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 Alarum! The old threads are dead! Thread Killzone the First tis naught but a long distant memory. Tragedy befell Thread Killzone the Liberator, who tried to free us from the tyranny imposed by their predecessor--for no one cared to support their claim to the throne. Be ye thankful for the true ruler, Thread Killzone the Second, who brought about the golden age. It yet remains to be seen what sort of ruler Thread Killzone the Third will be...  Hey team, we're back. Second verse, same as the first. We're playing the Killzone Trilogy and Liberation and we've finally made it dto the final game in this particular series. We're gonna try not to do too much with MLG multiplayer videos or fighting game fever dream hallucinations and stick to a straight up LP of Killzone 3. The operative word here is "try".  The earlier LPs are as follows: With regards to later games in the Killzone franchise, I stand firmly on my "definitely maybe" stance. Though crow and I both have the means to LP Mercenary and Shadow Fall, I don't want to make any promises.   S P O I L E R ! P O L I C Y ! There isn't one! I don't like spoiler policies--don't believe in'em. Besides, Killzone is the gaming equivalent of Shakespeare, so I expect everyone to be familiar with the story line so we can focus more on the performance. After all everyone's played the Killzone series, right? (Right???)  As mentioned before, the LP style was influenced by a couple of enjoyable Cinema Discusso threads that utilized a running commentary style of reviewing. Specifically, Kyle Hyde's American Psycho thread and Terry van Feleday's Transformers threads. It's in that vein that we've decided to Continue To Needlessly Complicate The Killzone Quadrilogy. To quote earlier threads: Blind Sally posted:At first glance, the Killzone games are nothing more than pretty, shallow sci-fi FPSes meant to act as glorified tech demos. While that's not entirely false, there's a bit more to the games than just that. Much like Spec Ops: The Line, the Killzone games have a deeper, more challenging, story to tell. Although while Spec Ops is akin to someone shouting in your face with a megaphone, Killzone is often more like someone whispering to you while you sleep--with earplugs. The ideas are subtle, but they're there, and while they're often drowned out by the in-your-face allusions to WW2 and facism, there's plenty of fun stuff to pick out between the lines, including:  If you've watched all of the previous Killzone LPs up to this point and don't know the answer to this question, then nine-gear crow and I have failed.                CURRENT TALLY: BLIND SALLY: 35; NINE-GEAR CROW: 52
Sally fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Nov 27, 2016 |
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Jun 18, 2016 16:03
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Once again, we begin a Killzone LP not with any gameplay but with the opening cinematic video. The music is top notch, with Joris de Man once again in top form. However, the video itself is something of a wet fart. Not a good way to start the LP, I know, but it's true. Compared to the opening cutscenes for the first three games this one feels decidedly phoned in. Don't take my word for it, watch it for yourself.  At this point, Killzone 1's opening cinematic is pretty classic. It looked great on the PS2 and still holds up as a decent cinematic largely in part due to Brian Cox's brilliant VA. I had a lot of good things to say about it in the first LP. Liberation's biggest sin is that its opening cinematic is just kinda of generic and has a total absence of Brian Cox. The less we dwell on THAT sorry fact, the better. Killzone 2 gave us pretty much the best goddamned opening cinematic on the entire goddamned PlayStation 3. I mean, drat. Seriously. What a well-cut cinematic. Again, I had a lot of good things to say about it. For Killzone 3, it's a tough act to follow and it sadly does not live up to expectations. Maybe Guerrilla Games realized they couldn't just keep giving us more of the same. Instead, they change it up a little. Make it a flashback. Throw in some new characters and text narration to-- Wait. loving text narration?  For shame! Okay, so full disclosure: Killzone 3, despite being Shakespeare, is more or less a tech demo like all the Killzones before it. Killzone 3's big claim to tech demo fame is that it was one of the first titles to really take advantage of 3D gaming and the PlayStation Move controls. Or something. I never bothered. Anyways, I bring this up because as a result of that this game got bundled in with a lot of Sony 3DTV/PS3 sales packages. Suddenly a whole new audience was introduced to the Killzone universe with Killzone 3 as someone's uncle bought it during a Boxing Day sale at Future Shop. Considering this is the third game in the series, it's important to catch them up on the details. Only I feel the text narration was a misstep. This series has always been about having a rich, deep, and complex lore leading up the each game's events. The opening cinematics in earlier games existed to have Visari info dump all this lore into players' laps. I mean, I dunno, maybe all the funding for Malcom McDowell and Ray Winstone limited how many lines Brian Cox was willing to record. Regardless, here we are. With a text narration.  With the info dump out of the way, the game dumps us literally into Visari's shoes. We get to see the world through this egomanical dictator, if only for a moment. In these brief moments, we are introduced to pretty much his entire inner circle all in rapid succession. (Those that don't appear are already dead at the time of this flashback (i.e., Lente, Metrac, and Cobar)). This guy up front is Admiral Orlock. We're sort of familiar with his handiwork from the previous game. No Helghast civilians appear in Pyrrhus City during the game's events because Orlock had evacuated them all. It's his ships that fly in at the very end basically dooming all of the remaining ISA forces:  The game doesn't stop though. Immediately afterwards, we meet a familiar face and a new character.  That's ol'Radec to the right  The other man is  He's already throwing smug glances our way.  Then we meet the Helghast Senate. More about these creeps and Nazi cosplayers later.  Then we meet Visari's daughter, Hera.  Clearly there is some repulsion between her and her father. This doesn't really go anywhere for now. Hera's significance in Killzone 3 begins and ends in this cutscene.  Ah, and then Visari's favourite character shows up: Helghast Media. Propaganda. It's at this point where he starts to spin his lies once again.  "Speech! Speech! Speech!"  Tragically, the speech here lacks the charm and charisma that Brian Cox brought to the role in the earlier two games. I mean, it's fine. It's serviceable. It's just not brilliant and perhaps that's why it's so disappointing. This flashback only serves to remind the player that Visari is dead. There will be no further opportunities for Brian Cox to chew the scenery outside of flashbacks. Perhaps that's why it feels so hollow? Note who gets to stand with Visari in the propaganda video, though: Hera and Orlock. Anyways, we're introduced to another new element: the Red Dust nuke. Whether you notice it or not, this was the prime focus of Killzone: Liberation and Killzone 2. To quickly recap, the Red Dust nuke was developed by the ISA to be a high-explosive blast, low-radiation yield bomb. The ISA planned to drop it on their own cities to halt the Helghast invasion of Vekta. The reasoning being that because the radiation would dissipate relatively quickly they could just rebuild their cities on the bones of their invaders. The idea was shot down but not before spies stole the nuke and put it in Visari's hands. Ironically enough, Visari dropped it on his own city to halt the Vektan invasion of Helghan.  So while Hera and Orlock get to be part of the public face of the Helghast leadership, its people like Radec and Stahl who do the dirty work for Visari.  Biggest thing of note here is that ship. It's powered by petrusite. We're going to see more and more weapons using this unstable ore.  Moving on, it's this part of the video where Guerrilla starts to get clever again. Well, I mean, the message is pretty on the nose, but the imagery looks real nice. I feel like Guerrilla Games got tired of Killzone fans missing the point of the game series and whinging about how the Helghast are actually the good guys and the ISA are oppressive space fascists trying to suppress a brilliant and strong culture. Over the course of three games, I'd like to think it's become apparent that, actually, both of them are bad. We're caught in the middle of a war between two lovely governments. However, people love the Helghast. Again, not just as villains, but believe them to be the heroes of this series.  Look at that! So heroic. Those brave Helghast citizens working together with its brave soldiers! It's a monument to their hard word and perseverance as a people. It's blatant propaganda. We've seen the slums of Helghan in Killzone 2. Your average Helghan citizen lives a lovely, lovely life. Life sucked before Visari and it continued to suck with him--only now there's a military system in place that will silence anyone who opposes them--oh, and they also dragged the whole planet into a war.  It's at this point the nuke goes off. You know, the nuke that Visari stole from the ISA. He dropped it on his own city. As the blast wave rolls over the landscape, it strips away the lies built by Visari and the Helghast. I mean, look at it! If there was ever any doubt that the Helghast might secretly be the good guys of the series then let that be laid to rest. The soldiers hurt the common people.  Once again, a monument to Helghan's workers.  Once again, they're being led by someone, presumably a Helghast officer.  Aaaand once again, the blastwave hits and its twisted into a more accurate hellscape. The Helghast leadership is bad, they hurt the common people.  Looking for someone to blame for this? Well, you can place the blame on the shoulders of Visari. I love what happens to his portrait here. Very on the nose, but I like the transition.  