Killzone 2 was a great game on the PS3; in fact it pretty much secured me getting one. I have quite a few consoles and I’m not a fanboy of any of them. I’m a gamer, that’s the best way to be now. Because fanboys are annoying retards who can’t look at any system they don’t own as anything more than a challenge to their e-peen console credentials. Now Killzone is back with the third instalment and the fanboys are already railing against Gears of War 3 and Halo: Reach.

The long and short of it, the bit that you really care about? Killzone 3 is a good game and that’s a fact. It doesn’t really push the boundary of gaming in any one direction, it takes cues from the previous game and expands on the controls a little, smoothes things out and basically improves from Killzone 2. The multiplayer is better and the’s a BotZone mode that lets you sharpen your skills against the AI.

Pack in split-screen co-op and you’ve got a winner of a package here.

Story

ISA versus Helghast in no-holds barred conflict to secure the fate of the planet Helghan. We’ve seen it before in Killzone 2 and now it continues in Killzone 3. I really don’t have much to say about the story because if I say anything at all, you’ll get a spoiler and some people will bitch and moan. So...yeah, there’s a story here and it doesn’t rock, but it doesn’t suck either. Your mileage might vary depending how anal you are on such details.

Gameplay

Similar to Killzone 2 and with a cover system where you can peek around and over, blind fire and shoot the bad guys in the face. I like it, I like it a lot and it works really well when you’re in the thick of it. Expect an AI team-mate to be around a lot of the time to bail you out if you take too much damage and go down in one of the many brutal run-and-gun battles in the game. There’s a good mix of guns, you can carry the usual arsenal, one sidearm, one rifle and one heavy weapon. It’s the standard, why change it?

The controls are basically the same as they were in KZ 2 and fans of that game can jump right in. Sure it also has Move Support, but since I don’t give a rat’s ass about Move, we’ll be moving on! AHA! See what I did there? I’m here all week, and if you don’t appreciate that terrible humour, its ok, you’re just soul-dead. You play as a dude from the ISA and you shoot a bunch of Helghast bad-guys until you finish the particular level, ducking in and out of cover, using the various weapons and delivering some bad-ass close kill moves.

Graphics

To describe Killzone 3 as a good looking game is wrong, it’s a very good looking game and it really does show off the power of a console like the PS3. I think only Uncharted 3 will have a chance at beating this kind of game for graphical eyecandy. There’s a lot of it, a lot of fancy industry words that I don’t give a fuss about – so basically – it looks utterly awesome and you should stop and survey the hard work in the graphics when you get a chance.

Animations

Yeah, you know those things that make or break the realism of a game, they are here in abundance and they work really well. Character animations are great, the death moves are great when you get up close and personal – there’s some really brutal stuff, like pushing out the eyes of a Helghast soldier before you snap his neck like wood. Sweet brutalities that will make Fox News cry and turn you into an overnight neck-snapping psycho-rapist, if you live in the world of ‘LA LA’ Fox News make-believe. Seriously, mommy...daddy...there’s nothing to worry about here unless you come home and find out that your kid’s just snapped the neck of his babysitter.

I’m reminded to mention the normal run, gun, typical animations and character animations, facial expressions, lip synch and the tiniest detailed bit of an ISA or Helghast tank. Seriously, it is good stuff and there’s a lot of it.