Killzone 3 Beta Reaction

Well I got a chance to play the Killzone 3 beta over the weekend. So what were my thoughts? Well let me talk about the Killzone games a little first.

To start, I hated the first Killzone. I thought it was a vastly overhyped, boring, bland and overall mediocre First-Person Shooter that couldn't compete against other games on the PS2 let alone other great first-person shooters on the market on other consoles. It couldn't compete against the Xbox giant known as Halo and it was no where near as satisfying as Metroid Prime. Admittedly Metroid Prime is more of an adventure game but comparisons were inevitable.

So when Killzone 2 was announced in 2005 and as the release date in 2009 drew closer, I didn't have much interest. Then I decided to try it out based on reviews and it was my pick as the best First-Person Shooter of 2009 (you heard me CoD fanboys). The single-player story was generic with kind of bland characters but the Helghast had some of the best enemy AI in gaming history (in complete contrast to the on/off AI of the first one). And it looked gorgeous (even if the environments didn't have much variety.

The multiplayer was also outstanding with a great class system mixed with the rankings from Call of Duty. Yet, it was also remarkably balanced. Even at the beginning when I barely had any to work with, I always felt like I had a chance. And the ability to make in game squads was great for small teamwork. And Warzone was an excellent idea switching to different game modes without any loading or pause in the action. So, how did Killzone 3's beta hold up?

Killzone 3's multiplayer beta was really fun. I played it for many hours over the weekend and enjoyed every minute. You've got the same class system in place as Killzone 2 but it uses the money-spending system that was most recently used in Call of Duty: Black Ops to give higher customization for classes rather than just waiting to level up a certain way. Every time you gain a level, you get an upgrade point to spend. Spend those points to purchase new weapons that said class can use, side arms, upgrade your primary ability and secondary abilities of that class.

There were a lot of options considering there were five classes. Whether this is the extent of the customization options is yet to be seen until the game's release.

Like Killzone 2, Killzone 3 had a great balance (from what I played). It never felt like I was way outmatched and it always felt like, whoever was better would win the fight, which obviously is exactly how it should be. Every class had different abilities to add such as the Scrambler which turns enemy radar into static but it never felt like an unfair advantage whether I were doing it to them or they to me.

There was only one map but I enjoyed it. It was smartly laid out and was a nice snowy environment giving a different color than brown (YAY!).

Killing enemies was satisfying as hell. Everytime I sniped an enemy and saw said enemy drop, it gave me a very satisfying feel...I realize just how sadistic that sounded. Anyway, one cool addition are the Close-Quarter Knife kills. If you get close to an enemy and melee correctly, it leads to a brutally satisfying cinematic knife kill. It leaves you vulnerable and it's technically taken straight from Halo: Reach (whether that was ripped from somewhere else I don't know), but it was really cool to see none the less.

Killzone 3's multiplayer beta was fun and enjoyable. It didn't change the formula from Killzone 2 an enormous amount but sometimes, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Killzone 2's multiplayer was definitely not broke so Killzone 3 didn't need to change much to be fun and from what I've played it is

Killzone 3 will be in stores on February 22nd.