Tell 'em why u mad son - The Mass Effect 3 Ending

 

WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3 

There has been a trend among games media to misunderstand the fans complaints about the ending to Mass Effect 3. They've created a false narrative where they say the fans want a “happy ending”. This is not the case, and grossly misrepresents the major issues with the end of Mass Effect 3.

Most fans would be happy with a simple ending where it recaps what happens to each of the crew, like Bioware did in Dragon Age Origins or Jade Empire. The fans just do not want the weakest type of ending in the world. One that Greeks used because they were just starting to invent plays 5000 years ago. The Deus Ex Machina. ("god out of the machine") is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object. The Deus Ex Machina is the single worst plot device you can inflict on fans. It's basically an admission by the writer that “shit, I don't know how to end this in a way that makes sense, so I'm just going to pull some shit out of my ass”.

The amazing thing about Mass Effect is how you shape the story of Commander Shepard. Mass Effect can be a vastly different experience depending on what choices you make throughout the games.

If I wanted to end ME2 with everyone surviving and living to go on happy adventures down the road, I got to do that.

If I wanted it to be a tragic story where most of Shepard's friends from ME1 and ME2 don't make it through the suicide mission, I could do that too.

Hell, If I wanted to be a royally incompetent Shepard and literally suicide so hard at the end of ME2 that I manage to prematurely end the trilogy in the sequel, I could even do that.

But in Mass Effect 3, the end doesn't even finish with particular relevance to what you did except for the basic idea of the Crucible.

Shepard's crew, the people who have followed Shepard to hell and back in ME2, abandon Shepard at the last moment without explanation (I thought they were killed by Harbinger's beam and spent time looking for their bodies). The elevator thing brings you up to the Citadel orbiting around Earth and then a holo-kid AI comes out of nowhere and basically tells you, “Hi, I'm the one behind everything that has happened, now go ahead, pick any ending you want and we'll show you a palette swapped FMV."

Shepard, whose single most defining characteristic through the series has been his refusal to give in to anything except his own honour and/or good sense, mutely agrees to the AI and the Reapers ideas without challenging or questioning them. And in the end, the choices you've made throughout the past three games are completely irrelevant. Nothing about the ending is a consequence of your past choices and actions, and you can get any ending you want regardless. To add an extra layer of insult on top of that, the 3 endings are all basically the same, only the energy signature of the crucible has a different colour.

I'm personally not so much puzzled that it's not a perfect ending, I can deal with a bad ending. Hell I've sat through the ending of Metal Gear Solid 2 five times now, and I still love that game. What truly baffles me about ME3 is how lazy an ending it is. You're left with a “choose you own ending” mechanic that directly contradicts the narrative and gameplay mechanics Bioware established for three whole games.  As a game designer, after carefully crafting and establishing the mechanics of a game, I would have fought a decision like that ending until my dying breath. Considering how much attention to detail Bioware likes to put into their games, I can't comprehend how this could have happened.

I'm fine with an ending that isn't happy. Most people complaining are not looking for a happy ending. It's a desire for a thematically appropriate ending that is in keeping with the rest of the series.

The thing that frustrates me the most is that the resources are already in game for the best ending that any gaming series ever had. A true Clint Eastwood style genuinely bittersweet ending.

All they needed to do was after the conversation with the Illusive Man, you see the scene with Shepard and his mentor Admiral Anderson, both gravely wounded. You get either no conversation with Anderson, the in-game conversation with Anderson, or the extended conversation if you've essentially maxed out your Reputation. Then you show Anderson dead, and Shepard slowly dying alone but smiling in victory, the Crucible docking with the Citadel, and then detonating to destroy the Reapers. If your Effective Military Strength (EMS) is below 3000, the Reapers die, the relays are destroyed, and Earth is destroyed. If your EMS is above 3000 but below 4000, the Reapers die, earth is destroyed, and the relays are intact. If you're above 5000, the Reapers die, but Earth and the relays are intact.

It basically comes down to how well the fleet was able to build the device and protect it, a direct result of your own actions as Shepard. In all endings, Shepard dies. There's basically everything you need to make that ending with existing resources, and it would have given Shepard a great ending.

