Death by Petrusite

"None of us should even be alive. I'm sure that means something."
- Sevchenko, Killzone 3

So it appears that I forgot the mum's comment about a warehouse sale last Friday (where incidentally, she bought a bunch of books) and went to Greenhills instead to try and find a copy of Siglo 2, among others.

While I missed the chance to grab a ton of books, I got a copy of the Killzone trilogy instead. Although I thoroughly enjoyed Killzone 2, I haven't played the first and third games in this series. In any case, I decided to play Killzone 3 first, mainly because I didn't like the way that last generation shooters made me dizzy.

Contrary to popular belief (and spoiler alert), Killzone 3 isn't the last iteration in the series - at least that's what I got from the ending's gaping lack of closure. The game picks up where the previous title left off, directly after the assault on Visari's palace which resulted in the Helghan leader's death at the hands of an enraged Rico Velasquez. He, along with the player character Tomas Sevchenko and the rest of the remaining ISA forces commanded by Captain Jason Narville, struggle to find a way out of the city of Pyhrrus - which was nuked by Scolar Visari in the previous game.

They are turned from an invasion force into rebels fighting for their lives as the Helghans somehow manage to quickly regroup under the surviving Senate led by Admiral Orlock and backed by Jorhan Stahl, the Helghans' largest weapons manufacturer.

Compared to Killzone 2 (which was mostly focused on urban landscapes), Killzone 3 took the war across the planet - from jungles filled with lethal plants to desolate snowscapes littered with weapons facilities. The game also features a surprising amount of different vehicle sequences where players get to drive tanks, mechs and starfighters.

Graphics are as impressive as Killzone 2. In my opinion, the only shooters that soundly beat Killzone 3 in this regard are Crysis 2 (which is pretty much a given) and games that use the Frostbite 2 engine such as Battlefield 3 and Warfighter (which came out much, much later).

Gameplay is standard FPS fare with the occasional aforementioned vehicle levels. I wasn't too impressed with the small selection of weapons - with the exception of the Petrusite Cannon, which worked pretty much like Quake 4's dark matter gun. The brutal melee system was pretty interesting, although I wasn't able to do much with it as I was playing the game on Hard mode.

That being said, Killzone 3 is a solid shooter - even if there are much better ones out there a year after its release. It's a rental title at best, but I'd recommend buying the trilogy bundle as it's much cheaper.