Helghan burns in the background as Visari stands tall, eyes glowing, like some sort of specter or demon from hell. The people in the foreground have turned into screaming skeletons.  Visari=bad.  And he knows it.  Sally note: thanks to crow for doing the Character write-up for this post. This sequence is very economical in its visual storytelling and world building, and needs to be unpacked a little bit before we move on, as it introduces us in rapid succession to the cast of characters who will be spending the remainder of the Killzone franchise (up to Shadow Fall, at least) fighting over the scraps of Visari’s legacy. They are, in order of their introduction:  Admiral Orlock. Orlock, ostensibly, will be our Visari stand-in for Killzone 3. As of the end of Killzone 2, Orlock is the highest ranking member of the Helghan military still alive after Visari’s military cabinet was essentially bled dry over the course of Killzones 1, Liberation, Mercenary, and 2. Orlock represents the military faction in the internal battle over Visari’s crown. He believes in the old pre-Visari ways of succession, that Helghan should go, in the words of Alexander the Great, “to the strongest.” …Unfortunately, Metrac and Radec are both dead, and I wouldn’t trust Lente to run a 7/11 let alone a planet if he were still alive, so Orlock’s all we got. That said, despite him ostensibly being the most powerful person on Helghan in the wake of Visari’s death, he has few real allies, and has landed in control over a largely soldier-centric army that quietly resents now having to answer to a naval branch that has been so far spectacularly ineffective in combat situations. Orlock maybe top dog at the outset of Killzone 3, but he is going to have to fight like mad to say on top.  Jorhan Stalh. We’ve been pre-figuring his introduction since all the way back to the original Killzone, and now he’s finally here in the flesh. Jorhan Stahl, the CEO of the Stahl Arms Corporation, represents the private sector in this tug of war for Visari’s vacant crown. As the head of Helghan’s largest corporation, the primary weapons supplier to the Helghast military, and owner of a vast private army onto itself, Jorhan Stahl is functionally the most powerful man on Helghan, while Orlock is only nominally. Stahl holds the entire Helghan economy in his hands, so everyone else at the table needs to play nice with him lest he take his ball and go home and hang the empire out to dry. That means indulging his otherwise irascible dickishness and grasps for greater power. Stahl believes that as a successful businessman he’s better suited to ruling Helghan than any of these incompetent military leaders or politicians. He is of the opinion that Helghan should go back to being under corporate rule, like it was at the time of its founding. He’s opposed in this effort of course by both Orlock and the Senate, and while Orlock is the immovable object to Stahl’s unstoppable force, Stahl does have his share of allies in the Senate that support his views. Although, the semi-canon Killzone 3 novelization reveals that they’re not exactly allies by choice, as Stahl has all sorts of career-ending and life-ruining dirt on several senators, whose support is paid for with his silence.  The Helghan Senate. The deliberative and lawmaking body of Helghan. Prior to Visari’s death, the senate was just rubber stamp giving a veneer of legality to their Autarch’s agenda. In the wake of Visari’s death, the senate has suddenly become the most important and actually powerful body in the grand tug of war for the reigns of Helghan. Only the senate can name an official successor to Visari, something they have been reluctant to do, and with good reason. The senate sees the chaos of Visari’s death as an opportunity to expand their own power and would like to name a successor on their terms, and an Autarch sympathetic to or even in debt to the Senate would be their prefect candidate. …Good luck with that one guys. Trying to wrangle Orlock and Stahl to heel is like stepping in the middle of a fight between two grizzlies to ask one of them for their autograph. While they have comparatively minimal dialog compared to Orlock and Stahl, their various reactions to events across the game should give you an inkling as to whom each individual senator favours and who’s on their shitlists.  Hera Visari. Visari’s daughter makes a blink and you’ll miss it cameo in the opening to Killzone 3, but her importance to the franchise is only in its infancy here. Her cameo here is meant to be Marie Antoinette “let them eat cake” moment, contrasting the private opulence of Visari’s household with the ruinous poverty seen across Helghan over the course of Killzones 2 and 3. Yet, Guerrilla was so intrigued by her character that they brought her back for Killzone: Shadow Fall in an expanded role. Without spoiling who ultimately “wins” control over Helghan in Killzone 3, control over the Helghast eventually falls into Hera’s hands some 30 years down the road from where we are now in the franchise. Chancellor Hera Visari plays a very prominent role in Shadow Fall, but that’s all in the future from our perspective. For now, this will be the last we see of her in Killzone 3, as she’s immediately shepherded off of Helghan before the destruction of Phyrrus City to spend the remainder of the war with the ISA on the Helgast-sympathetic colony of Gyre.   Helghast Strike Fighter Deployed late in the Second Extrasolar War due to its Arc powered technology being such a recent development. It's large size is meant for it to function in space as well as in a planet's atmosphere. The first use of the Strike Fighter was to drop the Red Dust nuke of Pyrrhus, though it would continue to see use afterwards. The Arc tech ring gives this heavily armoured craft nigh-unlimited hovering capabilities, making it an excellent VTOL craft. They are twice the size of the standard Helghast Overlord Dropship, allowing for a co-pilot and pilot as well as several passengers behind. Thrusters all over the ship allow to maneuver easily in space. Controls have been simplified so that minimal training is required to pilot it.  Trailers for Killzone 3. They're pretty good! Worth checking out for all the cool action. Heck, nine-gear crow even made a pretty good trailer for this dratéd LP: Lastly, some concept art. Orlock and Stahl went through a few revisions before Guerrilla settled on their final design, but I'll get to some of prototypes later--once we get to know them a little better. In the mean time, here are a pair of portraits of their final designs:   I also appreciate the effort and detail put into Hera, a character who really isn't a part of this game. The detail on her hair and gown is incredible:   Some earlier concept art of Hera's gown: 
Sally fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Jun 23, 2016 |
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Jun 18, 2016 16:05
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What the heck is a "Zeon"?
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Jun 19, 2016 15:37
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VolticSurge posted:Love the little Ace Combat reference. Wait, what? Where? That's just straight up pulled from the concept artist's website.
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Jun 20, 2016 02:37
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nine-gear crow posted:It's done up a one-sheet style that a few artists on DeviantArt and the like have used for depictions of planes from Ace Combat and other similar things. 
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Jun 20, 2016 05:26
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nine-gear crow posted:
I spent the last night looking for this gif and I couldn't find it. It's truly a tragedy.
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Jun 20, 2016 15:26
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Blind Sally posted:I spent the last night looking for this gif and I couldn't find it. It's truly a tragedy. nvm, found it:
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Jun 20, 2016 15:34
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Marshal Radisic posted:We've just started, so there isn't much to talk about yet, but there's two things I've been wondering about lately. After working my way through the LPs, I'm wondering if the the gameplay and the storytelling of the Killzone series are in conflict. I mean, you guys have pulled out a lot of associations and themes from the art design and the cutscenes...but games 2 and 3 have you in a Call of Duty mode of run-run-run-shoot-shoot-shoot that keeps the player more focused on simply surviving rather than paying attention to the environment and story, and a lot of what you've guys have talked about regarding the backstory of the conflict comes from outside sources. I'm not entirely sure it could be remedied while keeping the gameplay the same; in this sort of game, diary-reading would just kill the tempo. I'm tempted to say something like Killzone's friendly rival Resistance might be a better fit; the player is a lone character behind enemy lines, so there's an excuse not to be in firefights all the time and to search nooks and crannies. (Speaking of which, Resistance: Fall of Man is something that needs a decent LP. There's weird stuff going on with the story in that one.) I have responses to these questions, I swear, I've just been really busy the few days. I'm about to go to bed so I'm just jotting down notes so I don't forget what I want to talk about. For the first question: something something The Fifth Element something Spec Ops: The Line something General Adams something Joseph Capelli was mishandled. For the second question: I think crow summed up my thoughts better than I could have. I just don't think there's space in the narrative for Natko anymore, just as there was no space for Hakha. Their story arcs are done. If anything, the fact that they're included in co-op is a nice touch since you can imagine they continued to fight alongside their pals and because I really appreciate when devs put in a bit of effort to differentiate between co-op characters rather than just having a second copy of the main character. (I'm looking at you, Halo 1)!
