Lagumbay.com Reflections on Love, Rage, and Fear

“Act like you know, Rico. I know what Bo don’t know.” — Ini Kamoze, “Hotstepper”

So we’re back from…I forget. I remember playing Killzone 2′s single-player story. I even remember trying to go through it a second time without using crosshairs but for the love of Vekta, I can’t seem to remember what happened in between landing and Rico shooting Visari. I shot oodles of Helghast, I got to play with different guns, planted explosives, shot more orange-eyed soldiers, and then lots and lots and LOTS of hours playing the online multiplayer.

Now here we are in Killzone 3!

Started out dressed as a Hig…er, sorry, Native Helghan soldier not really sure what’s going on. Naturally, I immediately tried to blow my cover but not a lot of buttons were enabled. I tried to walk all erratic and funny to draw attention to myself but nope, they just wanted me to get on with the intro tutorial. On to weapons training. Though I didn’t try to shoot the instructor, I did shoot the “Friendly” Helghan target a few times but my instructor didn’t catch on either. Seems the Helghan military aren’t really quick in the noggin.

So Narville’s been captured and is about to be executed…and we, disguised as the executioners, are about to open fire on the opposition leadership. Then we get the flashback to where KZ2 left off. ISA evacuation, separated from Narville, kill Higs, reunite with Narville, Rico disobeys orders, the evacuation gets botched, flashback six months after that and we’re hiding from the Helghan Empire. Seem like the stealth part is about to go on.

Memorable moments so far: the sniper section. It took a while for me to figure out where the snipers were hiding, as the “left building” didn’t make sense until I figured out whose left they had meant. The Mech section took a few tries and was marred by a few moments of trying to find the second tank that we had to eliminate. I had to get used to which button did what between the mech, the sniper rifle and the combat system. At times, it was a difficult decision to figure out which heavy weapon to keep but in the end, the decisions seemed to work themselves out.

I then went to the online multiplayer part, since the pre-order bonus I got included having all the skills/weapons unlocked for 24 hours. I wanted to make the most of it by accumulating as many unlock points as I could. Unfortunately, my team lost the two Warzone matches I played. I still got a few unlock points out of it, so that was nice. My plan of action, I think, is to get the medic leveled up and then use that class to pile on the XP, almost the same way I had proceeded in the beta.

So far, the story isn’t all that memorable, but I expected that. The multiplayer seems very promising, since it reminded me of the many hours I had spent playing the previous version. To borrow some more from Ini Kamoze’s song, Killzone 3, “still love you like that!”