But it didn't happen. Bioware somehow managed to create an amazing saga that spans three games, with a level of narrative depth unheard of in gaming, only to completely drop the ball in the last 30 minutes. How did this happen?

Closer look: Resistance 2

 

Resistance 2 is the follow up to PS3 blockbuster Resistance: Fall of Man, the title that sort of shared co-flagship FPS status with Killzone 2.

Developed by Insomniac Studios, Resistance 1 was a very good game, a more fast paced FPS with a great selection of weapons, solid enemy AI and a rather interesting 1940's world war 2 era, only with high-tech weapons and aliens setting.

This is another one of those major PS3 franchises that just never got a foothold in my gaming life. Even though I've owned a PS3 since 2007, these big FPS games were never must-buys for me. I did play Resistance 1 back in 2007, but it didn't really make that much of an impression on me, and when Resistance 2 released, I was in no rush to get my hands on it. So here I am, getting in on the action years too late.

As the story goes, Europe is attacked by creatures called the Chimera, that not only wreak havoc across the continent, but infect people with a disease that turns people into one of them as well. You play as Nathan Hale, a part of a US force that is sent to Europe to support the allied forces fighting against the Chimera.

Resistance 2 picks up immediately after the end of Resistance 1. Things didn't go so well in Europe, the allies have fallen, and out of the thousands of US troops sent into Europe, Nathan Hale is one of the only survivors. As Resistance 2 opens, Hale is battered and bruised, walking through the UK winter alone. He's picked up by a US back ops helicopter, and they make their escape.

The story then jumps forward a few years, and Hale is now the leader of the Sentinels, a squad of soldiers who are infected by the Chimera virus, but much like Hale himself, they are resistant to the Chimera infection, and with the help of treatment and a serum they have to take every few hours, they keep the infection at bay. This helps them get the advantages of infection, a healing factor, enhanced physical abilities, and a connection with the Chimera, without succumbing to the infection.

After the Chimera engulfed all of Europe, they are now towards American shores. Hale spends most of the story escaping from safehouse to safehouse as the Chimera tracks them down and destroys the human bases. The Chimera are digging up ancient towers across the globe for sinister purposes. To add to the Mayhem, Deadelus, a man turned Chimera, escapes from containment and leads the Chimera on a campaign to destroy humanity once and for all. Nathan Hale is slowly succumbing to the infection in his body, and as the story progresses, he's slowly turning into a Chimera himself.

The story itself is pretty good. While you experience a lot of the narrative through cutscenes inbetween levels, a lot of narrative and exposition is delivered in-game through dialogue from the AI controlled team mates that fight alongside you. This is a method of elaborating on the story I enjoy immensely. You can also find documents around levels that provide some background information on the characters around you and the events that took place in the time between the first and second game.

The one failing the narrative in Resistance 2 has is the lack of characterisation. Nathan Hale himself isn't really fleshed out, beyond being a man of steel with ice in his veins who lives for the sole purpose of killing Chimera. Not exactly an engaging character. In addition to doctor Malikov, and Major Blake, you also have several Sentinel team mates, Capelli, Warner and Hawthorne. Unfortunately, they are not explored much as characters at all beyond Capelli being shown uncomfortable and aggressive against Hale for slowly turning into a Chimera. This is a bit of a missed opportunity as more fleshed out characters would have created a more engaging narrative. At least the ending is a bold step for a franchise and surely provocative for fans of the series, guaranteeing that things will be shaken up a bit in any potential sequel. I enjoyed that very much.

Graphically, Resistance 2 is pretty solid. Character models are nicely detailed, and the environment design is superior to the first game. They've broken away from the drab greys and browns in the first game, and gives you a varied level design that takes you from snowy mountains to metallic alien ships to lush jungle environments. The colour palette is more saturated and much more visually interesting than the previous game.

Insomniac also successfully presents a haunting vision of destroyed American towns, deserted and void of life, containing only the husks of those who once lived there. Through their environments, they successfully sell the notion that you are on the losing end of the fight against the Chimera.