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Jun 23, 2016 06:55
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Okay. So ultimately, I don't think the story and gameplay are in conflict and I have a few reasons for this opinion. First off, Guerrilla has been pretty careful with the Killzone Trilogy so that there are always two simultaneous narratives. In all of the trilogy (let's ignore games outside of the trilogy for a moment), there's always the narrative of "the soldiers on the ground" and "the people who command them". I'm guessing, but it seems like Guerrilla is really interested in the disconnect between soldiers and their commanders. I mean, we see this narrative design in Killzone 1, 2 and 3. Regardless, the "Soldiers" narrative is always focussed purely on survival and combat. Goals and objectives are narrow and short-sighted. You can't see the long-game, so you focus on the immediate battlefield. The "Command" narrative always has its own drama, but it tends to be more personal and political in nature. It's important in that it gives us a greater overall view of the conflict. There's no time with the "Soldiers" for any clever foreshadowing, so the "Command" narrative is the plot device that drops those hints of the future for us. If the characters from the "Soldier"narrative never interact with the characters from the "Command" narrative, then so be it. It's not that important anyways. Think about Luc Besson's The Fifth Element for a moment and compare Bruce Willis's Corbin Dallas character to that of Gary Oldman's Zorg character. Corbin Dallas is an ex-soldier working a poo poo job. He's just trying to get by and is really focussed on the day to day tasks of life. When we first meet him his big goals of the story are driving his lovely taxi and not getting more points on his license. When the plot kicks into gear, it becomes much more focussed on the task of reclaiming the element stones and surviving whatever the forces of evil throw his way. By comparison, Zorg is very much playing the
(As an aside, this is why collectibles works in Killzone: Liberation. Templar is basically a lonewolf behind enemy lines. Scrounging for ammunition and intelligence makes perfect sense as a special operative. Like Narville, he even has a direct link to command through his radio uplink, directly communicating with his superiors through Luger and Batton. In Liberation, the story is basically told through the gameplay though, so you really only have one narrative as Templar bridges the gap between "Soldier" and "Command"). If Killzone didn't have what I see as a dual-narrative thing going on, I might expect gameplay to be different so that it reflects the story a little better. However, in that case you might wind up with a Spec Ops: The Line kind of thing where you get generic gameplay and people trying to justify it as a meta commentary or something. I don't believe that's the case. With regards to Killzone 1, I believe Guerrilla were truly trying to make the most enjoyable gaming experience they could. Remember, the game they had made right before Killzone 1 was Shellshock Nam '67--that game plays like a bad knock off of the Conflict: Desert Storm games. No, Spec Ops: The Line was told purely from the perspective of Walker and his squad. Killzone 1 always had the benefit of a dual-narrative. The gameplay wasn't purposely dull or bad--Guerrilla really just wanted it to feel "grounded" or "realistic". This shouldn't come at the expense of the game being fun, so in later iterations, Guerrilla switched up the gameplay. For the better, I might add. If they hadn't, I probably wouldn't have taken the time to play these games and enjoy them so much that I'd want to treat them like a Shakespeare. Finally, to address Resistance, that game did some interesting things with narrative too. With Resistance: Fall of Man, there was almost a dual narrative as well: the "Soldier" narrative, with Nathan Hale just trying to survive, and the "Flashback" narrative where Parker gave us backstory and detail we couldn't have known at the time. It doesn't really work, as Parker just monologues over pictures of maps and charts, but it does give us insight into characters we wouldn't get during gameplay. Speaking of, R:FOM's gameplay is interesting in that sometimes the scrounging for intel really works and sometimes it really doesn't. Levels where Hale needs to crawl through rubble and tunnels and work his way through enemy lines slowly is a great chance to dig for reports or news articles or whatever. However, there's a couple of pure action levels where you're running down the front lines with an army and it feels really out of place and video game-y to be looking for intel. Resistance 2 handles this a bit better, I feel, by removing your character from frontline conflicts and making him a special recon field operative. Then Resistance 3 comes along and ruins the best character in the series. gently caress you, Resistance 3 
Sally fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Oct 28, 2016 |
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Jun 23, 2016 14:16
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VolticSurge posted:Mind explaining how? I never really payed too much attention to the story in those games. But I thought 3 at least had good gameplay? Not at all. However, I'm gonna need a bit of time to adequately address that. I've been working on that answer for a bit of time now--  --but eventually I will have a long, detailed, and needlessly complicated response.
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Jun 25, 2016 05:02
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 Welcome back for real! We finally get to see some gameplay! Well, sort of... We don't really get to experience any gameplay. You'll see.  Anyways, for the first time in a Killzone game, the story jumps around. So six months after Visari nuked Pyrrhus City and got shot by Rico, here we find ourselves--  --at a massive rally. Only without Visari to give the speeches, Ray Winstone gets the chance to ham it up as Admiral Orlock. It's not bad. Not quite on the same level as Brian Cox, but it hits all the right notes and gets the crowd pumped up. If anyone is gonna replace Visari as the resident speech-giver, Orlock is certainly proving himself capable. As a side note, that mural behind Orlock is the same we saw in Visari's throne room at the end of the last game:  Anyways, Stahl doesn't seem too impressed with Orlock's speech.  No, definitely not impressed at all.  Camera pulls back and we get to see the size and scope of the army that the Helghast leadership was able to put together six months after the initial ISA invasion. It's big. Really big. Like, holy crap, there's still a whole planet of these guys left big. The armada is presumably a lot of what went with Orlock to Konstantine City. Reminder: before Visari nuked Pyrrhus, he had the civilian population evacuated to to Konstantine. I'm assuming Orlock oversaw those operations. Also of note: on the horizon you can see what look like a pair of giant walking mech death machines. They aren't relevant now, but think of them of Chekhov's Mech Death Machines--at some point in the story, someone is going to use them.  Considering how few ISA soldiers were left on Helghan just six months ago, I'd say any survivors are well hosed by this point.  The scene ends with the iconic Helghast triad. In many ways, this feels like it really should have been the game's opening speech. It strikes me as a little more similar in vein to what Visari delivers in the beginning of Killzone 1 and 2. Can't have a Killzone game begin without Visari, I suppose, so here we are getting the propaganda rally after the introduction.  Elsewhere, at one of Jorhan Stahl's major weapons facilities--  --a gondola approaches the facility proper, a massive mountain top factory, heavily armed and armoured. The image of a giant futuristic facility is reminiscent of the ISA base on Vekta that we saw at the end of Killzone 1:  There's a reason for this, but again, it's something I'm going to touch on later.  We finally get control of a character and find ourselves within the goggles of a Helghast uniform playing as part of a Helghast unit, Argus Two. As it turns out, the world doesn't look like a blurry orange hellscape behind those lenses. Vision is fine--if perhaps a bit obscured by numerous readouts on the heads-up display. Spoiler alert, though, so don't get too excited: we aren't actually playing as a Helghast. This section is one big fake-out. Argus Two is actually Alpha Squad; Sev and Rico (and Natko) have infiltrated Stahl's facility.  Another note: this is all Stahl's stuff, no regular Helghast military at all. Observe the symbol. It's not Helghast iconography, it's Stahl iconography. He's the single wealthiest man on Helghan, richer than Visari even. There would be no Helghast without Visari, but Visari wouldn't have been able to create the Helghast without Stahl. You see, Stahl Arms is the single largest arms corporation on the planet. It's focus is primarily on weapons development and production for the Helghast military and they are good at it. Pretty much everything you see worn, used, and driven by the Helghast has been manufactured by Stahl Arms. Though Jorhan Stahl has been the CEO for (presumably) the past several games, it was his father, Khage Stahl, who originally founded the company. Whatever happened to Khage, we'll never know. Dead, missing, retired--it's never brought up. Jorhan Stahl is in charge and that's all the matters. The biggest competitor for Stahl Arms is Visari Corporation. Whereas Stahl Arms focuses on mass-produced firearms, armour, and vehicles for the Helghast infantry, Visari Corp has always been about high-tech, experimental weaponry and medical equipment. That said, Stahl Arms has never been adverse to a little competition and has its own experimental and high-tech weapons division that it has been expanding rapidly--though much of it is still under wraps to even the Helghan High Command.  