Lagumbay.com Reflections on Love, Rage, and Fear

“You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You’re faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life’s been way off line
You’re falling to pieces every time
And I don’t need no carryin’ on”

– Daniel Powter, “Bad Day”

The Killzone 3 experience truly shines in its multiplayer offering.  Campaign mode, while interesting, was definitely not the most memorable component of the game.  The real “war stories” are to be found from various skirmishes against real players: from holding a bridge to demolishing a structure and anywhere in between.  The stories are found in harnessing and relishing human psychology — the frustrations of defeat, the fatally flawed determination for vengeance, creating mistrust as well as predicting where an opposing player hides and greeting him there when he arrives.  These are your stories — the Tactician capturing a crucial spawn point, a Marksman taking out a machine gun, an Infiltrator planting explosives after methodically neutralizing three defenders, a Medic reviving himself to complete an objective when enemies have left him for dead.  I don’t have Engineer stories, I use one mainly to repair ammo boxes in order to benefit the other classes I favor.

That said, the multiplayer mode’s instability has weighed down on what otherwise would have been a lot of fun.  Too often, I found myself pleading with the game — “no, please don’t freeze, I was doing well!”  Why my gaming depends on a Session Host’s relationship status, I don’t really know.  So he’s no longer available, I’m happy for him, now let’s keep playing.  The game also completely freezes on occasion, requiring a hard reset, which is still inconvenient and annoying.  There may be additional issues with lag and hit-boxes but that might just actually be my horrible aim.  When I go Dick Cheney on someone from point blank, I don’t expect my opponent to be merely tickled, which seems to happen more often than I care for it to.

While I await the coming of various patches to improve stability and gameplay, I am left with a horrible sense of disappointment.  I liked Killzone 2 and I had many stories from its multiplayer mode.  I want to like Killzone 3 and I do like the game when I am able to play.  The instability, however, seems to overpower the positives.  So until those network errors go away, “please don’t freeze, Killzone 3.  You were doing so well!”