Spontaneous Sunday: Perfect Dark

Welcome to another (slightly belated) Spontaneous Sunday! This week I have played the 2010 remastered edition of Perfect Dark (originally released 2000, Rare, Nintendo 64. This version released 2010, 4J Studios, Xbox 360). The 2010 remaster was included in the Rare Replay compilation, released in 2015 as an Xbox One launch title.

"Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It is considered the spiritual successor to Rare's earlier first-person shooter GoldenEye 007. Perfect Dark was first released in North America on 22 May 2000; PAL and NTSC-J releases followed soon afterwards.The game features a single-player mode consisting of 17 main missions in which the player assumes the role of Carrington Institute agent Joanna Dark. A remaster, with enhanced graphics and online multiplayer, was exclusively released as an Xbox Live Arcade game for the Xbox 360 in 2010."

- Wikipedia on Perfect Dark

 

  

What do I expect from the game?

 

I must admit that I do not know a lot about Perfect Dark, aside from the fact that I am aware of its existence and I have a vague idea that its an old-school FPS with sci-fi and espionage themes. Though my gaming experience began in the late 90's shortly before Perfect Dark came out, I didn't own an N64 so never played it in its original incarnation.

From the little that I have seen about the game thus far, I expect that it will be a high quality FPS game with combat and/or stealth it its core, sci-fi setting and spy themes, possibly taking influence from spy and sci-fi movies. I understand that it is considered something of a classic, and it went on to spawn a prequel in 2005 and a franchise including other merchandise such as novels and comics.

I expect that its strengths will include its story and sci-fi/spy aesthetic and themes. I think that the gameplay and action might be fairly simple by the standards of modern games, but still enjoyable. The remastered version has updated graphics, so sadly I won't get to see them for how they looked upon release in 2000, but I'll try to remain objective about them anyway. I expect that the game may also offer good audio and a strong atmosphere in its environments.#

First Impressions - What do I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The game's start screen shows a cinematic in which the game's eponymous protagonist, Joanna Dark, navigates through a futuristic metropolis at night in a Jumpship (which is somewhere between a helicopter and a hover car) while being briefed by an unseen male character about an upcoming mission. Futuristic hover cars, tall city buildings and holographic billboards and lights can be seen in throughout the low-poly environment. Dark then abseils onto a roof and the cinematic repeats until the player presses start. This short cinematic introduces the game's futuristic and spy themes pretty effectively, while also showing revealing the player-character and the game world without giving too much away.

The game's main menu is simple but quite interesting, It begins with showing the character stood at a computer in a fairly non-descript room, the camera then comes into line with the character's field of view, suggesting that the player is looking at the menu through the eyes of the character. The main menu displays options on a blue box, with the room appearing out-of-focus in the background. The music is electronic and somewhat suspenseful. It has a strong sci-fi "hack"-y vibe and it distinctly reminds me of some of my earlier gaming experiences on PS1-era FPS games. The "Play Game" sub-menu offers such options as "Carrington Institute" and "Combat Simulator" - while I appreciate that this is the game remaining "in character" which helps to sell the illusion of the game's content and story, these options do seem a little unclear in regards to what they represent. I selected "Carrington Institute" which is the headquarters of the game's "good" faction to which the player-character belongs. This area acted as a hub, with computers that could be used to activate cheats and read about characters and the game's story.

 

On selecting to start a new game, the main menu disappears and the player finds themselves in control of the character in the room. This is an interesting concept - I've seen very few main menu's that are diegetic in this way, with the suggestion that the in-game character can see it too. This will help to make the player feel like they are stepping into the role of the character from the very start. I explored the Carrington Institute hub area for a while and got to grips with the basic controls before beginning the first mission.

The first mission begins with the introduction cinematic that played during the Start menu. The player takes control of Joanna Dark on a roof top and must work downwards through the building via stairwells and elevators, completing objectives on the way such as deactivating security systems. Enemies are numerous but generally quite none-threatening - there wasn't really any point where I was close to being killed, even when fighting several enemies at once. My first attempt at the level was ill-fated: I approached it at a slow pace, trying to defeat enemies stealthily where possible and explore every room in the building. I eventually failed the mission because I accidentally destroyed a vital objective! It was then that I noticed that the post-mission screen scores you on how quickly you completed the mission. So I then restarted the mission and tried to complete it as quickly as possible.

This is the view at the moment that the player takes control of the character.