Moving through the facility, we see a number of things. First of all, the soldiers in the Stahl Arms facility are dressed somewhat differently than the Helghast soldiers we are used to seeing. That's because they're all Stahl's private military, Armoured HAZMAT Soldiers. They get the best and most up-to-date equipment available at the facility. (In combat, they're especially brutal, often armed with Arc Cannons and able to take obscene amounts of fire). We also see a dropship land and offload a pair of prisoners. They're both ISA and the one taking up the rear is Captain Narville himself. They are led away and all we can do is make our way through the facility.  As we get funneled towards the end of the level, we get a chance to see how heavily armed Stahl's personal fortress is. Beyond the soldiers and security drones, Arc Towers ring the mountain as anti-air defenses. Stahl's even got his own personal navy standing watch.  Deeper inside we find a room full of ISA prisoners. You have to wonder if the Helghast High Command or the Helghast military proper know they're here. Regardless, there's nothing we can do for Stahl's guests at the moment.  The "weapons testing" is boring and is bog-standard FPS fare. Tutorials in previous Killzones at least had the decency of being woven seamlessly into a combat level. Shooting at targets is not exciting--though it is funny that the "correct" targets to shoot at are unarmed, surrendering ISA soldiers. Remember what we said about the Helghast being the bad guys?  Continuing on we see some sort of control room with an ominous holographic of Earth. I swear it'll be relevant later, but once again, I'm going to focus on it later.  We move through a testing facility filled with various Helghast HAZMAT soldiers, both of the scientist and military variety, and eventually find ourselves in the execution chamber. "Argus Two" take positions around the sci-fi weapon tripod. (Natko is standing just off camera).  Here we see Stahl giving his own speech. I'm guessing he didn't much care for Orlock's version, so he decided to fly to his secret base to record his own. Like Orlock, Stahl also has a flair for rhetoric.  Unlike Orlock, Stahl has in his possession the commanding officer of the ISA soldiers that killed Visari. As far as Stahl is concerned, Narville might as well have given Rico the order to shoot. Things don't look too bright for Narville, but then he doesn't realize Sev is standing in as his "executioner".  The look on Stahl's face when Sev points the gun at him is priceless. I get the feeling that Stahl isn't used to having things not go his way.    Such indignant rage. Anyways, the screen goes dark at this point and we time-skip back to six months earlier, moments after Rico Velasquez left Visari bleeding out on the floor--  --moments after a horrified Captain Narville and Shawn Natko arrived only to discover they were too late--  --moments after Orlock's fleet returned from Konstantine City--  --and moments after a disillusioned Sevchenko, resigned to his fate, sat down on the steps of Visari Palace and wept.  Next update we get to deal with the immediate fallout of these events.  Presented against my better judgement and the will of Blind Sally, in loving memory of CJacobs, and in defiance of peace and sanity, I give to you here and now, Let Us Playeth Killzone the 3rd, the Alternate Reading. Joining me for the duration of these first three chapters are visiting scholars ChaosArgate and Jobbo_Fett.   I [Crow] have been progressively dragging ChaosArgate closer and closer into my orbit of insanity via Ace Combat and now Killzone, and he has, up till now, been a rather good sport about it. Argate has tackled LPs of (among other things), Saints Row IV, No More Heroes 1 & 2, Sleeping Dogs (with Jobbo), and the Restless Leg Syndrome-curingly* amazing Devil's Third (with Jobbo and my LP nemesis Artix). Jobbo_Fett, meanwhile is no stranger to the Killzone LP threads. In addition to joining Argate for Devils Third, Sleeping Dogs and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, he also helmed an LP of 007 Legends with Argate, and is currently running LPs of Panzer Corps and  )* NOTE: Watching the Devil's Third LP will not cure Restless Leg Syndrome. Please consult a doctor before viewing.  There's been some changes between Killzone 2 and Killzone 3. Some not-so-good, but for the most part, they're improvements. I want to talk about them, but we didn't really get any gameplay this video, so instead I'm going to hold off on that for the next update.   The knuckleheads all return. It's sort of a poorly kept secret at this point. Thanks to co-op, it's pretty easy to see the "SEV" and "NATKO" words hovering above each player's character. With that in mind, it's not too hard to put two-and-two together and realize that the other member of Argus Two is actually Rico Velasquez. Since we're starting this game in media res, we currently have no idea why the three of them are dressed up in Helghast uniforms infiltrating one of the largest weapons facilities on the planet. It'll all make sense in due time now that we find ourselves back at the end of Killzone 2. Just wait.  Captain Narville also returns. Although how he got from were he was at the end of Killzone 2 to being a POW at the hands of Stahl is all still a mystery to us. What matters is Alpha Squad seem to be staging a prison break. Like the others, we'll soon find out how Narville got to this point.   HAZMAT Soldiers Stahl's personal elite soldiers. Heavily armed and armoured. Their armour lets them take more punishment than most other Helghast regular army soldiers and their experimental weapons mean they're one of the most dangerous enemies in the game. Fortunately, there's aren't a lot of them. We see a handful hanging around Stahl Arms and there's usually a couple around Stahl himself. Since it's usually the Arc Cannon they're armed with, taking them out from a distance is usually the best tactic--that heavy ordnance. One annoying thing about this enemies is that you can't pick up their Arc Cannons when they die. I guess they're finger-printed or something, if we're going to give Guerrilla the benefit of the doubt. What that means in practical terms is that there's no Arc Cannon gun in Killzone 3. Lightning Gun (and nine-gear crow's "Lightning Gun Returns" joke)There are also hooded varients of the HAZMAT soldiers. They function as scientists and you don't really see them in combat. They can be seen milling about Stahl Arms working on the various experimental equipment his facility produces.  Arc Cruiser Advanced offshoots of the standard Helghast Cruiser utilizing petrusite ore. Includes a long-range warp jump generator and four under-belly mounted petrusite cannons, perfect for air-to-ground bombardment and long-range ship combat--a weakness present in the original Helghast Cruisers that allowed the ISA Cruisers to wreak havoc on them. They carry far fewer leech pods than standard Helghast Cruisers, presumably because the petrusite generator take up that space. Although it's probably also because the petrusite cannons make for better ranged combat, meaning there's less of a need for the Helghast Cruisers to rely on boarding tactics for victory. Regardless, they're better at standing up against ISA Cruisers in a straight fight.    Just a bunch of returning weapons in this video. The StA-52 Assault Rifle and StA-18 Pistol remain the standard go-to guns for the Helghast military. They function the same as they did in Killzone 2. Stahl Arms Deep South Facility concept art:   Stahl Arms skybox:  Concept art of the HAZMAT scientists in Stahl Arms:  More concept art of Stahl's HAZMAT soldiers: 
Sally fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jul 7, 2016 |
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Jun 26, 2016 04:05
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Yeah, I've always enjoyed the gun sound design in this series. It's something that they've gotten consistently right since even Killzone 1--it's only gotten better as it's gone on. Also, next update is gonna have some proper shooting badguys gameplay, so I wanted to preempt it by announcing the thread's contest. That's right, I'm bringing it back. The thread death contest has returned, and this time I'm confident we'll actually get to the end of the game to declare a winner! Basically, crow and I are going to play the game in about equal parts. Don't worry, the entire LP won't be co-op--we just wanted to show it off a bit in the beginning. For the most part, it'll be played straight through as single-player, though we're going to take turns on different levels. For the contest, you only have to guess two numbers: how many times I die and how many times nine-gear crow dies. Once you've guessed, you cannot change your numbers. The person whose two numbers are the closest to being correct wins--we play by Price is Right rules, so it's the closest guesses without going over. Also, guesses cannot be identical, though you can guess the same number for one person. That is to say, this is a legitimate guess: Example Goon 1 posted:Blind Sally: 10, nine-gear crow: 8 And this is a legitimate guess: Example Goon 2 posted:Blind Sally: 10, nine-gear crow: 34 But this is NO LONGER a legitimate guess: Example Goon 3 posted:Blind Sally: 10, nine-gear crow: 8 As "Example Goon 1" had already made that guess. Too slow, "Example Goon 3"! Winner gets an avatar lovingly purchased for them by nine-gear crow. Sally fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 05:51
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Octatonic posted:I will go against the curve and say To be honest, neither crow or I kept track of our numerous deaths, so I'm interested to see which way the curve goes.
