Killzone 2 multiplayer live demo - Now with (high quality) SP footage

[Draft]

Cover is basically bullshit in all FPS games where you can be shot more than one time. Oh snap, better take cover, I don't want to get shot the 10x it will take to kill me.

It certainly makes my character, and subsequently me, feel more capable. The COD4 idea of combat feels fundamentally crippled, and even more so when you're the only fucker on the battlefield with these restrictions. Fucking lame.

I thought you were a PC gamer. COD4 PC has leaning and sidling. Surely the two most common activities of the elite soldier.

Not that cover is terribly useful in that game. It's a fast paced arcade shooter. You don't hold positions. You run around like a mad man owning people through the use of sick aim.

Cover (and let's call leaning "cover") is a mechanic that doesn't really become useful unless you design a game around it. You need to make death painful (as in you're out for the round, or you have a ridiculously long trek back to the fighting) and you need to design levels, damage and player movement around battles that naturally lend themselves to clean lines of scrimmage.

No one bothers with cover when it's likely some moron is going to spawn behind you any second.

[duckman2000]

The 3rd person cover fire system symbolized everything I've grown to despise about Rainbow Six as of late.

well, i'm baffled - what exactly don't you like about the 3rd person cover system in R6? Is it just down to the fact it enhances the view point and is therefore unrealistic?

despise R6 of late? each to their own of course, but ... wow.

It's not even that it's unrealistic that bugs me; shooters are by and large unrealistic by design. But I can not fucking stand how it constantly fucks with the perspective, and throws me out of first person. And yeah, I haven't been happy with R6 since Raven Shield, although this latest game, Vegas 2, really takes the fucking cake in terms of unbridled awfulness.

[Draft]

Raven Shield is the last game I played where I bothered to lean.

[duckman2000]

I thought you were a PC gamer. COD4 PC has leaning and sidling. Surely the two most common activities of the elite soldier.

Not breaking the immersion, and giving the player some reasonable abilities, is what I would consider useful. It will change the gameplay, but for me it's really primarily about actually getting some god damn moves beyond stand-crouch-fire. I know the PC version has more movements, which is why I was specifically referencing the console versions. Still, the opposition pulls off stunts well beyond even that, which again fucks with the experience by making me the least capable dude around. Apparently, my main ability is that I can absorb more damage, and don't think for a second that I'm all that hot about that either. If there must be a quick fix system, I prefer the inject system of other games, simply because it makes damage something that needs tending to.

Additionally, given how much emphasis that has been placed on this cover fire system as well as the destructible props, I'm not ready to write it off as not being part of the core design of the game. The Helghast certainly seem eager to use cover fire themselves, so we'll have to wait and see exactly how much damage they can deal within this design. On a to have or not to have basis though, I for one am happy to see that they are going in this destruction.

[JustinP]

The 3rd person cover fire system symbolized everything I've grown to despise about Rainbow Six as of late.

well, i'm baffled - what exactly don't you like about the 3rd person cover system in R6? Is it just down to the fact it enhances the view point and is therefore unrealistic?

despise R6 of late? each to their own of course, but ... wow.

you're the only one here talking about how it relates to realism. 

third person cover games, in multiplayer games, are a flawed game mechanic.  unless, of course, your goal for a game is really to make leaving cover the last thing a player wants to do.  because third person cover is so advantageous, not going into cover simply isn't an option in most cases.  it's too safe.  there is almost no risk.  it promotes turtling. 

[duckman2000]

I should clarify that I don't actually think that Vegas 2 is a horrible game as such, it's just a spit of shit on what Rainbow Six once was, or at least the direction the franchise was going in. As a general action game, it's not bad at all, aside from the mentioned first, er, third, er, first person bullshit. But yeah, it was designed for that, it just felt like a lame design choice.


To bring this back to Killzone 2 though, have they said anything about putting helghast dogs in this game? I've never played Liberation beyond the demo, but I remember seeing these things in the intro cinema and hoping to hell that they'd make it into Killzone 2. Anything on enemy types so far, or are they just focusing on the combat mechanics for now?

[cool breeze]

If they are looking for good AI to learn from, look at FEAR or Project Origin.

Oh, transition to third person in a first person shooter is just annoying all around.  The Vegas games, PDZ, and that new Bond game are all guilty of this sin. 

[JustinP]

R6 forces you into cover by default as it's pretty much a 1 shot 1 kill game - 2 if you are heavily armoured (and therefore slower). my point which you seem to be missing is that a first person mechanic may lead to problems of it's own -in terms of gameplay-. There is still plenty of risk as you still have to snap back into first person and turn to take out people who flank you. You still have to be observant and you still need someone covering you, but it helps take away any frustrations you may have if the friendly AI doesn't kick in.

