Killzone 2: Multiplayer Beta Hands-On

We've been though an extensive playtest of the latest multiplayer beta build of Killzone 2 - read our impressions.

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The actual business of blasting the unwary off this mortal coil is, for want of a better word, delicious: if nothing else, Guerrilla has put together character models that are supremely satisfying to shoot at, much like Halo 3's glassy alien architecture. Soft, almost cushioned limbs puff a haze of arterial spray as you unleash hell from a distance; close up, your muzzle flash throws them into stark relief.

The default control scheme hides few surprises: left stick moves, right stick aims, holding L3 sprints and clicking R3 opens up Call of Duty's cherished gun-sight view. Crouching and melee attacks are the province of the left shoulder buttons, while R1 shoots. It feels a little imprecise in comparison to more straight-laced fare like the recent, surprisingly OK-ish Quantum of Solace: the recoil is perhaps a tad heavier than we're used to, movement and turning is conducted at a thoroughly human rate and that aforementioned muzzle flash together with motion blur can obscure targets at long range.

But this looser, fluid vibe is also frightfully cinematic, and once you settle in it's hard to go back to more rigid examples of first-person shooting. Far from being a drawback, Killzone 2's mild untidiness is one of its stronger charms, prioritising good use of cover and positioning over reflex-dependent play. The three maps available in the beta accommodate this rather well. Radec Academy is an open square lined with locker-rooms and windowed galleries and undercut by grimy, dimly-lit passages: it caters for an even mix of close-quarters shooting and mid-range stand-offs. Salamun Market is a much larger L-shaped map which puts the emphasis on sniping, though there are, again, plenty of side alleys and stairwells for tete-a-tetes. Blood Gracht, a rubble-strewn industrial shooting range bisected by skeletal bridges, is perhaps the hardest to deal with: anybody heading up the central aisle will get slotted in seconds, and the few alternative routes to enemy spawn points are often crowded.

While no Aldrin-esque leap in FPS design, Killzone 2 is brim-full of neat little touches, like locker doors which flap outward to provide fleeting cover, or the way gunfire changes pitch as you near the end of a clip. To counter the inevitable spawn-campers, the game generates you afresh in different chambers around a spawn zone, rather than launching you into being at the same spot each time. That it all looks good enough to sleep with barely needs a mention. The screenshots are right there, chaps - now imagine that running in 720p at 30 frames a second. Lag is a definite factor when you dial up the scale, but Guerrilla has a few months yet to fine-tune its servers.

Last but not least, Killzone 2 features a persistent experience system and 46 unlockable badges, each providing access to different weapons, passive attributes and abilities. While getting points for kills and completed objectives leads to higher ranks (12 in all), there are also special badges which can be acquired by winning ribbons, themselves awarded for fulfilling specific criteria. Kill five enemies while disguised as one of their own and you'll get a Disguise Specialist ribbon; swipe eight of those and you'll get a Disguise Specialist badge, which lets you lay C4 explosives.

Players can equip only a few badges at once, and you can swap them in and out (together with your primary and secondary weapons) between spawns. There are six classes - Medic, Engineer, Tactician, Assault, Saboteur and Scout - but you can combine badges and loadouts to create potent little oddities, like an ally-reviving Medic who can call in an airstrike. Engineers can plant static turret defences, and certain other classes can summon heavily-armed airborne drones. It's safe to say that there's room to experiment.

Given show-stealing turnouts at Sony's PlayStation Day and Leipzig, we were hardly expecting to be underwhelmed by Killzone 2's multiplayer beta. Guerrilla has certainly learned a thing or two since its unfortunate PS2 debut, and with that February 2009 release window looking reassuringly fallow (save for F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin and Halo Wars), the game should make quite a splash at retail. Silly fluorescent specs or no, we're looking forward to it.

Killzone 2 is coming exclusively to PlayStation 3 next February. We've got another exclusive interview with the developers (see our last one here) coming in a couple of weeks' time, so don't miss it.

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