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Jun 28, 2016 18:59
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 Here we are, back at the ending of Killzone 2. Pyrrhus City has been nuked, nearly all of the ISA's ground forces on Helghan have been eradicated, and Visari is dead at Rico Velasquez's hands.  No, Rico, nothing is okay.  For all those Helghast fanboys and girls who hoped that Visari would survive his gunshot wounds, this moment is for you. Scolar Visari is dead. ISA medics could not resuscitate him and even declared his time of death. IT'S OFFICIAL: AUTARCH SCOLAR VISARI IS DEAD  This scene very clearly shows off Narville's role in the story: he's the connection between the ISA grunts on the ground and the commanders who are overseeing the battlefield. As one of those grunts on the ground, this gives Narville a privileged position--a unique point of view that the rest of the ISA soldiers, including Sevchenko and Velasquez, aren't privy to. This is why he's the Captain. This is why the ISA need to follow his orders. He knows things they don't and can act accordingly. This may very well seem obvious and, well, it should be. I'm emphasizing it, though, as it's about to become a critical plot point. (Believe it or not).  The game also gives us a brief taste of what the relationship dynamics are going to be for Killzone 3: Rico and Narville are beyond pissed off at each other, Sevchenko is caught between the power struggle of these two gently caress-off massive egos, and Natko has been dropped from the plot with such speed that he has literally disintegrated from the timeline and no longer exists. It's going to be fun!  Of note, the ISA evac zone is within the blast crater. I mean, I guess that makes sense. The Helghan armada is bearing down upon the remaining ISA cruisers so they take cover in the fog of war created by the blast to protect themselves from destruction. Better than just hanging out in the middle of the sky, I suppose. Makes them less obvious targets. And yeah, that's a nuclear mushroom cloud, but Red Dust is a futuristic space nuke. Most of the radiation from the initial blast has already dissipated. That's cloud is probably harmless by now. Which is good, because we're going to drive right into it.  I also want to address a mistake I made in the commentary of this video. Although the generators appear to be glowing green, the arc energy they fire is not. It's just regular petrusite. In fact, I don't think we're supposed to identify the green generator glow as irradiated petrusite at all and wonder if it was a colouring error on the part of the animators. It's been a while since the Killzone 2 LP, but as far as in-universe timelines are concerned, Pyrrhus has only JUST been bombed. No one's had a chance to study irradiated petrusite yet. (Though we know the timeline in this game jumps six months into the future, so hey).  Anyways, we're going back into Pyrrhus. Last time we were there it was already being bombed to pieces, but it's reached a whole new level of destruction. Before it looked like a warzone, but now it's been absolutely devastated. Not a lot to note here. We go through some buildings and see some ruined atriums and paintings--but it's not really anything we haven't seen before.creatures and vehicles from Killzone 2 reappear and we see some concept art as artwork in the background, but nothing really important is going on besides the fact that it's in ruins.  We do come across irradiated petrusite. Now this is new. It was hinted at in the second game when Templar crashed the New Sun into the petrusite grid and blew it up:  (The image here doesn't totally do it justice, but in the cutscene the explosive blasts are a greenish colour instead of the bluish-white hue we've come to expect with petrusite).  Once again, petrusite plays the role as the B Plot to the main story. Right now it's not important that we delve into the specifics of irradiated petrusite, it's important that we realize that a certain opportunistic someone has already sent in soldiers to collect samples for research. Note the armour: they're the same new Helghast soldiers we saw in Stahl Arms in the first chapter. The soldiers work for Stahl.  We also learn that, for as volatile as petrusite is, irradiated petrusite is even more volatile. The electrical currents will grab onto anything that moves quickly enough. Something about kinetic energy? Who knows. Make no sudden movements around irradiated petrusite, though.  Returning to Alpha Squad and Avenger Convoy, we see that Narville has managed to regroup a number of soldiers back to the cause. We have a number of vehicles as well. A bunch of them returning from the previous game and some new ones. They're just in time for us to get pelted by Helghast gunfire. In fact, this gets brought up--  And here it is--Killzone 3 is turning a blinding spotlight on the different points of view on a battlefield. What we have is different people with different views of the battlefield who all have different opinions, but not all of them have the same information. This is going to become a core conceit of this game and will lead to some interesting storytelling. But first, because I want to make sure I'm being clear about this, here is a diagram demonstrating my point:  Okay, so at the very top of the diagram is the ISA general that was talking to Narville. We don't know who they are and honestly it doesn't really matter. They aren't really in the game other than the fact that they give orders to Narville who then passes on the orders to his troops. The general sits at the top because he's in charge. Also, because they have the greatest view of the battlefield. They have the most intel. They have to make decisions that impact hundreds or thousands of soldiers, decisions that will impact the very tide of war. They're playing Risk while Sev and Rico play Checkers. The general is also literally above everyone because they are sitting in an ISA cruiser floating about the planet's surface. Narville sits in the middle. He's the bridge between the guys on the ground and the general in the sky. His of the battlefield is limited by the fact that he is on the ground with Avenger Convoy and Alpha Squad. However, thanks to his connection with the generals, he has a greater understanding of the battlefield (and thus a broader point of view). Sev and Rico are wholly grunts on the ground. They focus on what is in front of them because that's what they need to do to survive. There seems to be a bit of push and pull in the storyline between a great overall narrative and then the gameplay segments which focus on just shooting and surviving. When we play as Sevchenko, we are caught up in his world. He doesn't really know what's going on other than the fact that Helghast are running at him trying to kill him. He isn't away of what is over the horizon, he's working with what limited information he has--what information Narville is able to share with him. Which brings me to what's going on here. In the very beginning of the game, Narville clearly got some orders from the generals to get the gently caress out of there. What Narville knows is that the ISA invasion force has been decimated. Aside from a few scattered pockets on the ground, his Avenger Convoy is the only functional spearhead on the planet. Backup from the ISA cruisers is impossible because there's only three left and they're having a helluva time holding off the approaching Helghan armada. By then end of the video, Narville reveals to us that at least 12 Helghast cruisers have pinpointed the location of the remaining ISA ships and are closing in. Time is running out, and fast. Narville knows that if they don't make a beeline to those cruisers, there's a very real possibility that none of the soldiers in his convoy are going home, including himself, Sev, Sev and Rico don't really know all of this. What they know is that Narville is rushing his forces across the ground, forcing them to spread themselves thin while they work their way down the highway through Helghast occupied Pyrrhus. They point out that it's not such a good idea to rush as, after all, it'll allow the Helghast to more easily pick them off. This is true and, as we see, the Helghast do indeed inflict pretty heavy casualties on the convoy. What they don't realize is that there really isn't time to slow down and consolidate their forces. If they did that, the ISA cruisers would either get destroyed waiting for them or be forced to flee without them. So we have a situation where Narville is correct in rushing the ISA forces despite opening them up to greater casualties, and where Sev and Rico are correct in realizing that waiting for the ISA forces to regroup will allow them to better defend against a Helghast attack. They're caught between a rock and a hard place. While neither choice is ideal, it's interesting how Guerrilla chooses to present it. Since you're playing as Sev, the game seems to portray his option as the "correct" one. Since Narville is a bit displaced from the main character (Rico spends way more time with Sev than Narville does), his choice seems to get portrayed as the "incorrect" one. I'm still not sure if this was a conscious decision, but perhaps we can decide as a thread as the game goes on.  If ever there was a case to be made for Killzone 3 having an unsung MVP, it’s definitely Corporal Hooper. Hooper is Narville’s right-hand man throughout Killzone 3, his logistics and procurement officer. Crow compares him in the video to Corporal Walter “Radar” O’Reilly from M*A*S*H, who filled a similar role as being the hyper-competent yet quietly understated workhorse character who keeps everything running smoothly for our outrageous heroes. Alongside Sev, Hooper is one of the few Capital-G “Good” soldiers left in the ISA’s ranks. He has a specific job to do, and he does it well, without running his goddamn mouth off about it or expecting his rear end to be kissed with validation like Rico constantly does. New gameplay summed up in a gif:  You can now slide and there are brutal melee kills. Okay, so if you're sprinting and you press the crouch button, you will start sliding. If you slide into cover, you will automatically snap against the wall. It's useful for getting to safety quickly. If you do this while charging an enemy, you will slide tackle them, knocking them to the ground. That part is loving awesome!! Anyways, little addition to gameplay, but huge fun. Allows you to do some fun things in combat.  Brutal melee is a bit of a step back from the Rambo knife kill thing we had in Killzone 2 but not quite as terrible as the weird damage threshold to trigger a canned animation kill of Killzone 1. You can melee people to stagger them and hurt them--even kill them. But if they are standing in the right position or are near the correct environmental object to activate the trigger, then you can do a canned "Brutal Melee" animation where Sevchenko just straight up murders a dude with his bare hands. This YouTube video is a great summation of what the Brutal Melee mechanic entails: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPJj2mvYMHE Basically, it's a lot of knives through eyes. Now, it's not as effective as the Rambo knife, since you can't use it to absolutely trivialize sections of the campaign even on the hardest difficulty, but it works and is satisfying, so there's that. More returning vehicles. We see various Helghast cruisers, the retrofitted Heghast mining tank, the ISA APC, the ISA tank, and the Exo suit. There's also a new one that gets driven in the cutscenes:  HAMR IFV The HAMR has the firepower of a light tank but is waaaay faster an maneuverable. It functions as an inbetween from the ISA tank and the ISA jeep that we saw used in the previous game. It's armed with a standard ISA .50 caliber M224 HOMAG machine gun and a high-explosive-armor-piercing 35mm autocannon. Not the most powerful ordnance on the battlefield, but it has an extremely high rate of fire that lets it literally hammer targets to dust. Get it? "Hammer"?  More weapons return, notably the Helghast submachine gun. More importantly, we get a new gun:  StA-62 Minigun Thank you, Stahl, you beautiful bastard, for this blessing of the single greatest gun in the game! When mounted, the Minigun has infinite bullets. When unmounted (heck yes, Killzone 3, bless you for letting us unmount them!) it only has 300 rounds. Unfortunately, it burns through those rounds incredibly quickly. The upside to this is that any enemy caught in the crossfire dies basically instantly--also armoured Helghast vehicles are also very susceptible (see: the numerous Helghast Dropships crow and I liquidate). Fortunately, any ammo box found in the gameworld will replenish a Minigun's ammunition to max. Also, ammo boxes never run out of ammo. So basically, no matter what difficulty you play this game on, if you find a Minigun, you better drat well grab it. It's the single most powerful and most useful gun in the game, full stop. Ruined Pyrrhus concept art:  That nuke, though   Note: ISA Crusiers can be seen hovering near the mushroom cloud. Sally fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jul 23, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 09:17
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CommissarMega posted:Blind Sally: 3 Sorry. We let you down in a single video. 