R6 for instance (especially for those of us who play it on the realistic setting) in a first person view would become pretty annoying pretty quickly. I understand that it gives you an advantage in terms of view points, but the alternative in a game like r6 would be even more instant deaths.

Again, i can only restate that it'll come down to how the game is balanced. A first person cover system in R6 would have made what is already a very very hard game on the top difficulty insanely hard.

Still, takes nothing from the game for me - still one of the best shooters out there IMO.

note - it the AI is shit first or third person cover will still lead to it being abused. R6-1- and the patched R6-2- has some of the best AI out there, so you wouldn't be turtling at all.

Hopefully GG are loooking at R6 and other games with high quality AI , that's where the game will find it's true standing.

you know, R6 games were 1-2 shot kill/death games before they had cover.  raven shield is still the best R6 game.  

raven shield has a very precise lean and crouch mechanic, which could be compared to KZ2's cover system on a 'manual' setting (in terms of controls).  popping out of KZ2's cover looks very easy and quick, and not jarring since you never leave first person view.  it's basically a more context sensitive version of raven shield's mechanics (again, in terms of controls).  

and you keep talking about AI, but i'm talking about multiplayer in this multiplayer thread.  i've made that clear in my posts, too.  i'm not talking about singleplayer at all.

[duckman2000]

If they are looking for good AI to learn from, look at FEAR or Project Origin.

Oh, transition to third person in a first person shooter is just annoying all around.  The Vegas games, PDZ, and that new Bond game are all guilty of this sin. 

I count F.E.A.R. as the first game to actually make me feel like prey. Sure, other games have had threatening enemies with good guns or even smarts about them, but nothing like in F.E.A.R.

That's something I wish more developers went for, making the player feel like prey. The Killzone 2 demonstration I've seen have displayed enemy behavior that ranges from forgivable through cannonfodder to at times good, but I haven't seen anything that does the Helghan appearance and military culture justice. Other games like COD4 make enemies seem like suicidal maniacs with a shitload of grenades, and that's not great either.

And Vegas, good A.I.? Good marksmanship, sure, and the bullets hurt, but I have yet to observe enemy behavior that I'd consider particularly bright. Vegas 2 seemed better, but not by much. And the friendly A.I. is just embarrassingly shit, although not necessarily from a lack smarts, but due to the completely unnatural behavior of the team mates in relation to myself in the game. No dudes, please do not stand at the top of the stairs where you will get killed by the guy behind the mounted machine gun. Be smart enough to realize that following my exact placement command isn't always the best idea. And then you had the sheer glitches, where I had to lead the poor buggers along a few meters at a time because they couldn't see past a plant.

Can't do that 'suur. 

[duckman2000]

Improved Gamersyde video:

http://www.gamersyde.com/news_6898_en.html

[duckman2000]

MP profile screen, badge screen and weapons screen

[cool breeze]

If you are an IGN insider, they have a 720p direct feed stage demo up for download.  Game looks reallygood.

[duckman2000]

No IGN insider here. I see IGN also has a HD version of the E3 trailer of Infamous. 

But yeah, the game actually looks good, as a game. Highly unexpected.

[Smooth Groove]

The image quality and framerate are impressive but the AI still seems really weak.  The enemies act like robots that are just waiting to be shot. 

Also, WTF at the pre-alpha status.  When's this game going to be done? 

[cool breeze]

I'm just surprised that it actually really holds up actually in direct feed high resolution straight gameplay.  I have a hard time really judging a game if the videos shown are things the developers wanted us to see or just simply off screen.  There is a lot of really good detail on the guns, although the ground looks a bit weird in comparison (not saying the ground looks bad, it is just a bit jarring to see such quality in the weapons and buildings, but the ground looks a bit off).  It also didn't seem to have any weird jaggies or anything like that, so that is good.

[duckman2000]

The image quality and framerate are impressive but the AI still seems really weak.  The enemies act like robots that are just waiting to be shot. 

Also, WTF at the pre-alpha status.  When's this game going to be done? 

I've seen the griping about the A.I. (and the developer has even responded to it with claims of it being tweaked for dumb journalists), and it sounds a whole lot like nervous overreaction to me. At worst, the A.I. seems to be COD quality, and for a demonstration it hardly seems like anything out of the ordinary. Reminds me of the complaints regarding the A.I. in the Gears of War demonstrations, really, which subsequently brings to mind nearly every shooter demonstration in memory. We'll see where it ends up.

