KILLZONE SHADOW FALL REVIEW SERIES

Mercifully, that mystifying sluggishness is long gone, making Shadow Fall faster and snappier than Killzone has ever been, making way for a shooter that feels, at its core, a lot more like Halo than Killzone 3. And while it doesn’t always run at or near 60 frames per second, Shadow Fall performs nicely, with motion blur slyly hiding some of its rough technical edges.Īlso eliminated is one of the most well-known and divisive components of the franchise: its incredibly heavy-feeling movement. It’s easy to lose track of time staring off into Vekta City’s impressive skyline, or run around looking at the plant life in the forest alongside the wall that keeps the two sides away from one another. Shadow Fall’s environments are gorgeous, diverse, and have a tangible feeling of scope, and it’s the pristineness of many of them that make them special. The wake of endless war - and the invasive industrial feel of previous entries - have stepped aside for stunning, colorful cityscapes, lush forests, and abandoned space stations. This becomes immediately evident as soon as you begin the single-player campaign. This story has allowed Guerrilla to explore different, more subtle themes, in turn letting the team flex its artistic muscles in ways it never had a chance to. It takes place decades after the catastrophic events at the end of Killzone 3, with the conflict between the two sides turning into a bona fide cold war as a result of once again living on the same planet. Killzone has always been a bleak-looking game, a product of its equally bleak story surrounding two factions of warring humans, the Vektans and the Helghast, but Shadow Fall one makes a welcome turn for the colorful. It takes slivers of Halo, Call of Duty, Crysis, and Deus Ex to deliver something staggeringly different for Killzone, something longtime fans in particular may not expect. The Dutch studio has created a Killzone game that feels, in some respects, like a reimagining of what its been endlessly working on since the PlayStation 2 era.

KILLZONE SHADOW FALL REVIEW SERIES

Shadow Fall goes a lot further than Mercenary in attempting to remedy some of what was wrong with the franchise, and developer Guerrilla Games has smartly (and obviously) studied its contemporaries in the shooter space for inspiration on how make its series excel again.

Killzone 3, released a couple of years ago on PlayStation 3, was considered by many to be a low point for the series, but earlier this year, Killzone: Mercenary on PS Vita set it back on the right course, and the PlayStation 4 launch game, Killzone: Shadow Fall, shows us an entirely new side of the franchise. If 2011 was the year Killzone found itself on the ropes, then 2013 is the year the franchise regains its footing.

Killzone shadow fall review