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Crocodylus Pontifex posted:In regards to the screenshot from Killzone: Mercenary, you can take a screenshot in most Vita games by pressing start and the PS button at the same time. So it's probably taken from a normal Vita. Oh my god, really?  I've had a Vita for about a year and I didn't know this. If my Vita wasn't basically bricked due to a charging issue I might have considered doing a screenshot style run through of Mercenary. But sadly I can't even use my Vita, let alone play half a level of Mercenary.
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May 14, 2014 22:44
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Blind Sally posted:I always notice this when I read something Killzone related on another forum or in a YouTube comment section. People almost always hate the ISA and sympathize with the Helghast. I think I might screencap some of the more interesting comments and bring them up in a later update. I have no experience with the game, and I automatically like the Helghast more just because the ISA look loving dumb and generic and in every commercial I've seen they talk like absolute assholes.
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May 15, 2014 02:46
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Lotish posted:I have no experience with the game, and I automatically like the Helghast more just because the ISA look loving dumb and generic and in every commercial I've seen they talk like absolute assholes. Then for once, marketing is accurately presenting a product.
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May 15, 2014 03:10
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Lotish posted:I have no experience with the game, and I automatically like the Helghast more just because the ISA look loving dumb and generic and in every commercial I've seen they talk like absolute assholes. And we haven't even met Rico yet. 
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May 15, 2014 07:50
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Blind Sally posted:I always notice this when I read something Killzone related on another forum or in a YouTube comment section. People almost always hate the ISA and sympathize with the Helghast. I think I might screencap some of the more interesting comments and bring them up in a later update. People liking the Space Nazi faction over the "good guy" faction isn't really unique to Killzone. The Gundam anime series has had Zeon apologists for years, and they were lead by Hitler's #1 fan.
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May 15, 2014 21:38
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Lotish posted:I have no experience with the game, and I automatically like the Helghast more just because the ISA look loving dumb and generic and in every commercial I've seen they talk like absolute assholes. The Helghast are sort of generic space/sci-fi bad guys as well, but they have a much better design going than "Bald ISA guy number 66" who seems to comprise the entire ISA army.
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May 15, 2014 21:58
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It's a sad day for the ISA when you realize that the most visually inventive their character design gets... is General Anime.
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May 15, 2014 22:42
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Sorry for the delays! New post will be up before the weekend. Again, loads of technical delays and life stuff, but we've not forgotten about the LP either.
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May 23, 2014 06:18
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2.1 A large explosion knocks over the soldiers Templar blacks out-- Then wakes up! VAUGHTON Art thou okay, Jan? I'm organizing an evacuation! TEMPLAR The security key. Did it arrive? VAUGHTON I fear not. It never made it! TEMPLAR I shalt retrieve it and return here. VAUGHTON Okay. Head for the Research Unit, but tread careful, Jan, They're swarming in. Exit [Vaughton] and [NCO] [Templar] fights off a few Helghast. Enter Pvt. Billinghurst BILLINGHURST Private Billinghurst at your service, sir. I shall aid thou. TEMPLAR Most excellent. Come, we must make our way through yonder office complex. Helghast appears. Templar easily dispatches him. BILLINGHURST Uh, th-thanks. Uh, I'll s-stay here and, uh, secure the area. Yeah. TEMPLAR Ye gods, really? Get thee gone! Exeunt  Welcome! This video is a bit different. If the graphics don't look quite as sharp, that's because we're on the PS2 version of the game. For various reasons, the earlier HD footage for this level was unusable. Undaunted, crow replayed the level as close to my original madness as possible on his old copy of the game. This gives us a solid opportunity to admire how much the HD version improved the game as well as how much madder my skillz are compared to crow's.  