I found the portrayal of the Helghast interesting, and the addition of a new half-breed character has interesting ramifications. However, Shadow Fall's story is definitely better than the storytelling. Once again, there's a feature length film's worth of cutscene tucked away onto the Blu-ray disc. Guerrilla takes the same heavy-handed approach with the story as they did in Killzone 3. One level has you skydiving, but the controls are so atrocious that I nearly snapped the DualShock 4 in half. Instead, the few moments where the game tries to break away from the mold end up being some of the worst moments in the campaign. Unfortunately, Shadow Fall does away with all of that. You were fighting the Predator and dodging a fire-breathing dragon-robot-thing in one level, while liquifying soldiers shooting electricity in a low-grav space station. ![]() ![]() Oftentimes, your save kicks in while you're in a gunfight, meaning there's no real way to change your approach to a conflict.Īt the very least, Killzone 3 offered a playground of new toys and new enemies that dared to take the series somewhere new. The game's excessive reliance on arena-style "shoot everything you see" segments quickly outstays its welcome, especially when Shadow Fall's lackluster checkpoint system rears its head. That really cool grappling hook? Prepare to pretty much never use it again. As the game transforms into corridor shooter, the incentive to use OWL disappears, relegating its purpose to "make this door open" instead of opening up new tactical approaches. The second half of the campaign is especially frustrating, as the gameplay (once again) devolves into a mindless shooting gallery. Every brilliant idea is countered by another moment of frustration, anger, or boredom. Unfortunately, Shadow Fall doesn't take long to fall into the same traps of the modern FPS. It's a nice contrast to the linear setpiece-to-setpiece design the genre has devolved into. Some of the earlier stages almost feel like an open world, with players given a massive map to explore and objectives to complete as-they-see-fit. The latter is the most interesting, as it introduces new ways of traversing the game's larger environments. ![]() It has four abilities: provide suppressing fire, create a temporary shield to hide behind, destroy enemy shields, and deploy a grappling hook. Perhaps the biggest addition to Shadow Fall's gameplay is the OWL, a tactical robot that can be summoned at whim. Whereas the weapons of Killzone 3 were all interchangeable, the introduction of very-different firing modes makes each weapon finally stand out. There's a good sense of weight as you dive into cover, and the weapons feel equally hefty. You have a good sense of self as you play, sometimes being able to see your limbs and oftentimes being able to see your own shadow. Shadow Fall manages to find a balance between the deliberate weight of Killzone 2 and the everything-is-running-in-fast-forward design of Killzone 3. Killzone became a very different game with 3, shifting from a "military shooter that happens to be in space" to something more akin to Call of Duty. As a technical showcase, Shadow Fall makes good to showcase all of PS4's fancy new tech, including the sometimes-gimmmicky new features thrown into DualShock 4 (your controller will turn red when low on health, and you'll swipe the touchpad for additional commands). From sweeping vistas of a futuristic city, to scenes with dozens of dazzling light sources, Shadow Fall is designed as a visual feast, meant to celebrate the arrival of a new generation of consoles-and it largely succeeds. ![]() With Shadow Fall, Guerrilla has once again upped the ante in all the ways you'd expect: the graphics are even more colorful than before, with enough lens flares to blind J.J. And while this is Guerrilla's fourth step at bat, it appears they've not learned the lessons from their previous efforts, making the same missteps of Killzone 3. First billed as a "Halo killer" in the PS2 era, then needing to live up to a pre-rendered lofty "visual target" in the PS3 era- Shadow Fall now has the burden of being Sony's biggest exclusive launch game for PlayStation 4. The Killzone franchise has always been caught in a struggle against early expectations.
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