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First Killzone: Shadow Fall review

waypoetic

Banned
So the story is another hamfest? Why is GG incapable of effectively utilizing the cool world they've created to tell interesting stories?
I'm guessing that the person who wrote the backstory isn't at GG anymore. Now it's all about blatant racism and killing of the Helghasts. You wanted space nazis, you got it; the Vektans.
 
So the natural reaction the reviewer comes to is to blame the game for breaking away from the traditional FPS mold. I see.

"I can't just run in a straight line? AHHH WHAT DO I DO?"

Yeah, that's probably the reason for the Minus points ("stupid levels, odd combat direction")
 

nib95

Banned
GameReactor said:
The environments are more open in Shadow Fall, with more of a labyrinthine feel than the corridors we know from Call of Duty. The player often has to search and explore an environment before moving on to the next one. There is not really any guiding arrow that appears to lead us on our way, and occasionally light puzzles break the pace. It's an old-school approach for a very modern action game, and it works most of the time.

This negative is a positive imo. Also, you can do the mission objectives in any order in the forest level. So you don't have to go back to do one particular one, but whichever one you want to do.
 

mclem

Member
So the natural reaction the reviewer comes to is to blame the game for breaking away from the traditional FPS mold. I see.

"I can't just run in a straight line? AHHH WHAT DO I DO?"

It sounds - if we take the description at face value - more like the game doesn't give a *reason* for the sequence of events to play out as it does.

Heck, the issue's more that the game is *demanding* a specific order of play and artificially blocking them off from doing things the way that seems right. That's almost the exact opposite of your point.

(But then, this is one person's report; they could have missed something significant which made it clear why they had to execute in that order)
 
The reviewer for this particular publication is a pretty big Killzone fan and reviewed all the previous games. For reference, he gave the first one a 9/10, the second one a 10/10 and the third one a 7/10.
Never read the text of any of his reviews, but those scores (comparably) sound about right from what I've read here.
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
You'd expect a steady ramp-up in challenge as the game proceeds. Occasionally, though, you get games with weird difficulty spikes in unexpected points. That's uneven difficulty.

I haven't played a FPS with an actually ramping-up difficulty in years.
These days, normal mode is blasting from cutscene to cutscene in a linear fashion, soaking up the sights and dying maybe once or twice in the entire campaign. The second-to-last level isn't going to be noticeably more difficult than the second one, in my experience.

I seriously wish games still offered an increasing challenge like in the old days.
 

Sojgat

Member
Review has me even more hyped. Many of the things mentioned as negatives (getting lost in large environments, lack of a guiding arrow) actually sound like good things to me.

Didn't know the music was handled by two seperate composers. It's a really cool idea, and I love what I've heard of the score so far.
 

onQ123

Member
Depends, if there are difficulty settings in the first place... it better not jump around too much!

A video game should get progressively harder as you progress through the game. If you have stupid difficulty spikes right in the middle of your game, if your difficulty curve is uneven, you screwed up.

The thing is everyone isn't the same so that part of the game that's simple for one person might be hard for another person.
 
What is the reward for completing the sub-objectives? Is there a main-objective marker just to make sure I don't miss a load of content by accidentally bypassing the side-objective?
 

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
I actually laughed out loud reading that review. The general tone was

'Why are these levels so big ? Where do I go ? Why doesn't it TELL me things!'

The change in direction sounds fucking wonderful.
 

darkwing

Member
Hey look guys, they finally release direct screencaps:

killzone_988604b.jpg

killzone_988504b.jpg

killzone_988574b.jpg


Finally the compressed youtube bullshit is coming to an end.

:O
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
So, the 30FPS in singleplayer are phenomaler then 30FPS in other games?
Well, at launch, the game runs with an unlocked framerate in all modes. As a result the game generally runs faster than 30 fps (averaging, perhaps 40-45 fps).

I don't much like the effect as it introduces image judder but some people seem to prefer the higher framerate despite the side effects.
 

Steroyd

Member
I thought I saw in a video that you can bring up an objective marker. Was I wrong ?

No you're right, it was the up button on the D-Pad.

It's just that that marker might be telling you where to go to progress the storyline, moreso than say hacking the security to disable all the camera's to make a certain section easier.
 

mclem

Member
I haven't played a FPS with an actually ramping-up difficulty in years.
These days, normal mode is blasting from cutscene to cutscene in a linear fashion, soaking up the sights and dying maybe once or twice in the entire campaign. The second-to-last level isn't going to be noticeably more difficult than the second one, in my experience.