There's some interesting subtext going on with what we can interact with in this level. For the majority of this game--the VAST majority--we only interact with the Helghast. Whether it's killing their soldiers or blowing up their equipment, we're kicking names and taking rear end. Occasionally, we're able to interact with bits of the environment that aren't Helghast related. In this particular chapter, that manifests itself as--  --water coolers--  --glass windows--  --and vending machines. Or, to break it down to their very fundamentals: water, shelter, and food. To go off the idea that Guerrilla intended this to be very much a game that demonstrates the atrocity of war and its destructive nature, this is a drat clever way of pulling it off. Very obviously we can interact with the Helghast. Fundamentally, war involves the destruction of human life. In some wars, the destruction of military assets is the main goal. When we start to think about the concept of "total war", it makes sense to allow us to destroy objects that aren't necessarily of military value. Obviously, the game engine is too limited to allow us to destroy the actual infrastructure of Vekta (Killzone would probably crash on start up if anything resembling Geomod was involved with it), but it's interesting that we can destroy these, uh, let's say "effigies" of what we consider essential to life. We, the ISA, the people who are supposed to be the "good guys", are able to go around and destroy the very fundamentals of existence with impunity. I mean, okay, sure, we're defending ourselves from a Helghast attack. But in our response to that, we are destroying the core pillars of life, sentient and otherwise. I'm also not making a big stink about this for no reason. This is going to become a recurring theme with the Vektans. They just wanna end this war and prevent further Helghast attacks, right? Well, the Vektan ISA pull of some real Harry S. Truman level nonsense to get it done. Other than that, this level is home to what I figure are a bunch of developer photo Easter eggs disguised as ISA bigwigs.  Col. Hugh Laurie  Col. Will Sasso  Lt. Gen. Steve Buscemi  Gen.  Oh, and I like to imagine that Sparky Bars are chocolate bars filled with pop rocks, and that Rezzies are chocolate covered raisins and pretzels. I'd eat'em.   Lazyfire Our first guest, of hopefully many, is Lazyfire. It's fitting that Lazyfire is the first person to join us on this adventure, because their Battlefield 4 LP is partly to blame for inspiring us to bring on rotating guests. He brought nine-gear crow and myself on as guests for that LP, so it was nice to be able to return the favour. Lazyfire has also played through Battlefield 3, and more recently has suffered through the first two Red Faction games. His other LPs are worth checking out as well. Lazyfire's got a great sense of humour and timing. He consistently puts out high quality content and yet is always super humble. Always a pleasure to work with. Lazyfire on LPArchive Lazyfire on YouTube   This is the part of Helghan's history that Visari references in his opening speech. This is the early days of the Helghast. No longer able to live in the safety of the skyhook, the colonists must try and make a go at it on the planet.  When Visari speaks of the greatest exodus in humankind's history, he is speaking about this event. Frankly, the original colonists coming to Alpha Centauri seems to be a greater exodus to me, but hey, when you're trying to win over an oppressed populace, you work with what you got. Anyways, the ISA are happy to let the Helghans sod off and build their own colony on that godforsaken rock. They even grant them ownership of it so they don't have to deal with any of the burden of maintaining the colony. Real nice. This is why people hate the ISA.  Living on Helghan blows. Mortality rates on the planet are super high so that any person unable to stand the harsh environment dies off.  Here's the part Visari also mentioned in his speech. Living on Helghan kills you--at least until it makes you stronger. Though living on Helghan in present times is much safer for your health and though the Helghan people are much hardier, people suffering symptoms of "lung burn" are still a thing, particularly among the lower class. Having started there before climbing the ranks in the military, Colonels Radec and Cobar are two prominent Helghast who need to wear breather masks.  Not all non-Helghan are bad. The ICSA, an independent neutral-aligned branch of the ISA, approach the people of Helghan hoping to offer aid. As you can see, it doesn't go over because the Helghans are already extremely xenophobic. Considering that the ICSA is still a branch of the ISA, can you blame them? Cause meanwhile, the ISA continue to impose stricter and harsher trade sanctions on the Helghan populace, making an already difficult life on the planet nearly unbearable. Yeah, screw the ISA, right?  Because, ultimately, the ISA are kind of lazy and cheap, they decide to save some money/man-power by dismantling the majority of their fleet in favour of a planet-wide satellite defense system. It doesn't remain static--they do upgrade it over time and before the eventual Second Extrasolar War, but as we saw in the opening cutscene, this perhaps wasn't the wisest of ideas. The Helghast find a way to disable the defense platforms and roll in unimpeded.  Now I only have a bit of knowledge regarding evolution. I've taken high school and college level Biology courses, but I do not profess to be an expert here. In three generations, humans on Helghan have adapted more readily to the planet's environment. Now, I know evolution occurs over generations, but isn't this happening a bit fast? Mind you, the game also mentions something about "basic genetic conditioning", so I suppose you can handwave away some of it thanks to sci-fi/fantasy nonsense. Neruz posted:Three generations is indeed an extremely short time for widespread genetic change, however that said when evolution does occur it does actually tend to happen rather rapidly in response to the environment and as you mentioned the story talks about genetic conditioning so it is not unreasonable to suggest that Helghan geneticists have helped evolution along. Crocodylus Pontifex posted:It could also be that the third generation was just the first to start showing these changes. This game does take place years after the third generation was born, and there still seems to be helghast that need the breather masks to survive. This is all conjecture on my part, I'm no expert on this sort of thing.  