One Hour With: Killzone 3

Killzone 3 is one of the biggest launches of early 2011 and a first-person shooter that is exclusive to the PlayStation 3 home-gaming console from Sony, developed by well-known studio Guerrilla Games.

14:00. It seems that Killzone 3 will make me play as the enemies of mankind...

14:11. The game has what seems to be a pretty weird start, with initial orientation done as a Helghast whose ultimate mission is to actually kill one of the heroes of the series; but there's a neat twist there which kicks off the action proper, although playing at least a short piece of the firefight that came up would have been nice early on.

14:30. The game does have a big action piece in the first 15 minutes, but unfortunately, it's one that the player only gets to watch as Rico and Sev perform a series of high-speed drive by shootings and get thrown off the road by the enemy.

14:39. Once the actual shooting bits get going, Killzone 3 feels both more solid than its predecessor and more responsive.

All signs of any input lag are gone and the action is both fluid and a little bit challenging, when playing on the Veteran difficulty.

14:40. PlayStation 3 game designers need to stop trying to shoehorn Six Axis controls in their games, as best exemplified by the gate opening and wheel-turning bit in Killzone 3, which actually made me feel used and a bit humiliated as a player.

14:49. The developers at Guerrilla Games have also done a good job of spicing up the look of Killzone 3, with more light coming into the scenes and splashes of blood red and powerful orange making the scenes look more alive.

14:57. One mechanics that seems a bit spotty so far is the revival process which Rico is supposed to deliver when my character is down and I lost progress a couple of times because my wingman was tied up in some scripted sequence.

Check back for more Killzone 3 coverage, including an upcoming review, but, in the meantime, feel free to watch a video of some gameplay from the game's middle portions.