Killzone Shadow Fall - PS4 game review
Callum Munro
(I try my hardest not to spoil any major parts of the plot)
My reviews are split into 4 sections that are rated out of 10, CONCEPT (The aim/idea/plot of the game), VISUALS (What the game looks like), GAMEPLAY (How the game plays and how fun it is), SOUND (The sound, funnily enough) and then given a final score out of 10.0 .
Hey guys and welcome to my first PS4 game review. What a great way to kick off my new reviews with none other than Guerillas newest and most hopeful addition to the up and down Killzone franchise.
Enjoy..
Concept
So Killzone Shadow Fall takes place after the events of Killzone 3, where you destroy the planet Helghan after the petrusite detonation, ending the war between the helghast and the ISA.
Since the event made the planet a bombsite, the ISA allowed the remaining Helghans to share the planet Vekta and have half the planet separated by a huge security fortification called The Wall.
The wall separates the Vektans and the Helghans supposedly stopping any conflict, due to the hatred they have towards eachother from the war.
The game begins a few years after the construction of the wall and you play as a small boy (Lucas Kellan) trying to sneak through New Helghan with your father. Along the way you come across a Shadow Marshal called Sinclair.
Your father is tragically murdered in front of you and then Sinclair raise you to become a Shadow Marshal.
Playing as Lucas Kellan 30 years later, you must put a stop to the evil ploys of the Helghast as they try and take over planet Vekta for themselves.
The concept is very good, it allows the game to come away from the dark and gritty warzone of the other Killzone games to a vibrant and full of life city fuelled by an excellent back story making it much more believable and the levels much more meaningful.
Unfortunately some levels don't share the same brilliant storytelling, and seem to sometimes be there to simply string together parts of the plot, which do in the end come together nicely, but can can make the game become dull when trying to complete boring objectives.
Killzone has always been a slave to dull and unoriginal storylines and has made the franchise suffer greatly because of this.
Thankfully Guerilla Games have managed to develop a much more colourful storyline using the history of the other games to simply fuel the theme of hatred between the two sides, making Shadow Fall have one of the most enjoyable and interesting back story and plot lines of not only the franchise, but than in most action packed FPS games out there.
CONCEPT - 9/10
Visuals
Without a doubt, Killzone Shadow Fall is the best looking game I have ever seen. Everything from the flawless colour used in the vibrant city to the perfect facial animations during cutscenes.
It looks gorgeous.
Finally Killzone has ditched the black and grey colours that littered the screen in the earlier instalments and introduced sleek and futuristic whites, blues and reds to the palette to create a different, but much more effective approach to the environments and guns in particular.
One of the most impressive thing about the visuals is the scope of the environments.
When flying across the city, everything is intricately detailed and textured to perfection with barely any rough edges whatsoever. You can see as far as physically possible to the human eye and the game delivers with ease, really showcasing the power and capabilities of the Playstation 4.
Characters facial animations are incredible. The facial tracking is unreal and the motion capture of the actor's is scarily real, again delivering on the emotional feel to the game, allowing you to understand character's characteristics easily, creating a nice bond with the good guys and the bad guys of the game.
Unfortunately the voie acting could do with some work but that will be touched on later.
Overall Killzone: Shadow Fall looks stunning.
It really shows what the PS4 can do and this is only a launch game.
It drastically helps with delivering the powerful theme of civil unrest, by having such a magnificent scope allowing the player to see the environment change physically and emotionally before their eyes, making it sometimes feel as though you are watching a Sci Fi thriller movie.
It is also an excellent move to stray away from the dark colours of the other games before it, and is definitely a move in the right direction for the franchise.
VISUALS - 10/10
Gameplay
Firstly I would like to say that the older Killzone games where linear and extremely clunky. Another reason to why they flopped like they did.
Don't get me wrong I thoroughly I enjoyed the first 3 killzone games, but I can also see why they were received with mixed reception.
Shadow Fall improves on both of those gameplay aspects whilst developing a couple of new flaws.
One of the first things you will notice about Shadow Fall is that it is no longer overly clunky and heavy. Finally Killzone feels like a normal first person shooter and not as if your character is carrying about 40 bricks in all of his pockets.
Maybe Lucas is much slimmer than Sev? Or maybe Guerilla realised that their Original idea of gameplay wasnt winning many people over.
This makes the combat flow much nicer and also makes it much less fiddly whilst in combat, it also sorts out the weird sensitivity problems faced with the originals.
Also instead of just fight fight fight, there are now plenty of different approaches you can take to each level.
There are plenty of stealth opportunities throughout the game where you can attempt to take out the helghast in different ways. Either way effects how the level is going to play out.
For example in the second chapter there are many different ways to stealthily take down the Helghast. You can hack the alarm system with your O.W.L, not allowing them to call reinforcements, you can silently takedown the enemies before they trigger the alarm or you can go in guns blazing at the cost of much more enemies.
There are also often much more than one path to the objective allowing for some different tactical approaches and some deep exploration for audio logs or other collectibles.
Using the Dualshock 4 touch button pad thing, you can swipe up, down, left or right to choose a different function for your robot companion called O.W.L to do.
One is to simply attack a targeted enemy, another is to create a shield barrier in front of you, one other is to stun your enemies with an electric burst and the last is to be able to zip line to out of reach places (again showing the lack of linearity in levels).
Also as the Dualshock 4 has a (surprisingly good) speaker inside it, audiologs are played through your controller.
These new things you can do with the new controller are nice additions and although they aren't game changers they certainly show they can work well.
Unfortunately Shadow fall isnt without flaws.
It features some very odd and just plain unnecessary platforming moments.
One of these moments is when escaping from a certain place (I wont spoil anything) you have to jump across these boxes to get through the level. This woudn't be so bad if the jumping mechanic wasnt so damn awful.
One of the worst parts in the game are also the zero gravity sections. A few times in the game you are faced with zero gravity chambers where you can fly around a large cylinder shaped room, and it is horribly awkward and clunky ruining the experience of the new makeover Killzone has been given.
Overall Killzone changes much that the other games didnt get right which show promising signs of the once struggling Killzone franchise and also shows that Guerilla games are obviously good at listening to critics and fans and shows that they have a willingness to change.
Along with these brilliant changes Shadow fall has a couple of horribly awkward platforming sequences which are really really horrible and slightly ruin the experience.
GAMEPLAY- 8/10
Audio
Unfortunately Killzone Shadow Fall, falls slightly short in this section. Voice acting is unintentionally funny sometimes and guns sound generic and boring.
On the other hand the soundtrack is pretty nice, it comes on at good times and fits in nicely with the type of level you are playing.
Also even though some of the voice acting is fairly over the top at times, the helghan main characters sound great. They nail it on the head the perfect blend of psychotic and smart.
Unfortunately as the audio is nothing special I dont have a lot to say about it, apart from the voice acting is a mixed bag, and most effects are very ordinary.
AUDIO - 6/10
Killzone Shadow Fall is an incredibly strong launch title for the PS4. It is definitely the strongest entry into the series thanks to its bold new approach to the storytelling techniques used along with some breathtaking visuals.
Unfortunately it falls short with average voice acting and unnecessary awkward platforming sequences however, but Killzone Shadow Fall is a must buy for FPS enthusiasts who have a PS4 or are thinking of buying one soon, as it really shows of the capability for your new machine.
I thought about saying "the cops", but this wasn't the time for bad jokes. - Max Payne 3
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