Killzone: Liberation | a Review
originally published on 12/04/2021;
Hello everyone, I am the spiritually liberated G.E.M.Simov, a veteran of every single war to have been depicted in Video Game History, and I’ve come to tell you about Killzone: Liberation, for the PSP, henceforth known as KL.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it. Also, I am a gameplay designer and a writer so I got the credentials to talk shit.
Gameplay
Now, from the appearance of the game itself, I thought this was going to be a tactical shooter, in the vein of Xcom. It was not. It was a weird top down shoot ‘em up. Imagine Call of Duty, but isometric. Unfortunately, due to the fact that this was a PSP game that got a bit too ambitious, by the looks of things, it’s… It’s not done many things well. Then it has also done a fair amount of stuff very well, but there’s so few well done things it’s a bit disheartening.
First of, one good thing - this game is relatively smooth and has a very good tutorial, which explains absolutely everything the player might need to know about how to play the game. It is incorporated into the game itself, and that’s superb. Over the course of a few missions (or levels), the player goes through and learns how to actually play the game, and it’s not bad at all.
Though, here’s an issue - the game teaches the player that there’s something they can do to move out of the line of fire with ease… However, this happens, supposedly, by double tapping the Left trigger/bumper… And yet, sometimes, even after tapping it four times, the player character does not move a single muscle. I can’t tell you why, though I feel as if it might just be wonky programing requiring a very tiny amount of time between each tap so that it actually registers the input of the proper command.
That’s not good, because there are quite a few situations in which the player would benefit greatly from using that movement option (especially on the HIGH difficulty), and yet it is so dire, in its lack of function, that there’s very little in the way of use from it. On top of that, after performing the dodge roll that it ought to perform, the player character stands completely still for half a second, allowing enemies to just get some very cheap shots in, after the player’s tried to reposition.
The aforementioned difficulties do not actually change anything worthwhile about the game - they just make enemies tougher and make them deadlier. There’s no scarcity of resources, no addition of mechanics, nothing, really. It’s the lazy type of difficulty, but, at the very least, it’s not the type that gets unlocked after the game has already been beaten.
Now, if this WAS an Xcom style game, or if it was actually better designed, that lazy difficulty would have been reasonably fine. HOWEVER, this game has a horrendous flaw - and that is that there is no means of actually targeting enemies. The best hope the player can have is to manage to bump the analogue stick in the direction of their desired target, and then hope that the game’s automatic, pseudo lock-on system decides to give them the green light, so that their shots can actually hit. It’s so unbelievably bad that, even while holding the dedicated “aim better” button, the player’s aim does not improve.
The Left trigger/bumper functions as a lock-on button, but only IF the player has already locked onto a target. The function of the Left trigger/bumper is relegated to allowing the player to strafe while aiming at the target. Now, I do not know what was going through their heads, but a normal, tap the Left trigger/bumper to lock onto an enemy system, would have worked a lot better than this. In fact, if that was in the game, it would have been incredibly good.
There’s a bunch of unused buttons - 3 of the arrow buttons - they could have EASILY relegated the function of cycling through targets with those. It’s beyond me why they did not do it, because the game HAS what it takes, I feel, to make that possible. It’s just… Beyond me. Why did they not do this thing? It would have made the game so much better!
As it is now, though, with the borderline lacking ability of the player to aim and shoot at anything, I’d say this is in a very bad state. On top of that, there are a pair of vehicle sections, which are also quite bad, and, even on easy, the vehicle ends up dead by the halfway point, and then the player needs to deal with everything else on foot. It’s gruelling to say the least.
Not only that, but what few boss fights are in the game have some incredibly major issues. There’s only one that’s serviceable, but it suffers horribly from the lack of aiming options, while the other two feature an underwhelming final boss and a vehicle that you really want to avoid getting run over by, as that’s an instant death.
The game has potential, but it’s just so poorly realized it really makes me shudder. It seems as if the folks working on it invested so much time and effort into ONE time mechanics that it’s quite unreal. There’s a jetpack, with its own control scheme and it’s own quirks, which is very interesting… But it shows up for ONLY one mission, and then it’s gone. It’s really strange how they’ve decided to do that - was the game rushed? What’s the deal with it? I can’t quite tell.
Now, one thing that the game does immaculately? Secrets. Or, rather, unlockables, as they aren’t really secrets. Throughout each mission/level there is a set number of suitcases with money (Vektan Dollars), which the player can collect. The more Vektan Dollars the player has, the more options they approach. By the time the player reaches the midpoint of the game, they might have obtained enough Vektan Dollars to have unlocked new weapons, or even upgraded others.