[JustinP]

The image quality and framerate are impressive but the AI still seems really weak.  The enemies act like robots that are just waiting to be shot. 

really?  there was one example where they were charging, and then when they saw the player come out with a rocket launcher, they turned around and went back to cover

the enemies are just slow moving, which makes them seem dumb and unresponsive.  it'd be cool if they ran faster on higher difficulty levels. seems like a smart way to scale difficulty (along with other things). 

[duckman2000]

Yeah, reading the comments regarding the footage, you'd think the enemies were all clumped together and charging headfirst into machine gun fire, which doesn't seem to be the case. At worst, they are as you say a bit slow and not always keen on winning, but they seem capable of greater things.

I was cynical of this before this E3, but Guerrilla has as of late done nothing but crush cynical bullet-point after cynical bullet-point, so I'm dropping it for now.

[duckman2000]

What they need to do is make the enemies spam grenades. Nothing tricks people into thinking they are dealing with cunning enemies like a barrage of grenades.

[Smooth Groove]

KZ2's AI is no worse than COD4 but like DFYB metioned, the game moves a bit slower.  In COD4, the action is going so fast and there are so many enemies that you never really notice the lack of AI. 

[duckman2000]

They probably need to be faster, or at least a good deal more aggressive. Their "smarts" or moves, I see very little wrong with. Allegedly, they are working on this, and again... remember the Gears of War peek-a-boo demonstration? Now I'm not saying that Guerrilla has what it takes to deliver on all fronts, but I think they've earned the benefit of a doubt at this point.

[duckman2000]

Guerrilla games studio visit, "director's cut."

http://gamevideos.com/video/id/19937

The industrial design kicks ass, and it's nice to see that they are giving gun models plenty of attention. A nice piece on behavior/"A.I." towards the end as well.

[cool breeze]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6hhy9_killzone-2-online-multiplayer-trail

Trailer from Leipzig.

Looks great, but total bullshit with people talking with each other on PSN.  That never happens.

[duckman2000]

Much better than the previous MP trailer. Hopefully this can take over the reigns from COD4 for me. Looks great, although there is one thing that shatters the pretty image; the "rag doll" deaths. It obviously makes for something more unexpected and unscripted than the COD4 ones (dudes simply falling to their knees regardless of how they got killed looks weird too), but there is a bit too much movement to it. Looks great otherwise though.

That sniper rifle view is fuck awesome.

[cool breeze]

Yeah, I dig the high tech hud for snipers that highlights the heads of everyone in their view.

[Smooth Groove]

There're a bunch of waving cloths in that video.  I wonder if you can punch holes in them like the free PhysX game from Nvidia. 

It's kinda cool for people who were cumming over Resistance's glass effects.  I'll post some caps when I have time. 

[Smooth Groove]

That's not new tech, didn't Bloodrayne have that?

Don't remember.  I barely played Bloodrayne.  The PhysX effects look different and much better than anything I've seen even though the game itself is kinda crap.  It's kinda hard to describe in words.  You can check out my caps later or try it yourself if you have a Geforce 8 or higher.  The downloads are available on Nzone.com

[duckman2000]

And I'm starting to looking forward to this FAR more than R2.

R2 is proven to be, at the very least, good. The MP in Resistance was really quite awesome, and they've really pushed it above and beyond that now. Killzone 2 here looks to do all the right things, and looks spectacular doing those things, but it's still an unknown for me.

[Smooth Groove]

And I'm starting to looking forward to this FAR more than R2.

R2 is proven to be, at the very least, good. The MP in Resistance was really quite awesome, and they've really pushed it above and beyond that now. Killzone 2 here looks to do all the right things, and looks spectacular doing those things, but it's still an unknown for me.

I was all psyched up for K2.  For realz (you can check my old posts). 

But the recent videos have dampened a lot of that enthusiasm.  The visuals are still good but the gameplay still seems nothing more than the least we'd expect from a professional FPS game. 

R2, though, shows some promise.  I didn't care for R1 but what I've seen makes me think R2 will likely be a much better game than R1 and KZ2. 

[duckman2000]

What it comes down to is that if Guerrillla gets this right, meaning the quality of the gameplay matches the presentation, it will be one hell of an event, a milestone even. Multiplayer seems to focus on all the right things, and it looks amazing. At this point, though, I'm not ready to assume that they will nail it, although I'd say it's probably likely that at least the multiplayer will be awesome.