Sally fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 09:18
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Being knocked down isn't a death. It counts as a death in multiplayer 
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Jun 30, 2016 16:23
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crow pointed out that I neglected to properly point out the new character we were briefly introduced to. Here' is crow's write-up, which has since been edited into the post:quote:
It's a good write-up, if I do say so myself. Only problem is, the guy in that picture isn't Hooper. Yeah, Hooper is a generic looking ISA space marine guy and it's easy to confuse them, but he's not that generic looking ISA space marine guy in particular. So crow and I quickly went to task getting different screen grabs of Hooper for a new, more accurate, portrait. Unfortunately, they're both hilariously awkward and I love them both and can't decide on which one to keep in the post. Instead, we figured to let the thread decide. Which does everyone prefer:  Catching-flies-in-his-mouth Hooper? or Sad-meme-face Hooper?
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Jun 30, 2016 22:46
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nine-gear crow posted:Sad Meme Hooper is our chosen portrait. It's done. The next step is to create dozens of Sad Hooper memes 
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Jul 1, 2016 06:52
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CJacobs posted:I like that Rico thinks he and Sev are still friends after what he did to Visari and Garza, it's cute and kind of sad in a way ftfy
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Jul 1, 2016 20:42
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Jul 2, 2016 08:38
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one more dank Killzone meme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4-En48Rkmk This one is informative, I swear. I collected all the clips of horrible bullshit that Sev has been through in the past 24 in-game hours.
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Jul 4, 2016 01:00
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Marshal Radisic posted:Also, I forgot to point this out, but in the prologue mission I'm pretty sure disguised!Rico is still carrying around his ISA light machine gun (in the middle of the biggest small arms plant on Helghan) and he even talks once or twice without trying to fake a Helghan accent. Man, you can just imagine it now; Rico's all happy because he gets to play Shadow Marshal while Sev's just thinking "Yeah, good job, Solid Snake, you're a regular Agent 47 jesus christ why didn't i leave you in a loving dumpster gently caress my life gently caress everything gently caress gently caress gently caress" This is true. Rico's Helghan accent is terrible. I'm willing to give him a little bit of a pass one carrying around the LMG, since the ISA and Helghast use eachothers' equipment fairly frequently. The Helghast often use ISA shotguns, for example, and the ISA are pretty much dependent on Helghast medical technology for their field medics. Though that said, I've never seen a Helghast use an ISA LMG in game when Helghast LMGs are generally, as a rule, much better than what the Vektans can bring to the table. Soooooo, uh, I guess I don't really give Rico a pass. That was dumb. He should have had a Stahl Arms gun in hand. Also, knowing Rico, wearing a Helghast uniform is probably a walking nightmare for him.
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Jul 5, 2016 05:24
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Cooked Auto posted:It certainly was something. That's for sure. 'Twas a beautiful euphony of bodily functions.
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Jul 7, 2016 19:03
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VolticSurge posted:Mind explaining how? I never really payed too much attention to the story in those games. But I thought 3 at least had good gameplay? My side-project where I rant about Resistance 3 is up, if you're still interested: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3782748
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Jul 10, 2016 09:20
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 Ahh, these two gentlemen of Helghan are beginning their dance. I don't have much to say about it just yet as I want to let it speak for itself--Ray Winstone and Malcolm McDowell are excellent at selling their parts. There's just a couple bits of neat blocking I want to point out. First, "Visari's Throne" here. Empty, for the moment, but it's clear from the speech we've seen him give that Admiral Orlock is interested in moving up in power. Now look where Chairman Stahl's hand it. Yeah. He's not just calling out Orlock to antagonize him, Stahl wants to seize power for himself, believes that the Helghast leadership should remain in the hands of a businessman rather than a military officer.  And if that wasn't clear enough, we get a shot of the two men standing with Visari's portrait looming between them. This shot is only seen for half a second, so it's not super obvious.  Back to our "heroes", this level has some weird pacing as crow points out in the video. We go from an on-rails turret section to on-foot to a sniper-section to a vehicle section to back on foot. It makes the level feel a bit frantic, which works given what's going on. I've grabbed this screenshot because it shows that even in the background chatter there's still this push-pull of Rico wanting to disobey orders to win the current fight and Narville's orders to hurry the gently caress up because he knows they're on a strict time limit. Again, both of them are right in their way. Defiance, whoever they are, die just as they refuse Rico's order to form up, but if they were to slow down any more, the ISA Cruisers will a) leave without them or b) die.  Then this happens. It's funny because Sev gives Rico, technically his superior officer, the order to move up Pvt. Gutmann and co. Rico giving the order to Sev to provide cover fire would've made more sense, but given what we know about their relationship, it's funny that Sev is still acting like the commanding officer. Anyways, I don't count this as a Guerrilla Games trying to make Rico more sympathetic moment because he's acting under Sev's orders AND because we never see Gutmann ever again. For all we know, Rico gets this man killed trying to move him up. So it goes.  Here we meet our first ISA woman soldier, Jammer. Though Jammer appears to be a callsign, so I don't totally know what her role on the battlefield is--she's not a Shadow Marshall like, Luger, that's for sure. (Maybe she was originally assigned as an Intruder pilot?). Anyways, time for a bit of trivia. It's been known since Killzone 1 that the game has a serious problem with tokenism with both people of colour and women. Since Jammer has just been introduced, let's focus on her for a moment. Did you know that only the fifth woman to appear in this series? That's right, before her was General Vaughton's communications officer in Killzone 1, Luger, Evelyn Batton, and most recently, Hera Visari. If you thought, "drat, we're four games into this series, that's pretty bad," then hey, I agree. Jammer is also the third woman to actively take part in combat and is the first woman ISA soldier we've seen. I really thought Guerrilla should've taken a page from Starship Troopers, but this is what we've got.  Anyways, Rico tries to disobey orders--Narville catches him, but he makes sure to sent Intruders to pick up Jammer and her crew. For all the poo poo given to Naville, he cares about his people. Right now he's trying to save as many of them as possible, and speed is really of the essence here.  Seriously, 'cause the Cruisers are getting shot up by some serious anti-aircraft weaponry.  We even get a brief glimpse of General Mandaloniz, the man aboard the Cruiser Compulsion who has been yelling at Narville for the past while. Of course, Rico and Sev have no idea what's going on with the Compulsion and Mandaloniz, they only get a sense of urgency from Narville. Again, considering he's their superior officer, it's surprising the flak they give him. Of course, they see what they see and they act accordingly. I like that Guerrilla shows Mandaloniz talking to Narville, though, because it reminds the player that Narville isn't just giving orders at random. He has a superior officer of his own and there are things going on in the battlefield that he knows that Rico and Sev don't.  Moving on, we have our vehicle segment. crow is right, they do kinda look like walking coffins.  