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Killzone Shadow Fall (PS4)

Status: Finished playing
I started playing this game on Sunday 10 February, 2019  //  I stopped playing this game on: Sunday 17 February, 2019
Current opinion of this game
No comment, yet.

February 17, 2019 11:32:34 PM
Finished it over the course of a few days.

It was fun, but surprisingly less polished than I'd expect from a game by Guerrilla. I think it might have been a (rushed?) launch title for PS4? That might explain it...or maybe it's FPS games that have raised the bar since (Destiny, CoD, etc.)?

Either way, it was fun to get back to Killzone...and a universe that is truly messed up at this point. I don't remember this from the last game I played but Helghan was completely destroyed. Apparently, the solution to peace was to split Vekta in half with Helghast living on one half and Vektans on the other. It was obviously never going to work - especially since the "transition" (as depicted in the game) was a complete mess with Helghans basically killing Vektans as they moved out/tried to run away. The whole story doesn't really make a lot of sense - and I think it might be because they didn't want to try something really new (e.g. oh no! we must joing forces to fight some aliens that appeared) and rather tried to make the best of the current situation? (ok, what else can we do in which they're all still fighting each other?)

You play as an orphan (guess whose dad died when the Helghast moved in?) who fights for Vekta and is a sort of super-covert-op-sneaky-infiltrator agent. So, you wander around killing people. Not a lot of sneakiness to be honest. You have a cool drone that you can send out to shoot and stun enemies which I enjoyed using but I also found myself dying a lot until I just learned to stay back more often and to never, ever, rush in.

Along the way you meet a Helghan super-infiltrator-etc., but she's got an actual stealth cammo suit (think, Predator). I think the game would have been a lot more fun playing as her, to be honest.

I guess, in all, it was "fine". There were a few moments that got really frustrating for me - the last fight before the "bad guy". And there were also a few moments of ludonarrative dissonance. There is an evil scientist who is working on a virus to kill all Helghans, then it's all Vektans, and I lost track. I was supposed to protect her, but I really just wanted to shoot her. I could, but she wouldn't die.

I think the coolest moment was the ending. You get shot dead by your boss (who also saved your life as a kid). Then credits roll.

After a few names roll past...everything glitches out!

And there's one more (secret? bonus?) mission! This time you're the girl, in your super stealth suit! You're in Vekta and need to sneak around to switch off some cameras and stuff, pick up a sniper rifle and then get revenge!


 
kudos for original design to Rodrigo Barria