Aaaaand our hero is born. As you can see, Visari is as close to Helghan royalty as you can get. Cute kid. Reminds me a bit of Damien from The Omen.  This is pretty foul. The ISA on Vekta enforce strict punishment on the Helghan which lead to a catastrophic problem, then refuse to send any aid because they've now crippled themselves due to the problem they created in the first place. A surefire way to make an entire planet hate you. Now, the question here is whether or not Vekta intended to starve Helghan's citizens on purpose. Right now, Helghan is essentially Post-WWI Germany. We're all aware of the crazy economic sanctions and debt placed on the Germans by the Allies, but the Allied starvation of Germany is less well known. For nearly eight months after the war ended, Allied navel vessels blockaded Germany allowing its people to die of starvation. There's a decent article on the matter here if you're interested in reading up on it. Vekta's lack of support in Helghan's time of need could be because they lacked the resources themselves, but it could also have been a ploy to further weaken Helghan allowing them to be more easily bullied politically. This is all supposition, as "Killzone" history clearly states that Vekta simply lacked the resources the help. Of course, history is written by the winners, and the Vektans have been coming out on top for a long while now.   Uncredited Token black guy. I can deal with the idea that we won't see a lot of young people or elderly because in the middle of a warzone civilians are evacuated. Fine. That's fine. I still find it problematic that in the far flung future the military is basically all white men. This goes for both the ISA and the Helghast. Aside from Luger and Rico, I'm pretty sure Guerrilla only rendered one model each for a female ISA soldier and a black ISA soldier. Much like Terry Van Feleday's take on Transformers, Killzone here has an issue with its treatment of women and black people. I'm not willing to write it off as the developers being so caught up in action movie tropes that they neglected to diversify the game's cast. Frankly, I feel these games should be cleverer than that. So instead, it just reeks of tokenism. Oh, and I'm also not a fan of how Billinghurst is portrayed as a coward.   BP-02 Pup Grenade Launcher Fires a single-shot grenade. Manufactured by the Helghast, and is infrequently carried by Helghast officers in lieu of a more traditional pistol. Causes devastating damage, but its ammo-capacity make it a poor primary weapon. Still, replace your starting pistol with one of these if you come across one. They've got utility where ever you go and make a great back up gun. Their blast radius isn't as large as the standard grenade launcher, but unlike that marvel of military technology, you won't suffer from movement penalties while using the Pup.  M13 Semi-Automatic Shotgun Also known as the LS13 Shotgun. Made by the ISA, but often utilized by Helghast soldiers. I don't really know what's up with it. It is called a "semi-automatic" weapon, but needs to be pumped after every shot. That's not semi-automatic, is it? People with gun knowledge, help me out! Anyways, This gun appears throughout the Killzone series. It gets better as it goes along, but it kinda stinks in the first game. It's powerful, yeah, but it's got a horrible spread. If you aren't fairly close up to get the bulk of the shot in the enemy, they aren't going down. I mean, individual pellets have crazy range, but their damage in negligible. So if only half the spread hits a standard trooper, they're gonna be fine. Then you're left pumping the gun taking hits in the meantime. The StA-52 shotgun alternate fire is better because you can always go back to primary fire if you don't put down an enemy. Really, you should be ditching this gun first chance you get. Or better yet, never pick it up in the first place. At least not until you get to one of the sequels. Fun facts: the shells for this particular gun come in a red casing while the shells for the Helghast StA-52 alt-fire come in a green casing! Also, primary fire shoots one shell. Secondary fire shoots two shells. Pressing primary and secondary fire at the same time? Fires three shells! Space technology! Jobbo_Fett posted:Modeled after the Franchi SPAS-12, which actually shoots as a semi-automatic and pump-action firearm depending on what sort of ammunition is used. The whole "press 3 buttons for 3 shots" uhhh... mechanic, is probably why they labelled it as a semi-automatic.   KILLZONE! 
Sally fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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May 24, 2014 08:58
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E; No trouble at all. I was always on the wrong side of exclusivity to try Killzone, so these have been interesting.
Ceebees fucked around with this message at 09:14 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 09:07
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Haha, with all the delays and technical issues, this latest update is truly cursed! Gonna fix that right now. Thanks for the heads up! EDIT: Fixed, both in the post and the OP. Sally fucked around with this message at 09:14 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 09:11
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Three generations is indeed an extremely short time for widespread genetic change, however that said when evolution does occur it does actually tend to happen rather rapidly in response to the environment and as you mentioned the story talks about genetic conditioning so it is not unreasonable to suggest that Helghan geneticists have helped evolution along. Improbable, but not impossible given the context.
