Shadow and Dust

Night has fallen. A sharp, oily rain pours down as two desperate souls cling to the shadows, sudden refugees in their own city. A city choked by the fires of chaos, caused by the very people who once sought their destruction. Displaced strangers in their own city. Given to the enemy….’In the name of peace’ they said. And so, a father and son desperately seek only one thing from the rain and the night and the very people who have made them this way; they want to live. To survive.

Freedom rests just within reach; but before either can grasp it, the cold hand of fate extinguishes the fire within the father. And so the son must carry on. By whatever means necessary.

And as the years pass by, as fear and hate nestles in on both sides of the dividing wall separating two species, the son grows to cast a shadow long and wide. A shadow to balance the chaos that spreads with the whispering flames of war.

Fear and hate can sometimes bear a cold and bitter fruit.

Interstellar I Spy

You know, it occurred to me about halfway through my playthrough of Killzone Shadow Fall that the narrative coherency suddenly started to unravel. Not because of the game itself, no. The game is actually quite fun to play. It’s just…. O.K. I just gave my mortal enemy shelter on my homeworld, right? Rather, the Vektan people just gave up half of their world for them to…. do whatever, life goes on, etc. etc. But…. who on the Vektan government thought it was alright to say, “sure, keep your guns, mechs, weapons, and all of those devices of mass destruction. We trust you.”

If it had been me, I’d of been like, “O.K. you can live here, but absolutely no weapons of any kind. Not even a slingshot.” Sure, it’d….. probably make for a really boring game. But think about how the realism just suddenly left the room when you ask yourself who allowed them to keep their weapons? Now in time, considering how Helghast society functions, weapons would’ve eventually made its way back into the story. But it’s made apparent from the start of the game. They have guns. And Mechs. And lots of death dealing apparatuses at their disposal the moment they resettled on Vekta. And the one thought going through my head was “Who the hell thought this was a good idea?!”

Anyway. That’s a personal gripe. You can’t have a proper First Person Shooter I guess when your opponents are armored up badasses that are only allowed to throw rocks and try to stab you with sticks. Really, it’d be a really boring experience. Funny, but extremely boring:

“Kellan to Pulsar, situation is under control. Helghast terrorist cell of 300 wiped out.”
“We read you Kellan. What kind of resistance did you experience?”
“They came at me with rocks sir. And sticks. Long, pointy ones.”
“Hmm. Sounds dire. This could mean all out war between our two peoples.”
“…………….. Really, sir?”

Yeah if that had happened, this game would’ve been 10 minutes long.

Luckily that doesn’t happen. Pretty much everything you’ve seen in previous games plus a few new surprises await you in Guerrllia Games’ new Killzone outing. And on the PlayStation 4, they look absolutely phenomenal. In Shadow Fall, you play as Shadow Marshall Lucas Kellan, in a quasi-Sci-fi Cold War-esque tale set roughly 30 years after the events of Killzone 3.

After the Petrusite detonation renders the planet Helghan uninhabitable, the ISA grants refuge to the Helghast survivors on the planet Vekta, allowing them to colonize half the planet, now separated by “The Wall,” which is a thinly veiled real world “Berlin Wall” separating both the Vektan and Helghast people. Of course, this all sets the stage and tone for an “Interstellar Cold War” feel about the game; both sides conducting secretive, clandestine operations to keep the other side in check and so on.

Visually, this is an absolutely stunning looking game. Vekta City is breathtaking; it’s clean, safe looking vistas stand in a rather harsh juxtaposition to Helghast society that’s borderline ghetto clashing with black steely industry; a militaristic society that cares more for weapons and death than it does for a more peaceful renaissance or a better life for its own people. By and large Helghasts are a poor and broken people, living off the scraps they’re provided to simply live. It’s surprising, then, when you meet up with perhaps the one person in this society that dreams of something better for her people; the half-breed Echo.

When you first meet her, of course, it’s under less than ideal circumstances. But over time the two of you learn to work together, much like how American special forces work with Russian operatives for mutual benefit all the time. That’s not always true to life of course; Noelemahc hates me because I’m racist. And I hate Noelemahc because he’s…. well…. Russian. It happens.

Beyond that, however, Killzone Shadow Fall eschews the usual “squad” combat in previous installments for more personal, solo-centric stories. As a Shadow Marshall you’re a highly trained one man army, probably the best asset the ISA has at their command. It would lessen the impact, I think, if you were always commanding a squad, or enlisted in part of one, when stealth and subterfuge is your greatest weapon in the game’s narrative.

Of course, you’re not completely alone. Accompanying you is Shadow Fall’s newest asset, the OWL. This little device is part co-op partner, part Borderlands 2-ish Axton’s turret. With a quick swipe on the PS4’s new touchpad, you can command the OWL to lay down covering fire on distant enemies, zap them with a sort of tazer-like jolt that temporarily stuns them long enough for you to quietly dispatch them, throw out a zipline to reach otherwise inaccessible parts of the map, or even throw down a small shield to give you cover while your health slowly recovers. You don’t always have it of course, and when you don’t you realize just how invaluable it is, not only as a tool, but as a companion as well.