The gameplay in Resistance 2 remains fairly fast paced for current era FPS. Some changes have takes place, you now have a regenerating health system, so no more health pickups. In many ways the flow of the game is reminiscent of Halo. Resistance 2 has some really good gameplay elements going for it, the gunplay just feels good, which is the most important thing for an FPS after all. It also has one of the best collection of weapons in the FPS genre. Sure, you have your standard assault rifle and shotgun, however you also have amazing weapons like the Auger, that shoots through walls, or the bullseye that lets you tag an enemy and have your bullets track them. But my favourite of all is the very first weapon you get in the game, the Magnum, which not only packs a punch, it allows you to trigger explosives in the bullet at will. All the weapons have alternate fire features that add another layer to the gunplay. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other game with as many weapons that just makes me smile.

While the gameplay is very solid and a lot of fun, there are some serious issues with Resistance 2 that holds the game back from greatness, and in certain sections make it take a sharp U-turn towards craptown.

There are way too many instant death situations in Resistance 2, where you're just walking down the street, minding your own business while blasting fools in the face, only to just go splat instantly. Sometimes it's because you triggered a blatantly stupid enemy appearance, and sometimes you just get no indication of why you're dead, what killed you, or what you did wrong.

And they have stealth enemies, that you get no warning about until approximately 1 second before they are on you, who 1-shot kill you. Sometimes they appear to work as intended, as in you're making your way through the level, and then you see tracks on the ground and hear the noise of their footsteps, warning you of their approach. But way too many times, I appeared to be looking in a different direction than where the designers had wanted me to look, and was attacked by these stealth Chimera from the side or the back, or they would catch me while reloading. In both of these cases, there is nothing you can do, and you die.

Other times you'll be in a firefight, a long one with several stages, and just towards the the end, you hit a trigger and get bumrushed but the Chimera when your health and ammo is low and you're out of position. My favourite (/sarcasm) is the big Chimera with the energy shield who runs at you with 2-3 others behind him also hiding behind the shield. Insomniac just loves having those guy appear from around the corner just when you approach and think the fight is over. The result of this is, you die. Sure you can deal with it the second time around, when you know it's coming, but the first time you see it, you're dead. Every time, and there is nothing you can do about it. Resistance 2 makes you go through these kinds of cheap deaths repeatedly.

I can not stress enough that this is not good game design. The player needs to understand what happened, why he died, and know that he had a fighting chance. If not, it's not going to feel challenging, it's just going to be frustrating. Dying because of bullshit is never fun, ever.

This leads in to the second big issue with Resistance 2. Checkpoints. Really brutal ones. When you're in a big fight, going from room to room, all those placed you think there should have been a checkpoint, don't get your hopes up, because there wasn't one. Tough checkpoints alone isn't so bad, in fact it can make a game feel really challenging and change the way you play it, making you more cautious in your approach. However, when you mix tough checkpoints with cheap deaths and just sadistic enemy triggers, you have the makings of an immensely frustrating game.

And this is the major reason I don't really like Resistance 2. Because it's a good game, real good, the gunplay feels just right and the weapons are totally awesometastic. But with a few key game design decisions, they made the game not fun to play. I was sitting there playing a game I knew was good, and I wasn't having fun, I wasn't enjoying it all. I was just frustrated and wanted to get it over with.

Being mostly a single player guy, Resistance 2's excellent multiplayer offering doesn't make much of a difference to me, and the fairly short single player campaign doesn't provide nearly enough value for me. The length of the campaign is extended purely through how many cheap deaths you suffer, forcing you to replay sections, and ensuring that I would never even dream of playing the campaign a second time around on a harder difficulty.

In the end, I'm kind of torn in my feelings about Resistance 2. It's basically a really good game that I never want to play again. In fact, I'm not too excited about picking up Resistance 3 either. I feel like Resistance 2 is a rare case of a game that is good, but not a good experience. Way too much frustration and cheap deaths mar the experience and leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

In any case, if you really liked Resistance: Fall of Man, Resistance 2 is a must buy. For everyone else, I think it should probably get in line behind Killzone.

Rating: 7

Closer look: F.3.A.R.

