Killzone 2

So, this evening I was lucky enough to win a pair of tickets to see and play a preview of the forthcoming Killzone 2, for the PS3. It’s really something else. Much like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Gran Turismo 5 Prolog before it, this is one of the few games that you can point at and say “There’s evidence that the PS3 is more powerful than the 360”. The gritty semi-realism, visceral action and technical wizardy on display here is well beyond any other console first person shooter and for anyone into the genre, this is a definite buy.

The event itself was very nice, I definitely have to get into a few more of these. The people dressed up as soldiers from the game (both sides) were amusing and I certainly got more drunk than I’d usually allow myself to get (free champagne and canopes). What was really nice was that whoever organised the event realise that the game sells itself. On entrance, there’s a room full of machines (on an assortment of projectors and big LCD screens) with the game available to play and no one hassling people. After a while to play (a generous amount of time, too), they showed the intro to the game (which was pretty good, although I don’t think this will be one you’ll play for the story), followed by a showing of Aliens. All of this was in the Vue in Leicester Square, so it was all pretty nice. For those that got there via the Playstation forums, there was free swag (I’ve not really looked at what there was yet, but it included a poster, a T-shirt and a mug).

Usually when people ask me to recommend a console to get, I give the following advice; if you want something to play with you friends, get a Wii. If you want to play games by yourself, or online, get a 360. If you want to do that and you want a supreme media centre/BluRay player, and you don’t mind that the game-playing suffers slightly, get a PS3. This is rapidly beginning to change. As more games developers start building their own engines, games are starting to reach (or even go beyond in the case of a select few) parity on the PS3. It does make you wonder if Epic are in Microsoft’s pocket, given how poorly the Unreal Engine performs on the PS3, but meh…

2009 should be an interesting year for the current generation of consoles. It seems Nintendo have given up on releasing good games, developers have started realising how to get games to *really* be the same across the 360 and the PS3 and some real triple-A PS3 exclusives are starting to trickle out. I can’t say I’m rooting for anyone, Nintendo are a bunch of European-hating arseholes (also, Reggie ‘Wii-sports resort is literally a day on the beach!’ Fils-Aime is such a tool), Sony seem to be ok with massively over-pricing everything and Microsoft… Well, ’nuff said really… but it’s a good time to be a gamer. Personally, I’d put my money on Sony for 2009 (discounting the PS2 of course, because really, they’ve already won), but anything can happen.

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