Graphically Killzone is absolutely beautiful. The details on just about everything is top notch stuff. The open worldish settings are varied, and extremely nuanced, be it the way the water particles occasionally cause that faux-rainbow when the light catches it just so, to the more impressive stuff, like the stitching on Helghan armor or the more detailed facial animations on the secondary main characters themselves. It’s visually an impressive, highly detailed looking game.

I was impressed, and a little shocked at first, when I picked up my first in-game audio log, and rather have the cues come in from the T.V., it came instead through the built-in speaker on my Dualshock controller. I nearly dropped the damn thing when that happened. It was a surprise, but a pleasant one to say the least.

The one personal gripe of course is that the voice of Lucas himself seems a little….. dispassionate sounding. Yeah I know, Acta Non Verba and all, but this is the main character. I’m not expecting something on the level of like, Nolan North or Troy Baker, etc. But it would’ve been nice to have a main protag put a little more “umph” and fire behind the spoken lines. Don’t get me wrong, Gene Farber as Kellan is… well he isn’t bad. He just lacks that emotional fire you’d expect out of a lead character.

Echo, on the other hand. Wow. Absolutely loved her. Jamie Gray Hyder did a fine job with the character and I hope in future installments we get to hear her again. On the whole game front, Killzone Shadow Fall does a fine job of giving each setting that proper background riff complementing the moment. From the softer, safer, almost muted moments of exploration and stealth, to the more emotionally tense tracts when you’re plunging down darker, more dangerous environs. Weapons all sound good and the environments, from the natural to more industrial settings, all sound organic and spot on. I just wish the voice tracks weren’t so repetitive sounding by about the halfway mark from the enemy Helghast grunts you’ll be facing from start to finish.

From a gameplay standpoint, though it’s not perfect, Shadow Fall does an admirable job of utilizing the tools at your disposal to great effect. Namely the touchpad. While other consoles *coughXbonecough* stumble to integrate certain functions into their games, the touchpad works absolutely perfect. It’s responsiveness is impressive; there’s no lag, no stutter, no pause. Swipe a finger in the given direction you desire and you’re good to go.

Kellan’s tactical “Echo” effect works just how you think it does. If you’re ever wondering where your enemies are at in any given situation, just send out a pulse and this sort of x-ray like highlighter tags enemies within range. Be careful though, because doing it sends out a kind of “static” that some enemies can use to hone in on your position. It’s not always the case, as the enemy intelligence seems to spike from completely oblivious to downright heat seeking missile-eqsue.

I suppose that’s another thing that I should bring up. The enemy “AI” can be a little spotty. At times they can be quite challenging, holding you down under fire while secondaries attempt to flank and flush you out, to downright brute force suicidal stupid. This uneven-ness about your foes can be somewhat teeth gnashing at times. I know they’re supposed to be the bullet sponges that they’re designed to be. But sometimes it’s just…. you feel kinda bad for how stupid they’re charging your position and you’re moving them down like fish in a barrel.

Also, the cover system is a little…. meh. I wouldn’t consider it broken to any extent. But it just didn’t feel natural. Or effective in certain situations. Especially when you think that you’re good to go and all of a sudden some unseen grunt just takes a chuck out of your ass when you’re least expecting it.

The one place it does kind of stumble and falter with the most is its own story. Killzone Shadow Fall tries to make the game feel like an interstellar Cold War between to disparate peoples, but…. you only get really one side of the story. It would’ve been nice to play as Echo for at least a chapter or two. I will say that you do get to play her for a brief period, but trying not to ruin it, it’s past the point of making it worthwhile narratively.

I’d of loved to have seen the other side of the story. To show the players that, by and large, the Helghast people aren’t all the boogey-men Vektans make them out to be. You get that sense through Kellan’s eyes of course, but you’re an outsider looking in, and the emotional impact of actually seeing this society as one of them, there would’ve been more of an emotional engagement in the player him/herself, and to squander that chance in Shadow Fall is slightly tragic.

What emotion the game does try to pull out of you seems inconsequential when you’re doing the whole “big picture” view. Yes, there are moments when you can trigger a sort of kharmatic heroic/deviant effect out of the game itself; be it handing over your one last adrenaline pack to save a Helghast civilian or simply watch from the shadows as another one is gunned down by two grunts accusing them of defacing government property with graffiti, and so on.

But it really doesn’t have any kind of real effect on the story other than making you feel good or bad about yourself as a person. You really don’t see anything beyond the moment. That’s it. I honestly wished there had been a bigger, better payoff later on down the line, but, oh well.

Final Thoughts: Played in parts, Killzone Shadow Fall is visual eye porn. Graphically the game looks absolutely beautiful, both on a large and small scale. And while the AI isn’t perfect, the only real personal gripe I have with Shadow Fall on the whole is that the story is lopsided, and the “good/evil” decisions don’t carry any real emotional weight beyond making the player feel good or bad about themselves beyond the then-and-there moments. While not terrible, I’d of personally loved to see (and played) Echo’s side of the story and the world through her eyes. And not as some stranger on the outside looking in.

All in all though, not a bad game, but there is definitely room for improvement.