Killzone 2 Preview

It really does look pretty amazing, but grey.

The level begins with a soldier drop-off into a hot zone on the Helghast's home planet. And by hot, we actually mean burning so bright it's blotting out the sun. Alpha team is assigned to head the advance of Nemesis Convoy through the Helghast's outer defence. But things quickly go wrong, as you and your buddies are shot down. You land and bang! You're chucked straight into the action. Enemy fire whizzes past your head, explosions land metres from your feet, flinging debris across the minimal HUD, medics perform CPR on downed allies, soldiers point and shout, barking orders that are barely audible over the cacophony of chaos that envelopes you.

The Helghast have the high ground, positioned as they are on a raised bridge overlooking the carnage. Your fellow soldiers are being gunned down left, right and centre. Queue your first objective - destroy the Helghast ammo boxes. It's here that you get a taste for the controls. You've got what you'd expect from typical FPS dual analogue shenanigans, (L2 rifle butt, R2 grenade, analogues for aiming and movement) as well as a handy cover system - L1 snaps into cover. From there you can pop in and out and dispatch the Helghast from the safety of large rocks, embedded structures and anything else that looks like it might repel a bullet. Once you get the hang of the cover system, it actually works pretty well. The targeting reticule goes red whenever it moves over an enemy, green when it moves over an ally. As you fire the targeting reticule gets larger and accuracy reduces. Depending on what weapon you have equipped, clicking in R3 makes you look down the barrel of the gun, zooming in slightly and providing a small dot to aim with, ala Call of Duty 4.

With a tentative foothold gained on the "grey beach", it's onto the next objective - to assist the ISA at the Flood Gate. You move forward, reinforcements dropping in for both sides as you make you're way closer to the mark. You eventually arrive at the Flood Gate and find a number of soldiers moaning in pain. You revive them by moving up to them and pressing circle, all the while Helghast keep you on your toes. The SCEE representative says that reviving team mates will be crucial to your progression through the game, so we're happy to help.

Once done, you break off from the main force with Garza, a fellow soldier who acts as your guide towards the Flood Gate control room. We arrive at a section where Garza is on a raised level and reaches down to give you a hand up. You have no control over proceedings here - you simply move towards his hand and press the appropriate button. You both make your way into a warehouse-like interior. Helghast crash through the ceiling and start attacking. From a raised position, you can fire on barrels which, yes you guessed it, explode, taking out a number of Helghast in one shot. The funnier option, however, is shooting gas canisters, which then spiral madly out of control and smash into enemy soldiers.

Still no news on online functions, but the single-player looks solid.

With the Helghast cleared you reach the flood gate control room, dispatching an unfortunate enemy on the way. Here you need to turn a valve to open the flood gate. To do this you need to hold L1 and R1, as if they were controlling your hands, and twist the Sixaxis controller left until it's fully raised. Once completed, the next objective presents itself - to cross the canal and follow the convoy. But the screen goes blank, Killzone 2 bursts on screen and the demo ends before we get the chance to see what happens next.

Having spent our load on Killzone 2 we were left feeling encouraged and slightly under-whelmed all at the same time. Encouraged by the stunning graphics, how intense the single-player experience is shaping up and how the cover-based run and gun gameplay ticks all the right boxes, but under-whelmed by a lack of freshness. In some respects Killzone 2 could be Call of Duty 4 on an alien planet. Or, with the overloaded machismo, Gears of War in first person. This doesn't necessarily mean it will be an average game, or even an above average game. But it does mean that, from what we've seen, Killzone 2 needs a splash of innovation magic dust if it's to push the boundaries of the FPS genre, something we are desperately hoping Guerrilla manages to achieve between now and February next year.

Killzone 2 is due out for PS3 in February 2009.