor of the game is the unlockable characters. There is a character for about every mode, from getting golds on all challenges, to getting 10 wins in multi-player. You cannot achieve 100% complete without these unlocks. Now I'll move on to the offline multi-player. There are two main modes, one with submodes. The first I will mention is co-op story mode, which I'm sure most multi-player gamers are familiar with. It consists of you and a friend, playing through the Campaign. (In regular single-player, you have an AI buddy in which you can command, instead of your friend as the team-mate). You can also play co-op chapter 5, providing you both have it. You also unlock new characters for multi-player by completing the co-op mode. Also incorporated in the offline multi-player is what is known as Combat Zone (standard head to head battle). There are several typical modes in this feature (Death-Match, Team Death-Match, Capture the Flag, Sabotage (known as Assault) and thats about it. In the online multi-player, each of these modes is also included, and you battle up to something like 12 players across the internet. This is enjoyable and rewarding, as you rank up from 1 bronze star, to 5 gold stars. This online play works well, with minimum lag, unless your wireless is slow, and enjoyable competitive game play. This game is one of the best action games for the system, with superb graphics, realistic sound and extremely enjoyable game play online, and off, and although this game may not have been long enough, every other great feature compensates for this.

All scores out of 10

Graphics – 8.7
Sound – 8.9
Gameplay – 9.0

Overall Score – 8.86

This review was originally published on http://www.xanga.com/handheldgamereviews
by Aydan.

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