I was surprised to see that Killzone 3 won a Game of the Year award. It is a very mediocre game, and even fans of the series find this game a letdown.

          The Story

          Let’s look at the story and characters first. There is a war going on (who expected that to happen in an FPS game) between the ISA, the good guys, and the Helghast, the Nazis. The Helghast are a human colony turned rebellious, turned Earth’s impending doom. So far so good, space Nazis, who can make this boring. Nobody. But it can be uninteresting. The story is superficial, it is not taken seriously, in the sense that the characters do not seem to understand that a Nazi apocalypse is about to happen. It does not even have the same level of characterization as a game trying to make a little sense. The story is simply there as a means to introduce cutscenes and cool settings.

          Gameplay

          But, hey it’s a shooter. Does it even need a story? Of course it does. But let’s take a look at the gameplay… yeah. It’s a shooter and it is as standard as it gets. In fact, it feels like a rail shooter at places. There are vehicle levels and the like, but it’s all been done before Guerilla. How about trying something new, anything? Oh ,you did? Of course, how could I have forgotten? The game can be played with the PS Move. I haven’t played the game with the Move, but from what I’ve heard, the Move is unresponsive and requires a lot of calibration. Besides standing with your arm extended in front of you for a long period of time is uncomfortable. And a lot of Wii games did it before. And I do not know the name of any of them. In fact the only good games I played that use this are on NES or SNES. So it’s more like a gimmick than an actual improvement on the genre.

          Graphics

          The game is really gorgeous. But what game isn’t these days? I normally don’t mention this, because I feel that we’ve reached a time where we don’t need to acknowledge good graphics when Crysis came out. Crysis reached the point where graphics are at their peak. It is the best looking game out there. And when I first set my eyes on it, they watered, but after two hours I was like “meh”. So there is a range of graphics which can be defined as good. I would say good graphics start from Doom 3 and go up to Crysis. If you are within this range you get good points, but the higher you go the points become less valuable.

          Multiplayer

          But apparently, Killzone 3 is not meant to be a good singleplayer game, it is meant to be a good multiplayer game. Wow, that’s a lame excuse. And just to be clear, there is no reason Killzone 3’s multiplayer should be considered any good. I mean in comparison to games that actually try to improve multiplayer or provide a unique experience. Killzone 3 is a game that takes everything it has in terms of multiplayer from other games, with the sneaky assumption that you will not realize it.

          But Killzone 3, scores major points in one area. It has local co-op. I love local co-op. One of the main reasons I thought consoles were good was the local co-op. And now you rarely see it. Where are my 4 player co-op games? Where have they gone consoles? I can play online co-op on my PC, people, I don’t need a console for that! Get on it developers!

          Oh yeah and you can play the game in 3D.

          The Verdict

          I’ve been harsh on this game, because it does not deserve a Game of the Year award. I’ve been harsh because it doesn’t deserve any better. It takes everything other developers have worked to create for granted, and it sells like it is actually a good game.

          Originality:

          Everything in this game has been done before. Not all of it was done to exhaustion, so I guess that could be a plus.

          Addictiveness:

          Playing shooters is always fun, so if you have no other game to play, you could go through Killzone 3 in a session or over a couple of days.

          Popularity:

          Killzone is a PS3 exclusive series, so just based off that fact it is very popular, but it is well known in general.

          Features:

          PS Move and 3D implementation, interesting setting, and decent multiplayer.

          GOTY awards won: 1

          MTV Game Awards (Latin America)