1. Let's just get this out of the way: I am a rather dedicated handheld person when it comes to consoles. I have never played the home console Killzone games and almost certainly never will. If you want to know how Killzone: Liberation compares to its big siblings on home consoles, I dunno, just imagine what I would say about it, write that down and then read that.
2. This game encapsulates both handheld games done right and handheld games done wrong. It is a paradox. On one hand, rather than trying to cram a full fledged first person shooter onto limited hardware, they redid the game as a isometric shooter. This is smart. Instead of getting a crappy version of the home console game, we get a unique game designed for the strengths of the PSP.
3. On the other hand, it really lacks the polish of a full AAA console release making Killzone: Liberation feel like "only" a handheld game. It has great potential but it is never achieved.
4. The setup here is you are some kind of super soldier. Your mortal enemies are some storm trooper types and you've got to run around killing them and occasionally pressing green buttons. Doing this successfully causes your side to win the war. Woo!
5. The voice acting, script and plotting are all pretty underwhelming. This, to me, is a fine compromise for a game destined to sell at a half the price as a home console release. Sure, I'd personally prefer no cut scenes to disposable ones but, whatever, some people expect them for some reason. But, if the story isn't going to holdup, the gameplay has to. Unfortunately, while Killzone: Liberation
has some good ideas, it falls short in almost all cases--and most often
due to control limitations of the hardware not be adequately addressed.
6. In spite of its isometric perspective, this plays mostly like a third-person cover based shooter. Most situations are tackled by finding a good spot to hunker down then picking off enough enemies to clear your way to the next spot. This all works out well and little is lost in translation to the new perspective. In fact, it makes for different strategic opportunities because you can see more of the battlefield.
7. To make this all work w/o a second stick to aim, the developers relied on an auto-lock-on mechanic. This would be great--maybe even better than a second stick, really--but it is forever locking on to the wrong enemy or nobody at all. Or, it will lock on the right enemy but forget about it because you moved an inch in one direction . Or, the lock-on will switch mid firefight because the enemy you were shooting fell over so instead of actually finishing off the first guy and letting you focus on the second, it will leave you w/ two enemies at half health. This would normally be rectified by allowing you to use the L and R
buttons to switch who you are locked on to but the R button is dedicated
to crouching and the L button allows you to strafe while staying locked on to an enemy (as long as that enemy doesn't fall over or the lock on doesn't switch to another enemy for some other reason).
8. Lack of buttons cause some other issues as well. At one point--and this is just an example--you get a jet pack which is activated by the same button as you use to disarm landmines. The game gets around this problem by just having you float in the air while disarming the mine that would be at knee level if you were standing on the ground. What the hell?
9. On top of everything else, the check-pointing system can be a little weird. You are typically allowed to backtrack and pick up previously passed over health pickups and such but you never re-trigger the checkpoint. If you come upon section you struggle w/, you need to backtrack and pickup everything you need over and over again. There's also the issue where some checkpoints are immediately before a dialog cut scene and having to rewatch those gets to be a chore too.
10. All of these previous issues seem like they could have been smoothed out just by refining them a little bit. They are compromises, sure, but you only notice them because they are compromises that don't work like they're supposed to.
11. Even w/ all these complaints, I think the combat could have worked if they had just made it a bit slower paced and focused on picking the right approach. There are times when you can do clever little tricks like shooting a walking mine which homes in on the nearest person be it friend or foe and using that to thin out enemy ranks before a firefight. You don't really need the tightest controls if you are going for a more puzzle-oriented approach and I think that would have been a better fit here. The problem is Killzone: Liberation only really plays at this idea while its bread and butter is more action based.
12. I also don't want to forget to mention that the enemies that shoot homing missiles that can one shot kill you are one of the most annoying enemies I have encountered in any game.
13. Killzone: Liberation is one of those near misses that just winds up being all the more frustrating because it's almost a good game. You can feel that there was real effort putting into matching the franchise up w/ the PSP but it just falls a little short in painful ways. Combat winds up being a frustrating chore all too often and the story and cut scenes are in no way good enough to make up for this. Still, there are moments were the kernel of goodness at this game's core shines through. I just wish that was more often than not.
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