Matthew Knott

Well, I've played the Killzone 2 demo on the PS3 and I've got to say I'm impressed.

Killzone 2 is the much raved about shooter due out on the PS3 shortly. I tend to find raved about games a let down but this time I am seriously impressed. I bought gear of war on the back of solid reviews, all of which praised the graphics as being ground-breaking.

The reality was very different, I was underwhelmed but the entire game, the graphics were good but not really worthy of the praise it was getting. Killzone 2 on the otherhand really surprised me. It's possible that I set my expectations lower to avoid disapointment, but I'm really surprised. Gears of war in places was glitchy, flickery and jerky when a large number of events and objects filled the screen, Killzone 2 suffers none of these faults.

The opening sequence is hugely cinematic, the only way I can describe it is a futuristic realisation of the beach landing sequence in Saving Private Ryan. When the cutscene ends (it's renered in game, not a video cutscene) you're plunged into a raging battle, artillery is landing all around you, the colours, particle effects and debris are all overwhelming, and on top of that, people are shooting at you.

I would have liked to see a compass and objective indicator ala Call Of Duty, but I suppose it does add to the experience and I did eventually work out how to get it to show me the objective. The action is intense and the 7.1 sound assails your senses and immerses you into the game.

All in all I think it's going to be a good seller, and will deffinitely get PS3 sales moving, how much is anyones guess, but the is the type of title that sells systems.

Is it an example of PS3 starting to nudge Xbox 360 in the console wars? Who knows, unless someone tried to release killzone 2 on the xbox how can you say that it wouldn't be just as capable of running the game. What you can say is that for a 2nd generation ps3 game it is mightily impressive, far more so than anything I've seen for a long time.