F3AR, or FEAR 3 if you like, is the third game in the F.E.A.R. series which stands for something I have long since forgotten. As shown by perverting the initials with a 3, it’s not really important, it just spells out FEAR.

The original FEAR was a very interesting game that mixed First Person Shooting with horror gameplay, created by Monolith Productions, the same developer behind the excellent Condemned. Putting the player in the shoes of Point Man, a genetically enhanced soldier (hello bullet-time!) sent out with his squad to deal with Paxton Fettel, a nutcase responsible for a string of cannibalistic murders. Things quickly go from bad to worse, and you’re on your own and slowly realizing that there is more to this than you were led to believe.

Soon strange things begin happening, that are centred around a creepy little girl named Alma, an immensely powerful psychic who has completely lost it and is trying to kill everything. The story wasn’t super interesting, but I remember enjoying how you could track down phone messages and files that would shed more light on the story, who Alma is and what happened to her, who Fettel is, and even who you are. It’s a neat way of including more story for the player who might be interested, without beating everyone over the head with it if all they want to do is shoot stuff.

The original FEAR was also interesting in that it was an FPS that worked the best when there were no enemies around. The sequences where paranormal events were happening around you, strange noises, flickering lights, things moving for no reason, Alma appearing out of nowehere, were by far the best and most immersive parts of the game. I would catch myself sighing and thinking “aww not this again, let’s just get it over with” whenever enemies appeared.

After the release of FEAR, there was an interesting chain of events where two more FEAR games were released, Extraction and Perseus Mandate, but created by a different developer. Once Monolith got their IP back after Vivendi went belly up, they ret-conned those two games out of existence and created FEAR 2.

FEAR 2 took place before and during the events of the first game, and followed a new protagonist, Michael Beckett, sent in with his Delta Squad to retrieve a scientist who was ready to leak information about Armacham, the company behind the creation of Alma, Point Man, and Fettel. Needless to say, things go awry, and Beckett is soon in a world of shit. FEAR 2 was a pretty good game, but had that same thing where the combat were the boring parts and the paranormal activity was the entertaining part. It also elaborated on the story of Alma further, as the player learns she was just a little girl with psychic abilities, who Armacham abused and experimented on, even impregnated her in an effort to create super soldiers out of her children. FEAR 2 also ends with the main character, Beckett, getting psychically raped by Alma, which was… interesting.

FEAR 3 (now done by Day 1 Studios) picks up a few months after the events of the first game. You’re back in control of Point Man, the main character of FEAR 1. He’s been captured by Armacham as is being tortured for information on Alma. Suddenly, he gets a helping hand by a surprising ally, Paxton Fettel, his brother who he killed with his own hands in the first game. Sporting a bullethole in his forehead and all, Fettel appears to have left his physical form behind and is now basically a psychic spectre. I’m not sure if he’s real and is using his brother as a host, or if he’s a figment of Point Man’s imagination, it’s never really explained how Fettel has returned from the dead, or if it was, I missed it. Perhaps Point Man has some latent psychic powers himself, that are manifesting in the form of his dead brother, allowing him to embrace his dark homicidal impulses without really facing the consequences of his actions? Who knows, maybe I’m reading too much into things. Fettel is able to possess enemies and help out in combat though, and he just done broke your ass out of jail, so let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.

After the events of the second game, Alma is pregnant and is close to giving birth. Her contractions release powerful psychic blasts that wreak ever more havoc on the surroundings. Point Man wants to find Alma and put a stop to this, while Fettel wants to find his mother and share in the joy of the birth of their new sibling. What follows is a long slug through the prison, sewers (of course), towns and military complexes.

In-between levels you are treated to short sequences, showing video tape of Point Man and Fettel as children, held in a containment room doubling as their home. Sometimes a doctor comes in and takes one of the boys away for experimenting, more often than not, Fettel as it becomes clear that Fettel has psychic powers like their mother, while Point Man (Point Boy?) exhibits no signs of psychic ability. Occasionally, Alma will pop in and check on her boys in the form of a little girl. Only Fettel notices her, as Point Man is blind to her presence. As the levels pass, you can see little Fettel becoming more and more powerful, and more and more unhinged, both from the experiments on him and the influence of his mother. Although it’s only a minute or so clip between each level, I found it to be by far the most interesting and compelling part of the story of FEAR 3.

