Expectation can be a funny animal. If it works, people will get whipped up into a frenzy, clamoring to experience or buy the new trip or toy or product, showing it off to their friends and family victoriously. However, we all know that expectation can be a double-edged sword, especially when early promises go unfulfilled. Just look at some of the movies that the public was hyped into seeing since the rise of the blockbuster. Critics catch the hype bug, too, even though we're supposed to be immune to that sort thing, and some might even be unfairly harsh to something they had high expectations for.

So it was with great disappointment that I finished my review copy of Sony's Killzone, a game that was at one time unfairly labeled a "Halo killer" by some members of the gaming press. I found it disappointing because I thoroughly enjoyed some of the early looks I had, most recently at this year's E3. Good, original shooters can be hard to come by, especially ones that eschew the stale battlefields of WWII (or now, Vietnam) for a new arena. I expected many things from the game, and I was looking forward to checking out the brave new world that Guerilla Games had constructed.


The plot for Killzone is straight-up sci-fi, and it's very well executed. The impressive opening scene introduces us to the Helghast, a group of humans who left Earth to create their own society. Unfortunately, they picked an unhospitable world that mutated them to some degree, turning them into war-mongering versions of Uncle Fester. The Helghast decide that they're tired of living on the fringes of society, so they start an all-out assault on Earth in order to claim it for their own. When the game begins, you take control of Templar, a human soldier who's battling the baddies on the front lines. Over the next couple of levels, you'll be able to add a few other soldiers to your squad, including a sexy female assassin and a tough Helghast traitor. Although each has their own special skills, I found that there was little reason to switch between them depending on the mission, even though you do have the option.

One of the nice things about Killzone is that it offers a surprisingly wide variety of combat. You start out in the trenches, ducking and firing at hordes of charging Helghast, before moving on to bombed out cities, steamy jungles, and snow capped mountains. Each type of terrain offers it's own challenges, though the levels feel a bit short at times. They are all very linear, which was too bad, as I was hoping that with a name like Killzone, there would be some wide-open battlefields. It's a shame, really, because most of the fighting involves you and your group encountering small, roving bands of foes, beating them, then moving down the road to the next skirmish. Occasionally there are some tanks or waves of soldiers that you have to hold back, but these fights are mostly speed bumps on your way forward.