I seriously wish games still offered an increasing challenge like in the old days.

Doesn't that suggest that you're too good for normal mode?

Heck, I found Halo dull as dishwater when I first played it on the original Xbox on Rookie. When I revisited it on Heroic on the Anniversary version (I tried Legendary, but after two levels, had to concede that that was beyond me), loved it a lot more.
 

Pop

Member
I actually laughed out loud reading that review. The general tone was

'Why are these levels so big ? Where do I go ? Why doesn't it TELL me things!'

The change in direction sounds fucking wonderful.

Pretty much. He's blaming the areas for being bigger than they were previous and his gameplay decisions. Which sounds terrible.
 

G.Newell

Member
So the natural reaction the reviewer comes to is to blame the game for breaking away from the traditional FPS mold. I see.

"I can't just run in a straight line? AHHH WHAT DO I DO?"

Well judging from this line from your quote "At times it gets really weird when you have to go back, perform some seemingly menial task, return to the previous position and push a button that wasn't there at first. It breaks the illusion." that seems to be like poor level design. I hate games that force you to backtrack through a level for objective that wasn't there before normally to lengthen the level.

Those screenshots look gorgeous though, guerrilla games never fails to deliver on the visual front thankfully.
 

NotLiquid

Member
KZ3 9/10? Strange

They were written by different people. Gamereactor has several branches with different staff but on the occasion some reviews will be translated to other languages.

This is one of those times, the reviewer is the Editor In Chief for the Swedish branch and his review of Shadow Fall got translated for all separate language sites. For the previous games which he only reviewed in Swedish he gave KZ2 a 10/10 and KZ3 a 7/10.
 

nib95

Banned
I actually laughed out loud reading that review. The general tone was

'Why are these levels so big ? Where do I go ? Why doesn't it TELL me things!'

The change in direction sounds fucking wonderful.

I was going to read it, but the posts warning of spoilers threw me off, so I've only been reading people's quotes from the review. But if these really are his biggest complaints, sign me the fuck up! GG, I want to get lost in this world you have created.
 
Most shooters these days are straightforward, linear games which always push you forward. You're never left in a position of not knowing how to proceed.

It seems that, with this game, they've delivered much larger, open ended maps that have more in common with Deus Ex or even old school shooters (such as Doom). Wandering around a large space ship trying to figure out how to make your way through it while facing different types of gameplay along the way is much more interesting than following a singular, linear path.

Between the large, open map design, variety of options for engaging enemies (using the Owl, for instance), and an increased focus on stealth it really seems compelling to me.

If you LIKE linear shooters then perhaps this is of no interest to you but I'm thrilled by the change in direction here.

I like that they tried to innovate in this area (or more accurately, go back to old school designs), but why are we pretending we buy these games for the SP? I didn't even finish the Killzone 2 campaign and I played that game for close to 100 hours.

I need to know if the multiplayer works as expected. I have high hopes (and I've already preordered the game digitally, so there's that).
 

Thrakier

Member
So a fluctuating framerate between 30 and 50 is now "phenomenal"? Sorry, I don't want to come across pc-dickish...but what's a stable 6ß then?
 

Yaari

Member
Why do some complain about a 8. What value does a 9 or a 10 hold if we give it to every game out there? I think 8 is a great score. Let's hope it will get as much from other reviews as well.
 

Loomba

Member
Pretty much. He's blaming the areas for being bigger than they were previous and his gameplay decisions. Which sounds terrible.

Haven't read the review because of people citing spoilers but I hate it when reviewers are like this. It's like they mark it down because they aren't competent enough to play a game.
 

amacross

Banned
So some bad level/mission designs deserve 2 marks off? Those type of things are subjective, maybe lots of people will like those levels and dislike the levels the reviewer liked.
 

Frillen

Member
Written by different reviewers. The game will probably receive lots of 8s, and people will bash the game for it, even though 8 is a really good score. Cannot wait to show this game off in front of my friends.
 
I actually laughed out loud reading that review. The general tone was

'Why are these levels so big ? Where do I go ? Why doesn't it TELL me things!'

The change in direction sounds fucking wonderful.

I wonder how long it will take for reviewers to stop spinning non-linearity as a negative.
 
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