FEAR 3 plays pretty much exactly the same as the previous two levels. There’s a bit of a cover system, allowing you to pop  your head out of cover and take a few pot shots if you have a lot of enemies zeroing in on you. The combat is pretty slow, but is remedied by the fact that Point Man is able to slow down time due to his superhuman reflexes, which allows you to basically think “what would Rambo do?”. It’s quite satisfying to be stuck behind a pillar with enemy fire all around you, only to slow down time and just come out spraying bullets all over the place.

The game does introduce enemies later on that require some more different tactics. Some enemies have shields, requiring you to shoot their feet, or wait for them to drop their shield momentarily to reload before you attack. Strangely they don’t seem to react at all to grenades thrown behind them. Then there are the bullet sponge wall-teleporting phase commanders that will take hundreds of bullets to kill. Usually I approve of mixing things up a little, but in FEAR 3 I genuinely just felt annoyed when faced with these enemies, as they broke the flow and forward momentum of my attack.

Then there are the psychic monsters, at several points in the game you’ll be faced with beasts created by Alma that appear out of the walls. They are by far the worst part of the game. They have no intelligence whatsoever and will just come straight at you, leaping and slashing with their claws. This usually leaves you running backwards while spraying bullets in their face. I suppose the intention was to mix things up a bit and force the player on his heels, but these enemies do not inspire any dread, just annoyance. There’s no entertainment value in fighting them at all, and I would just sigh whenever they appeared in the game.

Then there are the occasional sequence where you get to drive bipedal mechs for a short time, letting you just wander forward like an indestructible force of asskickery, blowing shit up as you go. These sections are short and few, but entertaining and breaks up the action nicely.

Much like the previous games, the best gameplay sequences are the ones without any enemies. When things quiet down, the lights start flickering and paranormal events start happening. Unfortunately, they’ve been done to death by the FEAR series in the past, and aren’t particularly inspired, so while still neat, these sequences are not nearly as compelling as they were in the original game.

There is an excellent level at the end of the game though, that consists mostly of one big paranormal sequence, as Point Man and Fettel revisits the facility they grew up in and have to come to terms with the atrocities they suffered at the hands of Armacham.

As an added bonus, you are able to play every level again as Paxton Fettel after you’ve beaten them once as Point Man, giving you a much different look at the action with Fettel’s psychic powers and ability to possess enemies.

If you’ve got a buddy handy, you can also play the entire game in co-op as Point Man and Fettel. The game definitely feels like it’s designed for co-op, with plenty of opportunities for flanking and such. If you’re like me and have no friends however, it’s kind of disappointing that single player runs removes Fettel entirely. It would have been nice to have an AI partner to at least serve as a distraction and bullet sponge.

Graphically, the game looks pretty dated. It’s not a bad looking game, but it looks like a 2008 game. Put alongside the AAA shooters of the last year, it doesn’t hold up at all. Plus Point Man looks really stupid, he looks like a cross between a cave man and Macho Man, only without the awesome macho madness.

There’s a selection of multiplayer modes as well, including something quite awesomely named “Fucking run!” but we don’t play that multiplayer shit ‘round here son, so I’m not going to comment on that.

Final thoughts:

FEAR 3 is a competent shooter, with a bit of a hook in the horror parts that sets it apart from the pack.

The story of FEAR has some interesting parts, most notably Alma and her sons and the combination of torture and frightening psychic powers. There are some really interesting psychological angles in the story that sadly and frustratingly goes unexplored. There is real potential there, and nothing is more frustrating than wasted potential.

Graphically, it looks dated and fails to impress, but it’s not bad either. Just perfectly middle of the road.

Ultimately, I think FEAR is a bit played out. The original game was new and interesting and compelling, and I enjoyed it a lot. By now though, in its fifth iteration (counting Extraction and Perseus Mandate) it’s still pretty much the same game and have made very little progress as a franchise. I hope that if they make more FEAR games, they take some chances with it and move the gameplay along, hopefully in a more horror, less action direction.