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May 24, 2014 09:14
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It could also be that the third generation was just the first to start showing these changes. This game does take place years after the third generation was born, and there still seems to be helghast that need the breather masks to survive. This is all conjecture on my part, I'm no expert on this sort of thing.
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May 24, 2014 15:57
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The melee not being a one-hit kill is one of those details that should bother me but it doesn't. I understand the game nature of melee attacks as part of a risk/reward system (the risk of getting close is higher than hiding behind cover so, naturally, the reward should be higher), however you are just punching someone who does seem to be wearing a pretty boss helmet.
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May 24, 2014 16:09
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Mr. Highway posted:The melee not being a one-hit kill is one of those details that should bother me but it doesn't. I understand the game nature of melee attacks as part of a risk/reward system (the risk of getting close is higher than hiding behind cover so, naturally, the reward should be higher), however you are just punching someone who does seem to be wearing a pretty boss helmet. Watching it and seeing Melee wasn't a one hit kill didn't bug me overmuch. The fact that it wasn't an attack like a knife in the CoD games or a punch in Halo, but rather a full on animation that the attackee could just shrug off is one of those weird gameplay decisions that most developers would not include in their games now, but seemed like a decent hook back then. Also worth noting is that every time Crow breaks a vending machine in the game there is a much larger breaking of glass around it. My guess is that the developer decided to save some space and trouble by animating breaking glass at a set size and just stacking them side by side/up and down to make larger windows, or putting them into walls to give the appearance of smaller bits of glass. When Crow shoots a vending machine it triggers the glass breaking animation but without the walls to conceal it you end up seeing the animation at full size.
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May 24, 2014 19:02
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Lazyfire posted:Watching it and seeing Melee wasn't a one hit kill didn't bug me overmuch. The fact that it wasn't an attack like a knife in the CoD games or a punch in Halo, but rather a full on animation that the attackee could just shrug off is one of those weird gameplay decisions that most developers would not include in their games now, but seemed like a decent hook back then. Beat me to it. This is my issue with the melee as well. Also, I captured the breaking glass thing in action. Check it out. It's not even the same shape as the vending machine. It's basically a window:
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May 24, 2014 19:29
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I just noticed that the No Commentary video is actually from the scrapped PS3 run. So you actually do get to see a bit of how this stage looks in high def and the curious audio desynch that forced me to turf the entire level and re-play through it all on the PS2. Also, in the HD version, you can make out the brandname of the water coolers we're obsessively destroying throughout the level. They're called Jargogle, which according to Matador Network is an obsolete English verb meaning "to confuse or jumble". Interesting...
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May 24, 2014 21:25
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That picture of young Visari really puts me in mind of those pictures of Hitler in shorts.
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May 25, 2014 02:27
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nine-gear crow posted:I just noticed that the No Commentary video is actually from the scrapped PS3 run. So you actually do get to see a bit of how this stage looks in high def and the curious audio desynch that forced me to turf the entire level and re-play through it all on the PS2. You also get to see how much more of a madman I am with regards to shooting office equipment when compared to crow. I grabbed shots of food/water/shelter from the HD version so you could see the graphical differences between the PS2 and PS3 versions: PS2 on the left/top <--> PS3 on the right/bottom  As crow said, it's easier to see the "Jargogle" label on the water coolers.  Comparing images side-by-side, the PS2 version was either a bit squashed, or the PS3 version is a bit stretched. I'm leaning to the former.  Also, the HD version looks like it fixes the weird misaligned breaking of glass in the PS2 version.