The first mission was pretty fun and impressive. The city skyline seen from the rooftop is an impressive first view of the game world, and the vertical nature of the level's layout made for some interesting gameplay. The objectives were not exactly challenging as much as they were awkward - accidentally destroying a computer caused me to fail an objective which was a little deflating. Also, it was not stated that speed was the aim of the game, so I did not approach the level with this in mind. Therefore, my first attempt at the level was a bit of a false start. Nevertheless, it was fun in the end and I completed it successfully and quickly.

What do I like about the game?

I played Perfect Dark for a total of about 3 hours and completed 4 missions. The missions are fairly short, normally taking about 15-20 minutes, though some required multiple attempts due to my dying or failing objectives. The game has a number of positive features, predominantly: the overall gameplay, the unique setting and the environments and game world.

Perfect Dark's overall gameplay - such as the combat, mechanics, objectives and the actions and interactions that the player must complete to progress - are pretty strong and solid and this means that the immediate action of the game is enjoyable. The combat mechanics such as shooting, melee attacking and taking cover from enemy attacks are a big part of the action, mostly due to the high amount of enemies in the levels. The shooting feels fluid and there is a number of different weapons that act in meaningfully varied ways, such as pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, assault rifles and a rocket launcher. The game features quite a strong auto-aim and accurate response to movement of the sticks, which means that it is not plagued with the clunky and awkward aiming that is present in many old FPS games - though as this is the 2010 remaster, I cannot say whether this was the case in the 2000 original release. The player can also use melee attacks which, when used on an unsuspecting enemy, yields an instant kill - though the opportunity or need to do this rarely presents itself, as enemies are often quicker and easier to kill with guns, and there is little to no clear incentive to use stealth.

The combat is fluid and enjoyable.

The game's unique setting is also quite an interesting feature. It is set in the year 2023 - 23 years in the future from the game's original release date - in a sci-fi world of guns, metropolises and flying cars that are not all that far removed from what exists today. The ability to examine or revisit a piece of futuristic fiction years after its release, and in the time period that the piece portrays, is a phenomenon that usually occurs with films rather than games. It was interesting to see how a game from 2000 envisioned the year 2023, which is near-enough the modern day. This somehow made the setting more interesting to me. Only a little information was revealed about the setting and world of the game in the time that I spent playing it, but I was certainly hooked by the world none-the-less thanks to the environments. The futuristic city's are very nicely designed and the game makes sure to show them off well with sweeping panoramic views.

The game's story and lore are also quite interesting, though they were not very well-delivered - I will discuss this more later on. The game follows the private espionage faction the Carrington Institute, which secretly allies itself with an alien race and combats a defence contractor called dataDyne, which is allied to an opposing alien race. None of this was directly revealed through the gameplay itself during the missions that I played, but this information was accessible through a computer in the Carrington Institute hub area and is presumably revealed later on in the game. The player character is an inexperienced but highly trained female spy who presents an interesting and mysterious character. The game does a good job of placing you in the role of this character often having the camera fly directly into the characters viewpoint before handing over control to the player. The player character also makes comments on things during gameplay, such as when a new objective becomes active. This gives the character a strong sense of identity and the player a sense of ownership over the character.

The level's objectives are sufficiently varied.

The game's art style was also of particular interest to me as a 3D artist. Everything was nice and low-poly, which is something that I often aim for in my own models. The environments and assets were still effective and attractive though, despite their low poly count and texture resolution, probably due in part to the game's ramstering in 2010. Though the graphics were not terribly advanced, they are still pretty good given the game's age and I could appreciate the art style, even if it was largely for nostalgia reasons. The game also features some surprisingly high-quality cutscenes.

The Chicago street level is particularly attractive.

Another positive feature of the game is its level of replayability that is due to the inclusion of end-of-level statistics and global online leaderboards that track your score and time taken to complete each level. This will encourage more dedicated players to replay levels to try and best their score. I can imagine that the game lends itself well to speed-running. Finally, the audio is another good feature. The music is mostly electronic and has a style that is distinct for the late late-90's/early-00's console generation. Though I had never played the game before, it still made me feel nostalgic for this era because its style is so familiar. The voice acting, SFX and audio effects such as reverb and echo are also decent.

The game features leaderboards that encourage replayability.

What do I not like about the game?