FEAR 3 is a decent game to kill a couple of days with if you have nothing else to play, but beyond that I can’t see myself recommending it over other FPS’ out there. In fact, I’d recommend FEAR 1 over FEAR 3.

However, if you liked the previous FEAR games and want some more of the same, FEAR 3 is for you. Me on the other hand, I wish they’d leave FEAR on the shelf for a bit and make another Condemned game.

Rating: 7

Closer look: Killzone 3

Killzone 3 is the follow up to 2008’s release, Killzone 2 (/Captain Obvious hat), who was hailed as the savior and first legitimate killer app for the PS3. It had massive hype going into release based on previous years E3 trailers who displayed a mindboggling graphical quality. Fanboys everywhere waged wars over whether the footage had been all pre-rendered smoke and mirrors, or if Killzone 2 would make a graphical jump that would forever shame all competitors and make even reality look like shit.

Killzone 2 didn’t quite live up to the massive hype generated before release, but it was a really solid first person shooter with some of the best graphics seen at the time.

I had stayed away from the franchise until earlier this year, just based on the ridiculousness of the name “Killzone”. But when I finally broke down and played it, I found a very good FPS franchise.

With this in mind, I was very interested to see how Guerilla built on the excellent Killzone 2.

Killzone 3 picks up immediately after the end of Killzone 2, with Emperor Visari dead at the hands of Rico. Sev and his team are trying to get off-world with the full might of the Helghast army bearing down on them. Things go bad, and the ISA heroes find themselves stranded on Helghan, trying to avoid capture and wait for rescue from the ISA.

Much like the previous game, the story is presented from two perspectives, that of Sev and his ISA buddies, and inbetween levels the perspective of Jorhan Stahl and the Helghast council, as they take over from Emperor Visari. You get to see the goings on and infighting in the Helghast government.

Also much like the previous game, the Helghast bad guys are much more interesting, well developed and complicated characters than the ISA heroes, who while improved over the last game, are still much more 2 dimensional and still mostly shout curse words and shoot stuff.

The character of Rico received a lot of criticism from fans and press alike in Killzone 2, as he was an unlikeable expletive spewing douchebag. Rico is noticeably improved this time around, as he’s toned down his language and has a bit more developed personality.

Malcolm McDowell continues Brian Cox’s legacy of making the bad guy infinitely more interesting and compelling than the heroes of the tale, with an excellent performance as the slimy industrialist Jorhan Stahl. The Helghast council in general feature some awesome voicework that really drew me in to their political posturing during the cutscenes.

These great Helghast characters only make the heroes Sev, Rico and Narville feel even more flat. The ISA characters in the Killzone franchise never really stuck with me. It’s only been about 9 months since I played Killzone 2, but when I started the game this time around, as the introductory sequence began, I didn’t even recognize which one was the player character. I actually confused Captain Narville and Sev at one point.

They do have a little bit more characterization in this game than the last. Rico is the tough guy with an authority issue, Narville is the boyscout leader who’s too worried about losing his guys to really get in the fight, and Sev is the straightforward problem solver.

Aesthetically, Killzone has never been very good. The Helghast designs are deliciously evil, with kind of nazi stormtrooper vibe, but beyond that, the world isn’t very inspired. There’s a lot of grey and unremarkable character designs.

Killzone 3 makes some improvements over Killzone 2, but still features way to much industry grey and shades of brown. There is an awesome swamp level though, with plants and animals that create an eerily beautiful wilderness. The contrasting colours between the plant life and the cold dead rock it lives on creates a very visually interesting level.

There is more variety in Killzone 3’s levels as well, as it takes you from the grey and dreary capital city to the swampy wilderness, to an arctic base, to the desert and then into space. The game does get more grey/brown towards the later levels, however it somewhat makes up for this with some giant enemies and interesting set pieces.

Don’t get me wrong, Killzone 3 has some amazing graphics. While I’m not fully on board with the art direction in the Killzone series, the graphical quality of Killzone 3 is off the charts. Characters are highly detailed, and the environments have solid and detailed textures, without feeling too busy on the eyes. Additionally, the pre-rendered cutscenes are stunning.