Aaaaand right afterwards we find out that the rescue Intruders were shot down. Narville looks genuinely distressed here. Let no one say he doesn't care for his people. However, I understand that he can't send anymore resources to help Jammer. He has literally run out of time. Furthermore, a bunch of people died trying to get to her. At this point, given their time is up, he'd just be sending more people to their death. So of course, Rico volunteers to ignore orders and go save Jammer.  Perhaps somewhere deep down Rico knows it's a suicide mission. He has to realize that Sev can't actually get Narville to "wait". Rico is aggressive, he's rude, he's not the sharpest tool in the shed (what the gently caress is a Shakespeare?) but he's not stupid. When it comes to the battlefield, Rico is downright savvy. This right here, this line, this is a man who realizes he's made mistakes. Lots of mistakes. That line, "I gotta do this, man", is a man who desperately needs to do something good. A man who is beyond redemption trying to do something right. Yeah, Rico is disobeying orders here, but he sends away Sev. He knows he's probably not coming back, but he has to try. So he goes to try and save Jammer and her squad. It's not going to make up for all the pain and suffering Rico has done, but it shows that he's self-aware. It shows that he feels guilty. It shows that he wants to try and do the right thing. So good for Rico. That one line, short, almost a throwaway line, speaks volumes about this character.  Anyways, Sev doesn't have long to dwell on it since the culmination of the Helghast military industrial complex begins to loom over him. The MAWLR is has caught up with the ISA Cruisers.  crow is mistaken in the video, the in-game audio confirms that at least one of the ISA Cruisers, the Arcturus, made it safely to orbit and presumably returned to Vekta. It's the Dauntless we see fall on Rico and Jammer. The Compulsion, again, is the one with General Mandaloniz and is seen falling to its death at the end of the cutscene.  And oh, Rico almost made it back.  So many mixed feelings at this point.  Yeah, Rico is trying to do something good, but at this point it almost feels like too little too late.  Like, seriously Rico, maybe you shouldn't have waited until the sky was literally falling on you. Better late than never, I suppose? Pvt Gutmann and General Mandaloniz have such minor roles in the game that I don't think it's worth even making portraits for them. They're about as relevant as General Mandrake, if anyone remembers who that guy was. Anyways, one notable new character:  Jammer is a competent hand-to-hand fighter, marksman, and pilot. She's also quite skilled around computers and technology, Vektan and Helghan. Given her skills, she could very well have been a member of Alpha Squad. Instead, she's relegated to a minor token role in Killzone 3. At least she has more personality than Natko. Apparently she was modeled after Eva Mendes. Jammer will wind up being to Rico as Hooper is to Narville. Rico and Narville will wind up playing the roles of the Devil and Angel sitting on Sevchenko's shoulders and Jammer and Hooper wind up being the sidekick to both of them.  MAWLR It's 280 metres tall. Like, seriously. MAWLR stands for Mounted Artillery Walker/Long Range. Somewhat contrived, but it makes for a cool acronym. It's basically a walking battleship. Anyways, its primary weapon is the massive arc cannon we saw blow the Dauntless into smithereens. It also has dozens of missile batteries and auto-cannons place all over its exterior, as well as machine guns and mortars. Literally. This thing can attack in all directions with its armaments. It's slow, yes, but literally covered in guns. Such is Stahl's madness. They're also pretty mobile. It's Killzone canon that these things are able to scale vertical surfaces. True story.   More returning guns. The shotgun gets an optical scope this time, which may not make a whole lot of sense at first, but trust me, it's a good thing. In Killzone 2, it didn't have a scope and you couldn't aim down the sights. You had to hip-fire. It was fine--I guess. I didn't like it. But it was especially useless on Elite difficulty, which eliminated onscreen crosshairs. Without that, using the shotgun was an exercise in frustration. Since you couldn't aim down the sights, it was effectively useless. This optical sight means the gun is still useful on Elite difficulty. Also, it seems to fire faster. I dunno. Whatever it is about the Killzone 3 version of the shotgun, it's a lot better than the previous game and, for once, I kinda like using a shotgun in a mainline Killzone game. The flamethrower is identical. If you enjoyed it in the previous game, you'll like it here. It is what it is.  Sevchenko vs. The MAWLR Sally fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Oct 6, 2016 |
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Jul 22, 2016 19:17
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Sadly, Jobbo and Jamie had too much faith in Blind Sally. I'm sorry I let you down. FoolyCharged had too much faith in nine-gear crow. I'm afraid the three of you have been eliminated from the death contest. (It's still not too late if other people want to sign up. As long as you get in a guess before the next update, I'll count it.)
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Jul 22, 2016 19:22
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damnit, that should say "sharpest tool in the shed". i can't even get that right D:
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Jul 22, 2016 20:22
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Yes! That is correct. For example, I play the next stage, so I will be able to catch up with crow w/r/t deaths. crow will be playing the stage after that. Then back to me, then crow, etc.,etc., until the game ends. It also gives us a chance to view the game with different play styles. I tend to be more cavalier, rush into things, and use lots of hip firing. crow is more methodical in his approach, makes good use of cover, and tends to use the iron sights more often.
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Jul 22, 2016 22:35
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I was gonna start posting pictures of American Civil War soldiers and their facial hair, but some websites have already done that for me. Behold, what I assume to be the inspiration for the Helghast Senate: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104419/The-greatest-beards-moustaches-Civil-War.html
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Jul 23, 2016 04:29
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Such is Stahl's madness.
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Jul 23, 2016 05:26
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Orlock is the leader the Helghast need. Stahl is the leader they deserve. 
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Jul 23, 2016 05:51
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nope, you haven't voted and that vote hasn't been taken! full vote list is in the OP. I've added your guess there.
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Jul 23, 2016 06:50
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Apep727 posted:Orlock is the kind of guy who'd punch you in the face if you insult him at a bar; Stahl's the kind who'll follow you into the restroom and bash your head against the wall while your fly's down. Actually, this is a surprisingly accurate prediction. But, uh, don't take my word for it. You'll see it play out. Anyways, next video is done. I'm working on the post itself right now. Consider this last call for anyone who wants in on the death count contest. I'm not going to count obvious joke guesses. I need actual numbers.
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Aug 4, 2016 22:36
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Alavaria posted:It wouldn't surprise me if they had actually run dry, they seem to have all sorts of problems by this point in the war. All I can say with regards to this topic, is that the player (as Sevchenko) actually runs dry a gun battery on the New Sun part way through the Cruiser mission in Killzone 2. It wouldn't surprise me if they actually were running low on certain types of ammunition. Also, its big gently caress of space laser is mounted on the front of the ship, so while the cruisers can aim straight down and literally glass the planet's surface, they can't hit the MAWLR while in the atmosphere without crashing--needs to be done from orbit. White Coke posted:So why don't anyone in the ISA need gas masks on Helgan? Or did the Helghast already clean up their atmosphere? Technically the Helghast don't need to wear gas masks anymore, either. According to lore, the atmosphere has been cleaned to the point that wearing the gas masks is largely symbolic at this point. I mean, it's not perfect. It's my understanding that you'll still suffer some lung problems if you're breathing in the air for years on end, but of course the ISA plan didn't involve them occupying Helghan, so none of the ISA were issued masks.
