Killzone Liberation

Killzone Liberation Developer: Guerilla Publisher: SCEA Action - Playstation Portable 1 player / 2-6 player Ad-Hoc & Infrastructure

Killzone Liberation was one of the first titles recommended to me when I purchased my PSP. I didn't know much about the KZ series, other than the fact that it was an exclusive that Sony fans praised. Unlike the first-person perspective of the PS3 series, Killzone Liberation took a different path by being presented top-down. I'm always down for a hearty action game, and because of the view, I was looking forward to something that distinguishes itself from the pack.

Indeed, KZL sets itself apart for a few reasons.
- The top-down perspective did make it play very differently than other shooters. For one thing, there's no jumping. You can still crouch behind objects to gain a defensive advantage, but because there isn't much of a vertical axis to the camera, height isn't emphasized much.
- The game is hard. The enemies are pretty accurate with their bullets, and aren't afraid to spray you. The few bosses that are here are also throw-your-PSP-out-the-window hard, which while frustrating, is quite respectable.
- Although there are some segments with allied AI, which I hate, you have some control by being able to designate your partner to specific locations on the screen or to follow you. The great thing is your allied AI partner listens to you, so if you tell them to protect themselves behind a barricade, they will remain there, even if you wander away from their area. You can also command your partner to do certain things, such as setting up bombs and clearing the way. It's nice to be able to exert some control over the computer controlled characters.
- The game shipped incomplete, so you can only receive the final 20% of the game and the ability to play online through DLC. Luckily, the DLC is free, but when I "finished" the game, I thought it was weird that it ended on a cliffhanger. It was then that I learned that the DLC wasn't a bonus, but a fix for what really ought to have been there in the first place.

Ultimately it comes down to whether the game is fun, and I think this is where Killzone Liberation slips. I never got the sense that it was anything more than clinical and generic. There isn't much variety in the types of foes you face. They only come in a handful of flavors. For the most part, I felt that the waves of enemies were only there to keep you occupied, rather than an integral part of the game design. A common scenario is that you'll face 3 enemies. So you kill them, and out comes another wave of the same enemies. It gets repetitive. That's what made the challenge harder to deal with too. It seemed like it was hard for the sake of being hard, and left me with no satisfaction when I overcame those challenges. It was a soul-less experience.

Probably the biggest complaint of mine is the lock-on targeting system. Theoretically you kinda point your character towards an enemy and then your gun is locked onto that individual. Since you don't have the precision of a 1st person shooter, the lock-on certainly helps a game like this. And this totally works when there's one enemy on the screen. Where things go bad is when there are several enemies in the same direction. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get your gun to lock onto specific enemies in these situations. Worse yet, even if you're targeting one enemy, once you knock them to the ground, your auto-aim will then lock on to another enemy. It is extremely annoying when you want to finish off an opponent, but the game sometimes decides to just shift targets on you. And this is where most of the frustration came in. Your auto-aim goes wherever it wants to. Yes, the game is hard, but a large part of that hard is because you are at the mercy of the finicky targeting system. If the mediocrity in design wasn't enough to ruin the game, the lock-on targeting system definitely did.

On paper, Killzone Liberation is a great game. It's intense, fast-paced, challenging, and relentless - all very good things for an action game. It's got a bunch of challenge stages that make it feel very different from the regular campaign mode too - and more content is always a good thing. But no matter what the game offered, I never quite enjoyed playing it. If the rest of the Killzone series is like this, Sony fans can just keep it.