The weapon sounds really pack a solid punch, and really sells the feedback whenever you fire your weapon. Explosions and gunfire surrounds you, while the shouts of your teammates and the Helghast can clearly be heard whenever you get close. It does a great job of pulling you in and making you feel like you’re in a chaotic combat situation.

The very first thing I noticed upon jumping back in the boots of Thomas Sevchenko was that developer Guerilla games have tweaked that weighty feeling of Killzone 2. The last game was criticized by gamers who felt like the game was unresponsive and slow. Personally I never really had an issue with it, as I enjoyed the weighty movement of Killzone 2. But this time around, you feel a little lighter on your feet. That weighty feeling is not altogether gone, but aiming and moving is more responsive this time around.

Another major tweak I really enjoyed is that you can carry 3 weapons now instead of 2. In the previous game, you had one main weapon slot, and a sidearm slot, meaning that if you wanted to pick up that rocket launcher, you had to drop your assault rifle. This often meant picking up a larger weapon was a bit un-inviting unless needed for a specific situation.

This time around, you have 1 slot reserved for large weapons, so you can always keep a grenade launcher or a minigun on hand for those pesky tanks.

The cover system from the previous games are back, where you press L2 to lock on to a wall in front of you so you can peek out from the side or over in order to stay in cover and shoot. I’ve never really been a fan of cover systems in first person games, and I’m not a fan of this one. It can be a bit unreliable from time to time, where you are crouching behind the only cover you can find, but still getting hit.

It’s also a bit awkward, since you end up spending a considerable amount of time just kind of staring directly into a wall. This isn’t really taken into account by the environment artists, so while the environments look great from a normal distance, textures appear quite blurry when you’ve got your face mushed against the wall.

Killzone 3 is quite short. I finished the single player campaign in about 5 hours. It has a very robust multiplayer mode, however 5 hours for the campaign is a bit on the disappointing side. For people like me, who usually can’t be bothered with multiplayer, it kind of sucks to pay full price for a game and finish it in 2 nights of playing.

Much like the previous game, Killzone 3 is just a really solid shooter. There are no major innovations, it doesn’t change the genre, or push any boundaries. The closest thing it has to a gimmick is the first person cover system. This is necessarily a negative thing, as it does everything really well. Firing weapons feels great, they’ve really nailed the feedback for the player. Movement is a lot more responsive, and enemy AI does a pretty good job of utilizing cover and flanking the player if you get pinned down.

The game does have some drawbacks, most notably the on-rails shooter segments, where you have no ability to dodge incoming fire, and just have to shoot anything on screen. This would not be a problem if not for the inexplicable instant death situations I experienced from time to time, where I would just fly into oncoming fire (on the large robot close to the end for example) and have to reload and hope it didn’t happen again. It seemed pretty random, but it happened to me 3 times during the course of the game.

I also experienced an issue with the cutscenes where the sound would get de-synced from the video, and voicework would lag almost a full second behind the lipsync.

Final word

Killzone 3 is a really solid FPS game, with some of the best graphics on the PS3. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, but displays a refined iteration of what was already a great game in Killzone 2.

It doesn’t really tell an interesting story, but has some really good badguy characters, and gives you a great action packed campaign. The campaign can also be played in co-op, which I’m always happy about, and it has very well done multiplayer mode, if that’s your thing.

Killzone 3 is only held back a little bit by a very short campaign, a fairly uninspired aesthetic direction and some minor technical issues.

Rating: 8

The Reem: Going out with a bang

UFC 141 was this past weekend, with Alistair Overeem announcing his arrival in the UFC with a few well placed devastating knees and kicks, and Brock Lesnar announcing his departure with a whimper.

To go with last weekends domination, Overeem and his team has released a new episode of The Reem, showing the final week before his fight at UFC 141.

As always, it's a well edited and stylish production, showing some training footage, Alistair being shown around the UFC 141 venue and an interview with his opponent, Brock Lesnar.

THE REEM SEASON 2 EPISODE 9: GOING OUT WITH A BANG ! from THE REEM on Vimeo.