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Aug 5, 2016 01:59
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 It's actually less than six months, as we aren't quite caught up to the first chapter's timeline. Anyways, in all that time, Stahl and Orlock are still arguing.  Orlock's assault only succeeded in pushing the remaining ISA forces underground. Narville, Sev, and perhaps even Rico, are all safe and sound, hidden somewhere on Helghan.  Meanwhile, Stahl has developed weapon prototypes with irradiated petrusite but is refusing to turn it over to his planet's governing body. Fortunately for him, he has enough political clout that they really can't force his hand. Much to Orlock's chagrin, they have to play nice with Stalh or he's literally going to take his toys and go home.  It's at this point that the Helghast Senate does something. This is Senator Kuisma. According to the game's novelization, Killzone: Ascendancy he is an actual pedophile. He comes out in support of Stahl in this scene, not because he actually likes Stahl, but because he's being blackmailed. This is very telling about how Stahl is viewed by the Senate. They think he's so dangerous and unpredictable that the only person willing to support him is a blackmailed pedophile. (I will say, I could have done without knowing that little detail about Kuisma--thanks Sam Bradbury, author of the smash hit Killzone: Ascendancy).  This is Senator Gunsteling. He's old, cranky, and hates Stahl with a passion. He is the most vocal supporter of Orlock but is the first to cave in to Stahl's bluff, so he's ultimately a pragmatic leader. Anyways, Stahl still refuses to give up his petrusite weapons, but he gives an ominous warning about a broadcast he's about to make in two days that will change the senate's mind about who should be leader. If you'll remember back to our opening chapter, Sev,  Meanwhile, in a creepy space jungle--  ---the ISA are now subsisting on electrical space spiders. Hey, CJacobs!!   Also, this grunt right here looks surprisingly similar to the ISA general who was in contact with Narville in the last chapter: It may just be a case of similar character models, but I like to think that he survived and is now getting by on foot because Narville commands the ISA ground forces on Helghan.  And here we meet Dusty, I mean, Kowalski. He's an ISA recon soldier with a massive beard. Seriously, I don't think that's regulation. Anyways, Kowalski is notable for being Dante Garza's original character model. If you take a look at the 2007 E3 trailer, you can see "Kowalski-Garza" sitting in real Garza's position on the Blood Meridian Intruder--he even speaks in Garza's voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDMBWRlctQY It's a little thing, but Guerrilla clearly put enough work into the character that they wanted to see him get used somewhere. Anyways, he's here to tutor us on the finer points of stealth in a Killzone game. We only need to use stealth for this mission, but hey. The longer we can keep up the faux-stealth the easier it will be to get through the level. Otherwise, we'll be swarmed by Helghast.  This scene is really just to show that the ISA aren't doing too great. It's cold, the food sucks, people are sad, and there's constant tension that the Helgast might find them. Speaking of sad, though, here's Narville trying to cheer up Hooper. I snapped this shot so crow could finally look at that patch on Narville's shoulder. It isn't very high resolution. I think it's either a skull in a Helghast helment or a robot penis. Can't tell for sure. Also, this:  I couldn't help myself. Here's the template if anyone else wants to get in on the Sad Hooper meme experience:   Moving right along, welcome to the Kaznan Jungle. This is one of the first times we've truly been able to see Helghan in its natural state. This jungle is like something out of a nightmare--or the bottom of the sea. A lot of the plants like look like they could either be sessile insects or terrestrial coral. Many are dangerous, too. The scorpion tail-like plants will sting you if you get close, not to mention the blast pods. It's here that the nearly black and white colour scheme of Killzone 3 really shines.  The rocks and sky really are black and white, so the only colour we get come from the monstrous foliage. Straw yellows, deep oranges and reds, splashes of purple--  --it's not the kind of plant life we're used to seeing. I mean, there are red plants on earth but they're rare compared to green plants. Most I've seen are various types of kelp that need to be red in order to still photosynthesize what little light can pierce the ocean's depths. Regardless, it's all utterly alien. We may as well be walking on the bottom of the ocean.  We get some splashes of green, once again, courtesy of irradiated petrusite.  This scene is significant not only because it shows off Stahl's weapons and what irradiated petrusite is capable of (which is literally exploding people), but because that's the same gun that Sevchenko had in his hands when he interrupted Narville's execution in the first chapter. So take notes: we're going to get that gun later on.  The big reveal of the chapter is that the Vektan government has capitulated and the ISA forces are to surrender to the Helghast as prisoners of war. Kind of a lovely end. This would probably be okay, though, if the actual Helghast army were the ones to capture them. As much of a war horse as Orlock is, he likes playing by the rules. Unfortunately for Narville and co., they're under attack by Stahl's private army--and as we saw with the irradiated petrusite, they don't really care about taking prisoners alive.  Except Visari's killers, of course. Narville and Alpha Squad are at the top of Stahl's list.  Also, this goofy scene was featured heavily when Guerrilla was making trailers and showing off footage at E3. The Capture Troopers are still lame, but they got a lot of coverage.  So to sum up this whole mission: Kowalski Goodbye, Captain Narville. See you at your execution.  Sev gets in a separate dropship, which he will obviously escape from later on.  And we're off! Sadly, this is the last we'll see of the Kaznan Jungle, what is probably the most visually interesting stage in the whole game.  There's not much to say about Kowalski that I haven't already said. He's Garza's old character model and was reused here to be the stealth tutorial mission guy. He dies at the end of the mission. In the novelization, Sev actually finds him while he's dying and he holds his hand while he bleeds out. That's about it. So long, Kowalski, we hardly knew ye.  Capture Trooper These guys are lame. Total yawn. The above image is taken from Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception because it shows a Capture Trooper that might actually be effective: one holding a gun. Otherwise they have a wrist-mounted knife, never use cover, and will always charge at the player. They usually appear in pairs, so that can be annoying. You get a trophy for melee killing one, which is pretty much a free trophy since the easiest way to kill them is to let them get close and melee kill them. :/ Their armour is stronger than standard Helghast troopers. They can tank quite a few assault rifle bullets, but thanks to the game's engine, they can't actually move quickly enough across the battlefield to really take advantage of it. Oh, if only they had a gun. There are strange cylinders attached to their knives. This suggests either a poison or a tranquilizer is present in the blades. Knowing the Helghast, it's likely a poison.  Helghast Trooper Carrier The Helghast answer to the ISA's EXO. Only, better? It's autonomous, for one, meaning you don't have to worry about pilot injury or death rendering the EXO useless. It can also transport three additional Helghast soldiers, is more agile and mobile, and not only is it armed with a mortar and a flamethrower but it is capable of engaging in melee combat. Small arms fire can destroy them, but they have decent armour. It only takes two rocket launcher shots to bring them down, though. Not too much to say about them because we don't really see them outside of scripted events. This level is where we encounter most of them and even then we just sneak past them.  Luger's gun is back. It functions the same as it did in Killzone 1: you can rapid fire silenced SMG rounds or fire a single accurate shot to kill most enemies. The BIG difference here is that the single shot is actually accurate for once. Unlike Killzone 1, your bullets won't wildly spray everywhere due to bad programming, so what was once the "Dickshot 5000" is not just an okay silenced SMG.  The most interesting thing about the Capture Troopers is that concept art showed that there was going to be a female variant. Too bad Guerrilla decided to once again stick with only haven token women rather than diversifying the game's cast.  Kaznan Jungle concept art.  Kaznan Jungle ISA camp concept art. Sally fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Aug 6, 2016 |
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Aug 5, 2016 18:45
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The following have been eliminated from the contest for having waaaay too much faith in me:
I let everyone down. I know.  I don't know what happened. I've played this game dozens of times, have beaten it on Veteran (I've the trophy to prove it), and yet when it came time to record the Kaznan Jungle I crash and burned spectacularly. I don't have any more meltdowns of this magnitude throughout the rest of the game, but considering how fast I racked up my death counter I am seriously wondering whether or not crow will come out on top in the end, ha.
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Aug 5, 2016 18:58
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Jobbo_Fett posted:"If I LP'ed It: The True Blind Sally Story" Are you sure? The audio tracks lined up great on my end and I spent a lot of time on that audio. We were three assholes yapping over a video game, we honestly just naturally talked over each other at times. (I mean, if it is out of sync a couple of times, I didn't notice it so I'm not going to sweat it).
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Aug 6, 2016 04:58
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Ha, are you sure it didn't just take me 4 seconds to get your jokes? Speaking of mediocre, here's everything smiley-related that came out of the Fury Road thread for referenece: Original image:  The actual smiley:  A better version of the smiley, or at least I prefer it, but somebody already bought the slower one:  The other Fury Road smiley:  The less popular, :lovely::  Max smiley: 
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Aug 6, 2016 06:15
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Apep727 posted:First, a quick and minor correction: Fixed the "six months and change" text. Also, yeah, the throw backs to other infamous world conflicts has been intentional on Guerrilla's part. Killzone 1 - 3 have been pretty consistent in portraying imagery from World War I (e.g., gas masks, trenches, etc.), World War II (e.g., Normandy-esque beach landings, street-to-street urban combat, etc.), and the Vietnam War (e.g., thick jungles, swamps and river, etc.). By the time we get to Killzone: Shadow Fall, Guerrilla starts focussing more on imagery from Cold War Berlin and more modern conflicts along with a lot of terrorism/anti-terrorism themes. Fish Noise posted:So, as the person behind the controls, how would you compare this stealth segment to the... other stealth segment? I'm confused. There are no other stealth segments in Killzone 3???
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Aug 7, 2016 23:00
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^^^^ you could be the poster to rectify this problem! Fish Noise posted:Exactly. I refer to your other ongoing LP. Oh, yeah, absolutely. The stealth section in R3 is not really a stealth section at all. Enemies aren't attracted by sound, only sight. So the various Chimeran Snipers just sorta sit there scanning the valley until you walk past them. The Dropships, meanwhile, detect you if you cross into their searchlights. That's it. You can shine your flashlight directly on a Hybrid and it won't detect you unless it's actually looking right at you. Here in the Kaznan Jungle, meanwhile, the Helghast at the very least react to sound. It's a basic stealth section, but it's a stealth section. As you say, the cover isn't the most believable, but as long as you are quite, crouched, and technically "in" the cover, you're okay. Once you blow the cover, though, you have to brute force you way the rest of the level. Which is okay, since that's where Killzone shines. You get a trophy for successfully getting through the entire "stealth section" without blowing your cover and it's a bit of a change of pace from the more frantic levels, so the level is a welcome diversion. Also, unlike the R3 stealth level, which is basically just the White Forest from Half Life 2, K3's level is something wholly new and unique.
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Aug 8, 2016 08:40
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