Killzone 3 Hands On

One of the biggest titles at this years E3 was Killzone 3 and Sony didn’t disappoint by having 12 stations setup demonstrating the single player campaign in either 2D or 3D.

Unfortunately the queue to get onto a 3D station was just to long so I only had a go with the 2D version. The demo starts of with you flying down on the open top jump ships while manning a gattling gun… which is pretty much as manly as you could ever be.

As you round the corner you see a heavily protected Hellghast structure which is swarming with Hellghast, their glowing eyes just begging you to spin your gattling gun over to them.

The size of the level and the amount of detail on screen at one time is awe inspiring and it takes some degree of concentration to snap out of it and actually start taking the building apart by aiming at it’s weak spots highlighted in luminous blue.

After taking out the structure we cashed down an escaping Hellghast ship which was trying to allude us by flying through the valleys, while this part looked great it was a simple on rails chase sequence which led us into the second half of the demo.

We crash land and need to continue this war on foot.

This was the part I was really excited about because no matter how great Killzone 2 looked it always had complaints around it’s dodgy handling and bad control scheme.

I am happy to say that Guerrilla has taken all the previous complaints to heart and have handed out a control scheme that felt perfectly natural and responsive.

I tried out a couple of random weapons which all felt comfortable and perfect for blasting Hellghast scum across the world… moving on I entered another structure and had some close quarter battles which once again was well balanced and hugely entertaining.

To finish off the demo I faced off against 4 jetpack powered Hellghast in a small corridor with some Hellghast sharp shooters up on the roof taking pot shots at me while I struggled to find enough ammo to take down the heavily weaponised Hellghast jetpacks.

Unfortunately I never got any hands on time with the jetpack myself but as my time with the demo drew to a close I can quite confidently say that Killzone 3 is looking really really good and if you are a Killzone fan then this is an absolute must and if you haven’t entered the Hellghast world yet then this is as good a time as any to get prepared.

Last Updated: June 21, 2010