Perfect Dark certainly had its share of positive points, but there are a few negatives aswell. Firstly, the game's level design and objectives are often unclear, which often resulted in frustrating backtracking and aimless wandering. More recent games are very effective at clearly communicating to the player where they need to go and what they need to do once they get there, through the use of things like maps, flashing arrows and highlighted level elements. While this could be said to be too much like "hand-holding", the alternative is often a lack of direction, and this was unfortunately the case in Perfect Dark. The objectives themselves are sufficiently clearly stated, but how they are achieved is another matter. Objectives sometimes involve interacting with one specific computer that looks exactly like all the others and is hidden somewhere within the level. This can make it very hard to tell what the game expects from the player which can lead to lengthy stalls in the flow of the level while the player figures out what to do. Now it may be possible that this lack of direction was intentional and the idea was to add a puzzle-like challenge to the objectives. If this is the case, however, then I think it was quite lazily implimented. If its was not intentional, then it is poor design - and I am not sure which option is worse.

Another issue with the game is that it seems to contain a small number of bugs that are quite serious. Examples include an instance where a hidden door failed to open and stopped me from progressing through the level. Another example involved an instance where I could backtrack to an earlier part of the skyscraper level and access a door that shouldn't have been able to be opened - behind the door was a room containing some bugged-out, invincible NPC models that simply stood there doing nothing. In the same area, I was able to open a door that allowed me to exit the playable area and fall underneath the game world. I found these bugs by accident in my first attempt at the level - as an ex-QA tester, I can safely say that these would be pretty high priority bugs that should really have been caught.

Glitched NPCs!

The final downside of the game is that it doesn't deliver its story or instructions very well at all. The game does not really do much to introduce the main factions or characters or explanation of what the player is doing in an easily-accessible way. The Carrington Institute hub area contains a computer with some long-winded text entries about the game's back story, but this would be easy for the player to miss and besides, this vital information should really be delivered through more elegent and exciting means such as cutscenes, dialogue or a voice-over. Likewise, mission and objective information is also often delivered through lengthy text screens. The problem is not that the information that the player needs is not there, its that it is not well-delivered, and the game suffers because of this. Finally, there is also no real tutorial mission and the controls are never explicitly explained.

An example of a mission explanation.

Final Thoughts

I would say that Perfect Dark is a decent game overall. It is enjoyable on the whole thanks to the rather interesting objectives and environments, charming retro graphics and the fluid combat mechanics. Sadly there's a few issues such as the unclear objectives and messy, ineffective delivery of the story - but I will cut the game some slack because of its age and the fact that I have been spoiled by how far game's have come since the year 2000 and the N64-era. It is still doubtlessly a big part of FPS history, and I think its fairly simple gameplay and the replay value that the leaderboards adds to the levels means that it holds up quite well as a casual, retro shooter today - and I will probably play it again in the future when I'm looking for a quick retro FPS fix!

Spontaneous Sunday - Crysis 2

Welcome to another Spontaneous Sunday! I took a break last Sunday because it was a bank holiday, but now I'm back and I have played Crysis 2 (2011, Crytek, Xbox 360).

"Crysis 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek, published by Electronic Arts and released in March 2011. Officially announced on June 1, 2009, the game is the second main installment of the Crysis series, and is the sequel to the 2007 video game Crysis. The story was written by Richard Morgan, while Peter Watts was consulted and wrote a novel adaptation of the game. It was the first game to showcase the CryEngine 3 game engine and the first game using the engine to be released on consoles."

- Wikipedia on Crysis 2.

What do I expect from the game?

This is my first time playing a game from the Crysis series, and I'm not very familiar with the franchise. I know that it is a first person shooter set in a dystopian world with sci-fi/futuristic themes. The "sci-fi FPS" genre is one that I have quite a bit of experience with. Games of this genre were especially prevalent on the previous console generation and around the time that Crysis 2 was released, so I expect Crysis 2 to have a number of similarities with other games of the genre, such as military themes, alien enemies, a linear story and level design that revolves around traversing urban environments, cover shooting and set-pieces.

I expect that the combat will be one of the game's strongest features. I also expect it to feature some high quality environments. I often find that many games of this genre have a lack of depth to their stories, so I am hoping that Crysis 2's story has more to offer. Crysis 2 was the flagship title for the CryEngine on consoles, and it was positively received by critics, so I expect good things.

First Impressions - What do I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The game's front end is very typical of a last-gen sci-fi FPS game, with block capital text and UI elements that are intended to look like a computer system. The main menu offers a number of options including campaign, multiplayer, extras and settings. I explored the front end a little bit, and found that the extras menu consists mostly of different statistics relation to gameplay, collectables and so on. This struck me as a good sign, because offering all these statistics suggests that the developers put effort into adding replay value. Also, the inclusion of collectable suggests that the environments and levels will be well-detailed, and the playable area well-utilised.

