Reviews: Killzone: Shadow Fall

Danish studio Guerrilla Games created Killzone as a kind of re-evaluation of what they have worked endlessly since the days of the PlayStation 2. Some fans can find elements of Halo, Call of Duty, Crysis and Deus Ex here which is not what they would expect and many might be discouraged by this.

 

Single player mode suffers from AI and unsuccessful attempts to integrate non-action episodes. But it is still an exciting adventure, and in the course of the campaign you get motivated nonetheless. On the other hand, multiplayer seems even more accessible than ever before.
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The world of Killzone was always depressing and bleak and on top of that you had war between Vektans and Helghans. But Shadow Fall heads for a much brighter visual pattern at the expense of a weaker story which may disappoint a few hardcore fans. Though not everything may seem as perfect in the graphics department either – motion blur is widely used here to hide a huge amount of visual defects.

Shadow Fall is more dynamic and faster than any previous Killzone game, which reminds of Halo more than Killzone. This is a result of Guerrilla Games abandoning one of the most prominent physical features of the previous parts of the series – the feeling of weight.

The story unfolds in a completely different way than the rest of the series so far. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all about the war between Helghans and Vektans but here it dives more into the intricacies of Cold War intrigue rather than the typical action. This means that instead of huge battlefields Shadow Fall offers about ten hours of thoughtful, quiet approach. Sometimes the storyline makes no sense at all but the diversity of locations compensates all the plotholes.

OWL is your flying robot companion – another innovation of Shadow Fall. It can stun or even attack the enemy, protect you from enemy’s gunfire, help you climb up the platform, hack computers, cure dying characters on the battlefield – and all this gets boring real fast.

But after you complete the single mode campaign, multiplayer becomes a good reason to continue exploring the game. Just like in Killzone 2 and 3, the Warzone is clearly the best mode. Another great feature is an ability to rewrite any rules of the maps, literally any detail is in your hands for experimentation – it means that online community will live and prosper for a long time (hopefully).

In conclusion, it is clear how different Shadow Fall is in comparison to previous installments, but so many things still need to be fixed, both on storytelling and visual levels.

RFR Score – 3.5 / 5

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