Guerrilla's third goal is to inspire team play. This is accomplished in part by the spawn mechanics. After dying and waiting for a quick respawn timer, you can select a point to spawn on the map. You can choose from a variety of controlled locations, or you can spawn on your squad leader, allowing for a variety of tactical considerations to be brought into play. To aid in the important decision of where to show up, a security camera-styled view of the surroundings is shown at the spawn-selection screen, so you can choose to hold off before popping up in the middle of an intense firefight, or embrace such an opportunity to provide much-needed support.
Squads are a big part of team play, without question. In the large-scale battles that are Killzone 2's forte, you're often toast if you don't have someone watching your back. Four players are allowed per squad, but eight total squads on both sides of the battlefield can work in unison per engagement. Squad benefits include being able to spawn on your leader, a specific squad headset channel that works even when you're dead, and a special squad member HUD that allows the members to keep tabs on each other.
The fourth and last major goal for Killzone 2's multiplayer is to create a community that goes beyond the game. This is mostly provided through the extensive clan support offered through the Killzone 2 website and the wide array of opportunities available for those who wish to take part in clan activities. Clans offer more than just a group of people to fight with. Clans are essentially Killzone 2's social structure, and where players will to go meet friends, chat with them, and plan out their in-game activities. The clan area serves as a social hub for the game.
Clan activities are also more meaningful than just skirmishes for bragging rights. The Killzone 2 "Valor" system allows clans to wager this in-game currency against other clans, allowing for high-stakes gambling on the strengths of your compatriots. Clan tournaments are planned for up to 256 clans at a time, with only the very best competitors divvying up the pooled "Valor."
Leaderboards will also be a big part of the online experience, as they're split up into many diverse categories. There are individual leaderboards, as well as those for friends, clans, and clan members. You can also compare individual stats, all-time or daily, weekly, monthly, and so on, all sortable.
This sort of activity is not restricted to the game, as much of it will take place on the Killzone 2 website. There you can do many of the same things you can in-game, like create clan challenges, access the messaging features and forums, and so on. Here you'll also be able to check out a custom user profile for each player, which tracks what sorts of medals and rewards have been unlocked and your progression towards those still beyond your reach.
Killzone 2's feature set feels like a combination of many different excellent ideas that have appeared in previous games, all brought together for the first time. It feels like it incorporates the job system from Final Fantasy Tactics with the experience system of Call of Duty 4 as well as the unique character class roles from Team Fortress 2 (not to mention the spawn mechanics from Frontlines: Fuel of War.) Not a bad lineup if you're drawing comparisons.
During our brief gameplay session (we had a chance to play two games), we were taken aback by the crisp, incredibly detailed visuals. Multiplayer games rarely look this good. The varied soldiers are well-detailed, and depending on what badge setup they use, have unique abilities that come across stylishly, like the Scout's camouflaging ability, which makes the stealthy combatant crackle with a black-and-white static effect when coming in and out of visibility.
When a battlefield is inhabited by over a dozen soldiers, a bunch of turrets, a couple aerial drones, and many, many explosions, the framerate does seem to take a nose dive. When everything is going wrong, and you're in the middle of a war zone, things slow to a crawl, making it hard to move to safety, let alone try for headshots. Killzone 2 is still a work in progress, but we would be mightily impressed as well as mightily surprised if the final game is able to maintain the brilliant visuals as well as a smooth framerate in the final release version. We're crossing our fingers, because everything else about Killzone 2 has us very excited.