I started a new campaign on "Soldier" difficulty (the 2nd-easiest of the 4 available difficulty settings).  The game begins with a rather interesting introductory cinematic which consists of a montage of news reports covering an outbreak of an "alien virus" caused by an accident at a CryNet facility, and subsequent civil unrest. The cinematic uses a combination of live-action and in-engine clips. This is no doubt intended to set the scene and introduce the story behind the dystopian setting of the game. It's a rather dramatic sequence that grabbed my attention.

A shot from the pre-game cinematic.

Cut to the year 2023, and a military submarine in the Hudson River, New York. On the submarine, the player gains control of the game's protagonist, "Alcatraz", a Force Recon Marine. The Marine unit is arriving in New York to take on a mission, but is damaged and water begins pouring in. The first bit of gameplay involves the player escaping from the rapidly-flooding submarine, and learning how to move around, crouch and interact in the process. Upon escaping the submarine, the player gets their first view of the apocalyptic New York City from the river, and is then attacked by an alien craft before being saved by a nano-suit wearing soldier (who turns out to be a major character from the first Crysis game). Intro credits then play over a cinematic of a nano-suit soldier fighting enemies in the city. It's a gripping introductory sequence that has helped Crysis 2 to stand out right from the off.

The next level takes place in a factory on a New York harbour. This dimly-lit and run-down industrial  environment is full of cages of bodies - victims of the virus - biohazard containers and dead scientists in biohazard suits that suggest it was used as a makeshift hospital during the initial virus crisis. It's a really well-crafted environment that uses such things as lighting, environmental storytelling and particle effects to create atmosphere. It is revealed that the nano-suited soldier from the previous scene sacrificed their life and gave the nano suit to the player-character. I then embarked on a mission to find Doctor Nathan Gould, a former CryNet scientist who has important information on how to combat the alien threat.

What do I like about the game?

As the game continued on, I traversed evacuation zones, city streets, alleyways and subway stations, fighting enemies all the way. I also unlocked the ability to customise my weapons with attachments and upgrade my nano suit, and even got to drive a tank.

Crysis 2 is undeniably a very high quality FPS game. It's biggest strengths include its environments, level design, and unique and imaginative mechanics. As I expected, the story does seem to have more depth and credibility than a lot of other sci-fi shooters - though a lot of it didn't make complete sense to me, as I haven't played the first Crysis game. Crysis 2 makes a lot of effort to set itself apart from its contemporaries, with great success.

The game's environments and level design are probably the feature that resonated most with me. The game art and graphics are of a very high standard for when the game released in 2011, and would probably still hold up pretty well in a game now. The environments are densely populated with interesting props, architecture and vehicles, all of which have high quality 3D models. The levels also feature particle effects and high quality realistic lighting effects. Given the scale and detail of the environments, I was surprised to see that the game ran totally smoothly throughout. The "New York in chaos" setting makes for some very interesting and grand spaces to explore.

The environments also feature plenty of things to interact with and collect. The player is able to pick up and throw many different objects and activate things in the environment, which adds to the immersion in that it allows you to interact with your surroundings - though there doesn't seem to be much of a practical reason to do so. There is also cases of environmental storytelling, one such case being an area being an obvious makeshift dwelling in a subterranean service corridor, complete with a bed and personal effects. The collectable items throughout the levels include dog tags, New York souvenirs and laptops containing emails, all of which add more depth to the both the environments and the lore of the game world.

The level design is also a strong feature in Crysis 2. The level design facilitates various different play styles, from stealthily bypassing dangers to reach your objective, to going in all-guns-blazing. There are numerous different routes that the player can take and lots of verticality to the level layouts which means that traversing the levels is an interesting and challenging task, and the player is able to approach it how they see fit, using the mechanics that they choose.

This brings me to the next good feature - the game's mechanics. Crysis 2 offers a lot of very interesting and useful mechanics, most of which consist of abilities of the nano suit that the player characters wears. The player is able to use a tactical visor and nano visor to get a more informed view of their environment and plan out their approach. In these views, the player can tag enemies and points-of-interest such as ammo, and the player is also presented with suggested tactical approaches. These views add depth to the way that the game is played.

The player can customise weapons and view their stats.

The player can toggle the nano suit's cloak and armour abilities - these directly enable players to make more effective stealth and combat manoeuvres respectively. The player can also customise their weapons and add different special abilities to their nano suit, which again helps give the player tactical choice as to how they want to play the game. This provides a welcome level of choice and depth to the gameplay, and makes it feel more like you, the player, are leading the action, rather than simply being strung along through the game.