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May 26, 2014 18:30
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 2.2 [Templar] enters a battle-worn courtyward. ISA SOLDIER 1 Hail, Captain. The General said thou wouldst be arriving presently. I have my orders. Come, to the Research Building. The key is-- ISA SOLDIER 2 Jet bikes! TEMPLAR Yea, tis a troubling foe. The ISA duck while the sound of strafing jet bikes and gunfire sound overheard. ISA SOLDIER 3 [over comms] Attend! All personnel from the main building have retreated. Any soldiers still defending must have need to fall back. ISA SOLDIER 2 Finally! TEMPLAR Lend me thy ear, soldier. The SD Platform. Have thou knowledge of it? ISA SOLDIER 1 Captain, I can let thou into yonder Research Building. Thither lie the key. God speed, sir! Exit ISA soldiers. [Templar] steps through a "doorway" and meets with another soldier. ISA SOLDIER 3 Captain Templar. Here, thou must taketh this key to General Vaughton. Tis a situation most foul, but he hath fallen back from the Comms Building. The Helghast push too deep and force us to abandon our posts. TEMPLAR I must go to him, sergeant. Regroup with thy commander, and wish me luck. ISA SOLDIER 3 Aye, may the god's look favourable upon thee. Exeunt Not a lot of super cool subtext in these levels. At this point, we're still in the game's extended prologue that consist of its first four chapters. Right now Jan needs to do whatever it takes to get the SD platform key and get to General Vaughton. We're going to wander through vaguely Black Mesa/Pillar Of Autumn-esque hallways and catwalks, but that's about the extent of it aside from some more pictures.  Military history seems deeply important to the ISA. Not necessarily to the same extent of the Helghast, where everyone serves and dies for their country, but the ISA are happy to plaster large photographs all over their research and communications buildings. These are clearly real photos, but I'm not sure where they come from or what war they were a part of. There's an image of sandbags--  --what appears to be the conning tower of an aircraft carrier (maybe someone with a better eye can confirm/deny that for me)--  --a radar dish--  --and some soldiers in masks firing a machine gun. It's a bit difficult to make out the gun, but judging from the masks I'm going to hazard a guess that his particular image is from World War I.  We've also got Colonel Al Pacino here and--  --and Brigadier General Peter Sellers.  Enemy-wise, we bump into what I'm going to term a Helghast Scout (or maybe a Recon?). These guys wear short sleeves and have Riddick goggles. They function identically to standard Helghast infantry, but in later games they operate specifically as Grenadiers. And I mean that in the "they only use grenades and forgo the use of firearms" type of grenadier. But we'll get to that.  This is interesting. Visari comes into power and claims that the people of Helghan, the Helghast, are no longer human. It's all rhetoric. Despite the genetic differences between the Helghast and humans on Earth/Vekta, the are absolutely still the same species. It's been mentioned already and is a recurring thing throughout the series, but Helghast and humans have no problem intermarrying and bearing viable offspring. In fact, one of Killzone's main characters is Half-Helghast/Half-Human. He should just be considered human, but prejudice is alive and well in the future.  More evidence of Visari being a Hitler/Mussolini-like character. This is the point where the "term" Helghast and all the associated iconography uniting them as a single people appears.  Much of this has already been touched on in earlier posts, particularly the connotations behind the Helghast Triad and the similarities to the Third Reich, but the new alphabet/language thing hasn't. It's interesting that the alphabet stuck but the new language couldn't get off the ground because it was easier for everyone to just keep speaking English. Heh. Anyways, some fans of the game translated the Helghast alphabet in Killzone 2 and came up with this chart:  Pretty neat stuff. Unfortunately, not always used to its full extent. Not all graffiti on walls translate to something legible. Some of it is just nonsense. This is confirmed by the devs. A knee-jerk reaction might think that this is just willful laziness on the dev's part. However, I like to think that this is an incredibly subtle bit of context. This unique Helghast alphabet can't have been in use for much more than a decade. I'm sure the Helghast are all real proud of it, but I doubt they all know how to write in it. I think that the reason some of the graffiti is nonsensical is because not all Helghast know how to write in it. That doesn't stop them from writing Helghast symbols everywhere to try and show some pride in the homeworld, but while it might look intimidating to any Vektan who comes across it, it's going to be gibberish to anyone fluent in reading it. Nice move, Guerrilla. JamieTheD posted:God-drat, looking at that chart, Helghan has features of Russian and Chinese in there, with maybe one sound that you can definitely attribute to germanic (ch, which it shares with Welsh and quite a few other languages). Don't get me wrong, I like the effort, but god-drat if writing your own alphabet language for a game doesn't give me a huge headache. NGDBSS posted:As someone with a (very) amateur interest in linguistics it's nice to see an alphabet that's not just a lazy substitution cipher. Particularly because English has exceptions for nearly all of its own phonetic rules when using the Latin alphabet, to the point that "ghoti" can be pronounced the same way as "fish". It's not perfect (English has a lot of vowels, for instance, and I suspect Helghast is closely related) but I can see some influence from IPA there. anilEhilated posted:Should also be noted that ch - as in, the Scottish (possibly Welsh, but the only example I'm going by is "Loch"), coughy ch - is present in most Slavic languages as well. Of course, those tend to have a distinct, different c as well.  Boy, I bet the Vektans sure feel silly for dismantling their fleet now! Also, it's nice that the Helghast got their skyhook up and running again.  At least they're being proactive with their SD platforms. The original ones are half a century old, so it's good to supplement them with new tech, right? Well, as we saw in the opening cutscene, it didn't do much good. But hey, General VKing posted:Enjoying this LP. I've never owned a playstation or known anyone who got the Killzone series, so it's fun to finally see the game. Sally fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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May 26, 2014 19:33
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God-drat, looking at that chart, Helghan has features of Russian and Chinese in there, with maybe one sound that you can definitely attribute to germanic (ch, which it shares with Welsh and quite a few other languages). Don't get me wrong, I like the effort, but god-drat if writing your own alphabet language for a game doesn't give me a huge headache. Riven was the worst offender for this, although, to be fair, it did give you a (relatively lovely) language primer. Then it undid all the hard work by making some of the things you have to translate badly worn.
