Killzone 3 campaign preview – big, loud, predictable

It’s not quite as easy as that, of course. APCs arrive to flood the area with Helghast infantrymen, and at one point the MAWLR ruptures a set of transformers, electrifying nearby bodies. Nevertheless, the taint of familiarity lingers, and when our CO Captain Narville radios to exclaim “I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, Sev, but it worked!”, we’re tempted to scoff. Oh come on, Narville – you knew exactly what we were thinking. You’ve played Metroid, haven’t you?

Things get more interesting afterwards, as battle erupts in the precincts of a loading facility – the monolithic, scarred hulk of the MAWLR now directly overhead, its attention drawn by Narville’s tanks and a less-than-angelic host of Raider gunships. Killzone 2 thrived when it shucked off the Call-of-Duty-flavoured, instant-death-if-you-don’t-memorise-the-spawn-pattern format, letting players experiment within its relatively broad, adaptable layouts of cover and vantage point, and proceedings here are very much of the latter tenor.

There are several routes to our objective, an industrial elevator that would bring us level with the MAWLR’s ugly mug – through concrete trenches with three-barrelled shot-pistol cocked, rushing suppressed corners in hopes of a bloody melee finish, or over the gantries, crates disintegrating in front of us under turret fire from the Helghast-controlled end. Even after three tries, having bought it all three times at the hands of a sneaky flamethrower dude on the final stairwell, the experience feels fresh, dynamic.

There’s scope to play it safe, hanging back with a sniper rifle, or suicidal, rushing one of the turrets and hoping you’ll survive long enough to employ it against the other. Or both, if you’re tackling the game in splitscreen. Yep – splitscreen is a confirmed Killzone 3 feature, and if the implementation is a little dodgy right now, with far too much empty black around each player’s view, ours is evidently an older build, the audio patchy and the resolution locked somewhere below 720p.

Given the team’s success in the field of competitive multiplayer – and given how marvellously Killzone 2′s levels would have suited co-operative play, even without much fundamental alteration – we’re eager to see what Guerrilla’s designers can make of a true-blue co-op campaign.

What set pieces will they unearth from Helghan’s neo-fascist industrial enormities, what devilish tactical equations will they derive from the icescapes and seafronts we’ve glimpsed in other builds? Sadly, the conclusion of the preview level – another bout of shoot-the-heat-vent, this time at the trigger of an air-mobile Raider turret – doesn’t give much away.

The MAWLR is all the more formidable up close, communications relays and sensory gizmos flaking from its hide under the barely directed fury of our mini-guns. Missiles spew from its ports, but we pick them off in flight without pause and redouble the punishment, targeting auxiliary power systems. Eventually, inevitably, the Helghast war machine succumbs, the main gun shearing away in an arc of plasma.

A sensibly noisy end to Sony’s 2010, this, with the news cycle winding down and plenty of beta coverage and video footage afield already. Not an especially eye-opening one, though. We know Killzone can do single player spectacle, Guerrilla. We know it has a taste for the epic, the monstrous. Now show us it can still put up a decent fight.

The game’s out for PS3 in February. Read our thoughts on the multiplayer here and here.