Killzone Shadow Fall Impressions

Killzone has always been afflicted by a distinct lack of personality. The patronizing obviousness of its science fiction setting and wanton borrowing from other genre stalwarts in terms of gameplay mechanics has thus far held it back from greatness. Latest title in the series, carrying the Shadow Fall suffix, was the Playstation 4 launch's poster child; a potential system seller given that the Xbox One was not getting a comparable day one Halo title. The game was first revealed along with the console itself this time last year, and was by far the most technically dazzling demonstration of what Sony's new hardware would be capable of, although I came away from the footage concerned that the final game would turn out to be all mouth and no trousers. It turns out such fears were well founded.

Presumably following on from the events of the previous game, the ISA now begrudgingly share their capital city with Helghan (baddie) refugees following an ISA engineered cataclysmic event that all but destroyed the Helghast homeworld, in what comes off as some kind of clumsy Berlin Wall allegory. Predictably, the plot involves radical elements setting a match into this metaphorical powder keg, and you play the part of an ISA Shadow Marshall trying to covertly prevent all out war. There are some floundering attempts to add some moral ambiguity to the plot as things progress, but the unerring fact remains that the Helghast are painted evil in the most crass manner possible; dressed as 'space Nazis', given deep voices, glowing red eyes and sociopathic tendencies. Sophisticated iconography it ain't.

It's difficult to know what to write about Shadow Fall's single player gameplay, because it's just like every first person you've ever played. There's not even the faintest whiff of innovation here, and although what's on offer is not unenjoyable,  the game is the very definition of art for art's sake. Multiplayer is much the same in terms of simply imitating what's already out there, although this time with the added frustration of there being no explanation as to how the objective based game modes that are often forced onto you are supposed to work. Graphically, the game is impressive in that flashy, lens flare heavy way that big budget sci-fi often is, but the final version of Killzone Shadow Fall is nowhere near as strikingly beautiful as the preview build shown last year. The game runs at a constant 30 frames per second in single player if you enable the frame cap, but for multiplayer, some detail is sacrificed so the engine can shoot for the gold standard 60 frames per second. This is clearly an attempt to pander to the Call of Duty crowd who crave the responsive controls that come with smoother gameplay, but unfortunately in practice the frame rate in multiplayer varies wildly, especially in matches approaching the 24 player limit, making all that sacrificed eye candy for naught.

So far I've made some truly scathing criticisms of Killzone: Shadow Fall, but the game isn't bad per se; the gunplay is satisfying enough to carry you through the single player campaign once and some may find the less twitchy nature of the multiplayer when compared to Call of Duty or Battlefield appeals to them. Given that Guerilla Games are a Sony owned studio, they'd have had more notice than most that new hardware was on the horizon, and as such should have pulled out all the stops and put together something to really make the Master Chief sweat. As it stands, though, he's still sitting pretty atop his console first person shooter throne.