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May 27, 2014 02:43
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As someone with a (very) amateur interest in linguistics it's nice to see an alphabet that's not just a lazy substitution cipher. Particularly because English has exceptions for nearly all of its own phonetic rules when using the Latin alphabet, to the point that "ghoti" can be pronounced the same way as "fish". It's not perfect (English has a lot of vowels, for instance, and I suspect Helghast is closely related) but I can see some influence from IPA there. ^^Choice words from a Welshman. 
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May 27, 2014 06:44
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Should also be noted that ch - as in, the Scottish (possibly Welsh, but the only example I'm going by is "Loch"), coughy ch - is present in most Slavic languages as well. Of course, those tend to have a distinct, different c as well.
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May 27, 2014 08:10
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My aging laptop finally kicked the bucket. Fortunately, I had backed up my data somewhat recently and didn't lose much worth losing. Most of the important LP files are already backed up on crow's computer. I've got a new PC and am currently re-installing old files and programs and will get the next update out as soon as possible. With regards to the Helghast alphabet, I've seen it be suggested that it was inspired partly by the stylzed Hangul used in North Korean propaganda posters:  Combine that with the visual designs seen in Nazi propaganda posters:  And we get Helghast propaganda: 
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May 28, 2014 19:35
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The Helghast are pretty ovbiously supposed to evoke a mishmash of Axis forces during WWII, Russians during the Cold War, North Korea and various other similar 'threat to the west' style nations.
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May 29, 2014 04:50
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And they're bald.
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May 29, 2014 04:52
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Gildiss posted:And they're bald. Makes em look more sinister, same as the gas masks. It's kind of funny that while justifying why the Helghast look like demon nazi super soldiers the devs managed to create a more interesting story than any other part of the game.
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May 29, 2014 08:00
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Enjoying this LP. I've never owned a playstation or known anyone who got the Killzone series, so it's fun to finally see the game. Speaking of the ISA logo, these are the logos of two branches of the Norwegian postal service:  They were introduced four years after Killzone, though.
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May 29, 2014 09:53
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VKing posted:Enjoying this LP. I've never owned a playstation or known anyone who got the Killzone series, so it's fun to finally see the game. Yeah, no, I'm still insisting that it's the Marathon logo. Prove me wrong, kids, prove me wrong.
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May 29, 2014 11:25
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Lazyfire posted:Yeah, no, I'm still insisting that it's the Marathon logo. Okay  Regardless of the vertical/horizontal orientation difference, there's some other notable differences.Marathon's logo has the gap only breaking at the bottom, not going all the way between the two halves. The inner circle is the same colour as the outer part. It's made of two pieces, an inner piece and an outer piece. The ISA logo has teh gap going all the way through, separating the logo into two halves. The inner part is not coloured, because it's a gap, not a piece. It's made of two pieces, but it's a top/bottom distinction, not an inner/outer distinction. Very similar logos, to be sure, but they're different.
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May 29, 2014 15:41
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Blind Sally posted:
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May 29, 2014 18:01
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The Casualty posted:BY DSHTSI? Clearly the Department of Special Helghan Technologies and Social Iconography. They're the propaganda wing - Social Iconography - but they are also responsible for making sure that there's a little bit of subliminal messaging for pro-Helghan organizations in all media (the Technologies part.) Jeez.
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May 29, 2014 18:22
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I love the idea that you're playing aa the Norwegian Postal Service.
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May 29, 2014 19:11
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Blind Sally posted:
Modeled after the Franchi SPAS-12, which actually shoots as a semi-automatic and pump-action firearm depending on what sort of ammunition is used. The whole "press 3 buttons for 3 shots" uhhh... mechanic, is probably why they labelled it as a semi-automatic.
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May 29, 2014 22:13
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anilEhilated posted:I love the idea that you're playing as the Norwegian Postal Service. I was waiting for a somewhat natural segue to come up in this thread's conversation for this, and I figure this is as Special Delivery: Combat knife to the chest!  THE MAIL ALWAYS GOES THROUGH! 