The manner in which these collectibles are designed is absolutely superb. They are JUST a tiny bit out of the way, but not too much, to the point where they’d totally ruin the moment that’s brewing up (which is a firefight, in every situation), but not so obviously shown to the player that he would have no problem finding them. That collectible system was really, really good.
The upgrade system, though? It did not really feel as if the weapons were, at all, better than their previous forms. On top of that, this game has a very severe case of: Assault Rifles > Everything else, except maybe Shotguns. There’s a sniper rifle, but, even when fully upgraded, it cannot kill an ordinary goon in one hit, on Easy. Then there’s the Missile Launcher, which seems to have issues, even more egregious than those of other weapons, with locking on, and so almost any shot fired will just whizz past the target. There’s a Crossbow that fires exploding bolts, but none of these weapons are better than the Assault Rifle. If the player picks anything that is not an Assault Rifle (or the Shotgun, though in some cases that’s not a good call), they are gimping themselves on purpose. It does not feel good.
Overall, KL had SOMETHING. It seemed to start out quite well, but it quickly trailed off into… Something else. Its campaign was very short, and there were 4 extra bits of content, which were challenge missions, but it did not feel as if it was a justified investment, on my part. Why? Because these were unlocked after each Chapter in the Campaign was completed, and they provided a very, VERY small set of bonuses. Each challenge mission grants a set of points, based on performance, and, upon obtaining a number of points, an upgrade is unlocked.
Carry more grenades, carry more smoke grenades, disarm traps faster, so on and so forth. The actually worthwhile rewards, such as more Health or Infinite Ammunition, were at the very end of the chain, requiring either almost all the points, or all the points. And there would be nothing to use them on, as the Campaign is boring, and the Multiplayer is… Dead. And also that’d be insane, if it was actually something that worked in Multiplayer.
In short, great potential, but squandered horribly. I did not enjoy playing this game past the first few missions. 2/3
Presentation
For a 3D game from 2006, KL does not look half bad. The isometric perspective has really helped in that department, though, when it comes to anything but the visuals of the IN-game world, the rest is… Mediocre?
The music feels lazy and uninspiring, the voice acting is decent, at best, and bad, at worst. The manner in which the story is presented is some pseudo-automatic slideshow which can only be skipped, so the player waits, after having read the text, for a time between 5 and 15 seconds, until the slideshow catches back up with them. Each mission, before being selected and played, has a small bit of text describing what’s happening, but that disappears after 5 seconds, so the player needs to hover over another mission and then go back to the mission of interest, so they can properly read the brief.
It’s weird like that. The SFX are also just decent. All in all, mediocre. 2/3
Story
This game is really bland, story wise. It’s actually just bad. The setting was interesting, but after a while the player comes to realize that it’s just Nazi Germany inspired bad guys and USA inspired good guys. The name of the good guys? ISA. The bad guys? Helghast. It sounds german, it is a combo of 2 german words, and then the ISA is just the USA but with another letter.
There’s no world building. None, whatsoever. There’s a cool map that the player gets to take a look at, and figure out where things are, and the locations in the game are interesting, but that’s about it. All that is known is that the Helghasts = bad, ISA = good. The story is very, very uninspired mess, based around war, which doesn’t have any interesting characters, nor any memorable ones, safe for, MAYBE, the big bad, because he looks cool.
It’s very weak - the player is meant to establish a connection with one other character, because the player character, Templar, is a friend of said other fellow, but that never really comes about, because they really rarely interact in a meaningful manner. Worst of all, it ends on a cliffhanger… And it’s a bad one.
There was, actually, more story in the Instruction Manual that came with this game. More world building, too. It was a banging manual, but that’s Presentation’s win, not Story’s. Alas, video games, am I right? Bad story. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Did this game impress me, the 1000 war veteran, with its portrayal and depiction of war? Somewhat, but I’ve seen better. Did it give me a mechanical masterpiece that I could enjoy playing for the fun of it? Of course not. Did it grab me with it’s horrible B-movie cashgrab story? No.
Was there anything else? Maybe a spark? Something that made me feel a tingle in my pringle? No? Well, that’s sad. 0/1
Conclusion
5/10. It’s an average game. As much as I do not appreciate anything that’s sub-par, I actually think this game isn’t horrible. It’s not something great, either, though. If you’re a fan of the Killzone franchise, and have a PSP, go at it.
I tuck it under my belt, another mediocre game for my collection of mediocrity. Damn.