Other positive features include the game's voice acting and writing, the wide variety of stats that one can view, and the overall aesthetic of the game's UI and menus.

The player can choose a different nano suit upgrade to occupy 4 different slots

What do I not like?

I have failed to find many things that are objectively wrong with Crysis 2 from a design point of view. The fact remains that it is a very well-made and well-designed game! However, there's a few minor things that were not fully in fitting with my own personal taste or preference. Sci-fi FPS games are, after all, not very high up on my "favourite genre" list.

Firstly, I found that the pacing of the story and progression was a bit slow and drawn out. The game begins with you trying to track down a Doctor Nathan Gould, who is somewhere in New York city, so that he can help you to combat the alien threat. He is communicating with you the whole time, and regularly heckling you for not being quick enough in finding him. After 3 hours of play, and quite a few levels completed, my character had still not tracked Gould down. Of course, I was completing interesting objectives and exploring the city as I went, but finding Gould still felt like a very drawn out process, and I felt myself losing interesting slightly in the action that was unfolding in the story.

Dr Gould: Evasive Scientist.

Secondly, while it is good that there is so many different and compelling mechanics, this inevitably meant that there was quite a lot of different button configurations, controls and menus associated with these mechanics, and the experience felt a little but "cluttered". That said, I think that a cluttered system of mechanics is better than not having the mechanics at all. Also, while the aesthetic of the UI was nice, I couldn't help but feel like the UI was distracting, for reasons that I can't quite put my finger on.

Using the visor mechanic is useful - but the UI is a bit distracting.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I would say that Crysis 2 is objectively amongst the best games that I have played for Spontaneous Sunday, and one of the best sci-fi FPS games that I have played full-stop. I really think that the environment art and graphics are ahead of their time, and the developers clearly put a lot of time and effort into creating levels and mechanics that made for an engaging and varied gameplay experience that gives the player a lot of choice. FPS games often seem to restrict themselves to a certain play style, but this is certainly not the case with Crysis 2 - this game stands out for a number of reasons. While sci-fi FPS is not generally my genre of choice personally, I really enjoyed playing Crysis 2 today.

Spontaneous Sunday - Killzone

Welcome to this weeks Spontaneous Sunday blog post. Sticking with last week's "classic FPS" theme, this week I have played Killzone (2004, Guerrilla Games, PS2).

"Killzone is a first-person shooter, developed by Netherlands-based Guerrilla Games and released on November 24, 2004 in Europe. Killzone takes place in the middle of the 24th century and chronicles the war between two human factions; the Vektans, and the Helghan. The game is played from a first-person view and follows Jan Templar, a high-ranking officer within the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance, as he battles invading Helghan forces into Vekta."

- Wikipedia on Killzone.

What do I expect from the game?

This is my first experience playing any game from the Killzone franchise, and I'm entering into it without much of an idea of what to expect. I know that it is a first-person shooter set in a war-torn futuristic setting. I also know that it was a rather popular and high-profile release that spawned a number of sequels.

I am expecting the game to have a story-driven single player campaign, and possibly an arena mode with AI enemies. There was a multiplayer mode originally but the servers are long shut down. I expect the game's strong suit will be gameplay, which I think will consist of intense combat, as this is a staple of the FPS genre. I think that the dystopian future setting will be another strong suit. I expect that it will be a good game overall, as it was a big title at the time and was published by Sony.

First Impressions - What do I think of the game in its first few minutes?

Before I started playing Killzone, I had a quick flick through the game manual, which is stylised like a newspaper from one of the planets featured in the game. This was a pretty cool idea that makes the manual more interesting and helps make the game world easier to buy into. I believe that game manual design is sadly now an extinct art!

The game begins with a cinematic showing Scolar Visari, who is the emperor of the planet Helghan and the game's main antagonist, addressing his army and giving a speech about his intent to wage war on the planet Vekta. As Visari speaks, the cinematic shows scenes of the invasion and battles between the two planets. This dramatic opening cinematic effectively establishes the two polarised "good and evil" factions, introduces the main antagonist and also gives a good idea of the environments and graphics of the game. 

The game's main menu is not terribly exciting. It takes a minimalistic approach to UI, with the 3 simple words "options", "game" and "extras". if it wasn't for the dramatic music and shots of characters in the background, the front end would be very plain. Left idle for a while, a game demo plays showing scenes and gameplay. This further helps to demonstrate the aesthetic of the game and the nature of the gameplay. The extras section allows you to view the trailer, rewatch the intro movie or watch "War Scenes" - which are randomly generated bot-on-bot matches. This is an interesting feature.

