One of the biggest features that both team members cited for Killzone 2 is the Hit Response System. Essentially, the system detects where you shoot a Helghast soldier and accounts for both the front and back of the body part. It then filters through a variety of animations and plays one that works accordingly. Different weapons will cause different reactions. Deaths are very elaborate to show that a footsoldier is dead, once and for all. Seriously though, all of this talk might sound a bit unexciting to some, but here's an example of how it will really work in play: as De Jonge shot at the Heavy, enough headshots to his helmet would temporarily jar him. With the big gunner temporarily dizzied by the high velocity gunshots to his armored helmet, De Jonge circled behind him and shot his weak point.

With that long explanation, we grabbed a Sixaxis and went to work. Given the brevity of our demo, we had about enough time to try a few very basic fundamentals before giving up the controller to another writer. The controls feel pretty smooth, but considering that we played for two or three minutes, there also wasn't enough time to notice any subtle issues at this point, either. We fired off a few RPG rounds -- the grenade kind, not the Final Fantasy kind -- at some unsuspecting soldiers and switched to a rifle, melee'd some more soldiers with the rifle butt, then had to pass the controller to someone else. Again, we didn't see anything wrong with what we played, but on the other hand, we also didn't play it enough to really say that it was a superlatively amazing experience, either.


We were hoping to find out more about Killzone 2's multiplayer support, but unfortunately, neither man could give us an answer beyond one that we fished out from a question about squadmate revival. Just like Gears or Rainbow Six Vegas, if Rico, or another Special Forces member goes down on the battlefield, you'll have a limited time to resuscitate them. That will also come into play in multiplayer, we discovered. Otherwise, details are mum, except that both Ter Heide and De Jonge said that there will be a considerable amount of attention paid to multiplayer, and you'll see integration into both the Killzone website and Home. Details are equally vague for Sixaxis functionality.

If it seems like a lot to soak in for a 30 minute demo, it was. Killzone 2 is one of the few next-gen titles that we've gotten a real under-the-hood look at. Frankly, between the size of a level (a whopping 2 gigabytes) and the amount of effects going on at the same time, we feel confident in saying that this title really aims to utilize the capabilities of not only the PlayStation 3 hardware, but also the storage capacity of Blu-ray. We really haven't played enough to have a positive or negative impression of the experience. It didn't crash on us, but we only got to take down a handful of enemies before we had to give up the Sixaxis. Otherwise, we know there are small things, such as the pause between checkpoints, that Guerilla's got time to streamline. Needless to say, we're hoping to get another shot at checking out Killzone 2 at some point before the year ends.