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May 30, 2014 06:39
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Blind Sally posted:I was waiting for a somewhat natural segue to come up in this thread's conversation for this, and I figure this is as I love how the pov jumps over a rocket.
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May 30, 2014 09:39
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Fun fact: Tomas Sevchenko is able to leap his own height vertically from a crouching position in under a second.  It is known.
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May 30, 2014 09:56
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Blind Sally posted:I was waiting for a somewhat natural segue to come up in this thread's conversation for this, and I figure this is as
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May 30, 2014 14:41
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The Casualty posted:BY DSHTSI? Now I'm wondering if I didn't accidentally grab fan art instead of official art. It seems to be a surprisingly popular thing on deviantart, making Helghast propaganda. Not surprisingly, it's a much less popular thing to make ISA propaganda. NGDBSS posted:This looks less like a sequel to the game you guys are playing and more like Vanquish as an FPS. Killzone is a funny series like that. Though the third sequel is actually a lot less kinetic than it appears in that gif. That's probably more an example of a bunch of game mechanics lining up in just the right way to look totally badass.
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May 30, 2014 15:27
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| # ? May 22, 2024 15:29 |
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.jpg)
2.4 Inside a complex of tunnels and ladders. Enter [Templar] TEMPLAR Where art thou, General? General Vaughton? Enter Helghast Soldier. Enter [Luger], who dispatches Helghast Soldier. LUGER Well, well, thy bottom tis held in my hands again, Templar. If thou knowest my intent. TEMPLAR Luger. I taketh it thou art back on active duty. LUGER Clearly? I graduated three fortnights early. It seems I have a talent. TEMPLAR Tis one of many. I was meant to meet the General here, but was waylaid by a marksman. LUGER Four, actually. Vaughton told me to meet thou here too. He said you would brief me on our mission. TEMPLAR Our mission? Trust the General to put practicalities ahead of--well, naught else! LUGER Methinks thou dost protest too much. What now? TEMPLAR My--our mission is to recover an operations agent named Colonel Hakha. He is trapped thitherward in the slums, but the General needs this key to reactivate the SD Platforms. LUGER Let us be on our way, then. Exeunt 2.5 Elsewhere, aboard the ISA SD Platforms. Enter [Ari L. Caliban] and General [Adams] ADAMS One hour ago, I told thou to report to me when there was the barest whisper of any progress. One hour, I have been waiting with nary a visit. Thou shalt tell me why. CALIBAN Many apologies, General, there is naught we can do without General Vaughton's security key. The central processor-- ADAMS Doth I need a lesson on the inner machinations of these platforms? Nay, because I run the cursèd things! General Vaughton hath found himself lost, so the key may be missing for some time, perhaps forever. Surely a master tradesman of your proficiency can find a way to revive the weapons system? CALIBAN Nay, my lord. ADAMS Nay? Dost thou believe in God? Or didst thy replace Him with some all-powerful mechanical golem, hmm? Well, whatever it is thou pray to, I would recommend praying now that Vaughton reappears. Exeunt After this level things start to open up a bit more. We have more characters introduced and the game's plot begins to get a little more interesting. For now it's a bit quiet, but there are a few things of note:  Our first in-game shout out to Earth. I don't know who/what "World Systems" are supposed to be in Killzone, but there will never be any other mention of them. Earth will be name dropped in the future, though.  The rest of this section is interesting in that it's very Half Life-esque. Stomping through these office buildings, climbing up metal tunnels and ladders--it's all very reminiscent of Black Mesa. This may or may not be intentional. Most likely, this is just Guerrilla doing the generic sci-fi thing. Which is fitting, considering our heroes are tropes and stereotypes. We won't be spending much time in environments like this, so enjoy it while you can.  We also encounter our first Helghast Elites:  They are far less interesting than Covenant Elites. If Killzone and Halo went head-to-head to find out whether or not Guerrilla had made the Halo-Killer, then the Helghast Elites would lose. Their AI is about as intelligent as the rest of the Helghast and they are little more than bullet sponges. Their one saving grace is that it's somewhat difficult to get head shots on them despite not wearing helmets. Oh, and I suppose they always carry useful weapons, so they're good for that. In later levels their bullet sponge powers somehow become more egregious.  Have a nice day! Courtesy of nine-gear crow.  Oh, and can we just pause a moment and appreciate how this poor ISA comms officer is working in the most toxic of work environments?  I mean, seriously, what the heck!?  