The game's front end.

I started a new campaign and was prompted to create a profile name using a very odd system of selecting letters. You have to hold the d-pad or analog stick in one of 8 directions, then press one of the face buttons to select one of 4 letters. I wondered if this was would be a precursor to some sort of mini game later in the game (turns out it wasn't). Confused but undeterred, I created my profile and jumped into the first level - "Helghast Assault".

The weird profile name entering system!

First view of the game world.

The first level throws the player into the deep end with an action-packed firefight sequence in which the player has to defend and move between trenches while fighting enemies. Core mechanics such as movement and combat controls and health and stamina meters are introduced. I was instantly impressed by such things as the facial animations and voice acting in cutscenes, and the quality of the war-zone atmosphere. The level definitely looks authentic and it is clear that the developers looked to real conflicts for reference. Explosions, quality voice acting and SFX and a washed-out colour palette all add to the believability of this opening level. There is a bit of a lack of direction as your objectives do not pop up on screen as they are completed or updated, and you have to manually open a menu which takes a few seconds to load when you want to check your objectives. I also noticed that the textures are pretty low-resolution which detracts slightly from the atmosphere - but this is to be expected of a PS2 game.

Each level features friendly AI soldiers.

I completed the first level in just over 10 minutes and picked up all mechanics needed to play the game in this time. I was also drawn in by the atmosphere and environment art. This tells me that it was an effective first level! On completion, I was presented with a few stats such as shots fired, kills, time taken and accuracy. Letting the player see information about their performance is absolutely vital as it helps them to invest more in the game, adds replay value and incentivises personal goal-setting and improvement.

The WW1 inspiration is plain to see in the first level.

What do I like about the game?

Killzone's strongest features are its environment art, atmosphere, audio and the weapon and vehicle models. The game features some really good environments that include decent lighting and particle effects for the time at which the game was released. The environments have clearly been well thought-out and this makes for some atmospheric levels. The game claims to "draw inspiration from the best-known real war scenarios of our time", and I think that this is evident when playing it. It is clear to see the influence from World War 1 (in trench levels) and modern Urban wars (in the street and interior levels). Destructible objects in the environment also add to the realism of the environments.

Audio is another strong point of the game, specifically SFX. The sounds of gunfire, explosions and environmental noises all come together to form a convincing war zone soundscape. Again, this helps to create a strong atmosphere.

The game features a lot of different weapons and vehicles. The weapon and vehicle models are all high quality and realistic-looking. In terms of design, there isn't much that sets them apart from the weapons and vehicles of other sci-fi FPS games, but they still look quite good.

A friendly tank.

What do I not like?

Though I liked the environments, audio and models in Killzone, I found more things that I didn't like than things that I liked - and some of them are quite glaring. Firstly, there is the controls. Though the button configuration is reasonable enough, the controls, including movement and combat, are clunky. This makes gameplay frustrating and rigid, and the game lacks the fluidity of movement that is so essential to the thorough enjoyment of an FPS game.

Another issue is the fact that the game doesn't do enough to get you hooked into the story in the early stages. Though the levels are fairly interesting and exciting, the objectives can be a bit banal and inconsequential. Also, as I mentioned previously, there is a real lack of direction in the game. Objectives don't appear on screen, so its easy to forget or not know what you are meant to be doing. There is no compass or mini-map at all either, so you often find yourself not knowing what you need to do or where you need to do it. The addition of a simple compass or map would alleviate this problem. It would also allow enemy positions to be displayed, which would also be beneficial.

Though the game does offer post-level stats, there is not really any sort of reward system, and the game doesn't do much to encourage replaying. The addition of challenges or things to unlock would add more depth and replayability to the game. Collectable items in each level would also be good, as this would also add more depth and encourage thorough exploration of the environments.

The environments effectively capture the chaos of war.

Final Thoughts

While Killzone does have a few positive points, I would have to say that I didn't find it to be an incredibly enjoyable or engaging experience to play it. Of course, as is always the case when I play old games for Spontaneous Sunday, it could be just the game showing its age, but I was put off by the clunky controls, the lack of direction, and the lack of replayability and depth to the objectives and goals. The game must have done something right if the developer and publisher decided to create a franchise of it, but I can say that it didn't really resonate with me. It did have its good points, and I'm sure that later instalments in the franchise improve on it and iron out the issues, so I may look into playing another Killzone instalment in the future.