 In regards to Resistance, on the other hand, it's all but guaranteed that it will be at the very least good and polished. And the multiplayer options, from the 8-player online campaign mode to the 60-player online competitive mode, are well above the norm. Looking at the games without consideration for the featuresets and sheer numbers, it feels like KZ2 is the riskier, but it could mean a higher reward. We'll see.

Resistance 2 does seem more superficially barren and "engineered," though. I suspect that its sci-fi settings will look remarkable, however. But Killzone 2 is quite obviously, on a visual level, the more creative and inspired of the two.

[duckman2000]

Resistance, to me, just feels like a "Me Too" amalgamate of different games in the genre ad the universe doesn't really interest me at all.

KZ2, like Gears, has a great universe to explore. Though both games failed to do so in their first game.

I can see that. I actually wrote a little review after finishing the game, and I was quite proud of my summary of the game as an FPS Best Of. Which it was, in some ways. It did everything well, it just didn't do anything remarkable. Which was, honestly, very surprising given the track record of Insomniac. I thought they'd go crazier with the weapons and enemies, but it stayed fairly safe. Clever weapons aren't as much fun as insanely explosive and wacky weapons.

[cool breeze]

Resistance 1 to me was Insomniac thinking "Halo is hot, CoD is hot, Half Life 2 is hot, and we can make cool weapons; lets make an FPS!" And that was all good, and I enjoyed Resistance quite a bit for a console shooter (in the sense that it is just a up linear shooter).  The multiplayer in Resistance was actually quite good, and one of the great parts is that it was so fast, which was quite refreshing after playing the painfully slow Halo games, or most other games modeled on Halo (a lot).

Resistance 2 seems to take the ideas present in the first game, focus a little less on copying from others, and trying to do some really cool, unique things with the game.  The multiplayer seems like it is going to be amazing with both the 8 player co-op with leveling system and classes, as does the 60 person multiplayer where you break into smaller squads as you complete objectives as the enemy counter squad goes against you.  Single player also seems like it is going to have some changes, and they mentioned there are a lot of bosses, so it almost seems more in the vein of how they has their Ratchet titles sectioned off.

Killzone 2 looks like it is going to be sci-fi CoD, but hopefully with improvements on various areas where CoD sucks (like terrible scripting and all that shit).  I hope it turns out great, because the setting and all that look great.  Biggest problem with the first Killzone was that it was fundamentally broken from a gameplay and control standpoint.

I would say I am more excited for Resistance 2 than Killzone 2, but both are games I am looking forward to quite a bit.  And Gears 2, and bunch of other things.

[duckman2000]

Resistance, to me, just feels like a "Me Too" amalgamate of different games in the genre ad the universe doesn't really interest me at all.

KZ2, like Gears, has a great universe to explore. Though both games failed to do so in their first game.

I can see that. I actually wrote a little review after finishing the game, and I was quite proud of my summary of the game as an FPS Best Of. Which it was, in some ways. It did everything well, it just didn't do anything remarkable. Which was, honestly, very surprising given the track record of Insomniac. I thought they'd go crazier with the weapons and enemies, but it stayed fairly safe. Clever weapons aren't as much fun as insanely explosive and wacky weapons.

I can understand why, because its not RC, it has to have some reality to it. But the guns just seemed very un-inspired, even at a subtle level. They were just guns in the typical FPS arsenal mold with little twists on them.

The other thing that I like more about KZ, is that the enemies in Resistance don't have a real identity. So you don't get involved as much as you should when fighting an enemy hell bent on taking over your world.

Well, there. Which looks more interesting, or more "Insomniac?" I'd argue that the former has more personality, but somewhere along the line the design was changed to be more "realistic" or some such. I'm sure you're right, in that they wanted to keep it grounded due to the genre switch (although I think they probably weren't sure where to set the boundaries too), but I think that might have been a mistake. Just go crazy, we like crazy stuff. That's, after all, why we like the Ratchet games. Not sure where this idea comes from, that an FPS format demands a more conservative approach, but I'm hoping they have binned that mentality now.

As for the guns, I think the Hailstorm was a brilliant weapon, and the Bullseye was a clever, if less than explosive one. Being able to brake your rockets with the LAARK was also cool... but not cool enough for an Insomniac game.

[JustinP]

the voice chat made that trailer weird.

[Tabasco]

This game has amazing tech.  For PS3 fanboys, this game shows that, when funds are poured into a game, it can do things the 360 can't.  But don't expect greatness.  All the buzz is that it plays like a PS2 Medal of Honor game.

[Kestastrophe]

Dont know if this has been posted yet

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/38548.html

I think it looks incredible. I thought the first Killzone had a great MP component, it was just riddled with glitchers and lag. Will be buying a PS3 for this game