We're now catching up with in-game lore. Unfortunately, that means our Killzone history lessons will be winding down quite a bit. On the flip-side, the games themselves are going to get more interesting so there's going to be more subtext to discuss, so at least the history was here for these downtimes. Here we get to take a look at Scolar Visari's battle plan and begin to understand the Helghast's movements on Vekta:  You'll note that a couple of names have been redacted. Those are to avoid minor spoilers that you may or may not have already guessed, but hey. They will be revealed in time. Anyways, those two names are deep cover agents working within the ISA ranks to aid the Helghast, in particular, to weaken key ISA forces, such as the SD platforms. With Vekta's key defenses down, General Lente's Third Helghast Army is able to blitzkrieg the capitol facing little more than the ISA RRF, which include Jan Templar. Now, you'll remember that the Helghast fleet is weaker compared to the ISA fleet (ship size-wise) and even tinier when compared to the UCN Navy. With that in mind, the Helghast plan to take over the SD Platforms and turn them to bear on Earth's fleet. Those satellite lasers are powerful enough to cut right through Earth's ships. Earth is dependent on her colonies to keep running, so if the Helghast can cut off supplies and enforce a blockade, they can force a capitulation and take control of the Alpha Centauri frontier for their own gain (and Visari would become emperor). A bold plan.  Anyways, the deep cover agents succeed in their goals and the Helghast fleets launch. Earth is notified of the advance and quickly mobilize. It remains to be seen whether or not reinforcements will arrive in time to stop the Helghast advance.  Voice by Jennifer Taylor Lawrence If Jan Templar is our generic every-man space marine action hero, then Luger is our super-badass female action hero. She is Sarah Conner. She is That aside, she is also quite literally the Yin to Templar's Yang. Which is perhaps fitting given that the game hints towards the two of them sharing a romantic past--one that Luger broke off in order to pursue her career. Anywho, my knowledge of Eastern Philosophy isn't the strongest, so if anyone wishes to add to the Yin/Yang talk, please do, but here's what I can tell: The Yang is the masculine force. It represents the sun, light, and the positive. It represents things of the world. Jan Templar is certainly that. A fresh-faced Vektan marine leading the charge against and overwhelming enemy. Jan is very much the hero of his planet. A clear good guy against the forces of evil. He's very obvious, open, and conspicuous. There's nothing hidden about Jan at all. He's like Superman in his goal of fighting the good fight and helping those in need. Now compare the Yin, which is a feminine force. It represents the moon, dark and the negative. It is a concealed, shaded concept which is fitting of Luger being a Shadow Marshall. Her job is somewhat murky. We don't exactly know what being a Shadow Marshall entails, but it is some sort of special operative. Notice that unlike Jan and--heck all the other ISA characters in the game, she doesn't wear green and orange, but wears black. She needs to be concealed, to hide in the shadows in order to be effective. Sinister and treacherous connotations can also be found within the concept of Yin, and this is certainly suggested by Luger's romantic "betrayal" of Jan. This is a superficial examination of the idea, at best, but there certainly seems to be some sort of connection here. But I'll speak more of the dichotomy between Jan and Luger as the game goes on and we see the two characters interact.  StA-3 Stova Light Machine Gun Another Stahl Arms masterpiece. This LMG works great as a close-to-mid range weapon. For some reason, the people on the Killzone wikia talk about how horrible it is an how terribly inaccurate it is. Oh, how wrong they are. Okay, well, sustained fire, sure. But if you're tapping the fire button, it's surprisingly accurate at medium ranges. Also, it has a 100-round barrel drum. Even if you're missing a few shots, you've got enough to keep firing on the enemy so that they die before you have to reload, heavy armour be damned. The barrel drum proves to have a significant advantage over all ISA LMGs in that it's a heckuva lot faster to reload. Simply put, the Helghast LMG can spit out far more bullets faster than ISA LMGs. Love the StA-3 LMG. It is your friend. Lazyfire mentioned a couple of animated shorts in this last video. They are anti-war shorts made in response to World War I and World War II. The Helghast design prompted his memory and, watching the videos, the description of the forces of men sound quite like the Helghast soldiers. The videos are worth a watch if you fancy. They are linked below along with shots of the relevant scenes: quote:"Well, heh heh, there ain't no men in the world no more, sonnies. Nope, no more men. But as I remember the critters, they was uh, well, they was like monsters. They wore great big iron pots on their heads. And walked on their hind legs, and they carried terrible lookin' shootin' irons with knives on the ends of them! And their eyes flashed. And they had tremendous big snouts--like this--that curled down and fastened onto their stomachs!" Peace On Earth (1939)  Good Will To Men (1955) 
Sally fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Nov 12, 2014 |
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Jun 2, 2014 06:18
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