Been waiting on this title for a while myself ever since it was announced. I got my Playstation Vita back in summer 2012 and since then have only got 7 games for it (including this one) and 2 were ports from other Sony systems so only 5 in reality. It is an excellent piece of hardware, but it is lacking quality titles so it has not got a lot of use. So I was looking forward to breaking it out again and getting to kill some Helghast on the go.
For those unfamiliar with the Killzone series, it revolves around a rather generic clone of the USA army called the ISA (inventive, I know) for various reasons are locked in a war with their much more interesting and charasmatic enemies, the Helghan, who all talk with British accents and have to wear face/gas masks due to the harsh environments they grew up with on their homeworld, Helghan. Like I say, the enemies have much more character and interest to them, especially their commanders who are awesomely over-played like theatrical characters almost, than the very generic "good guys" so a lot of the time you feel kind of bad killing them.... This is the 5th Killzone title in the series with a 6th to come out soon so the fight has been going on for a while now. The 6th game Killzone: Shadow Fall will be a PS4 launch title that I would be very keen to get but can not justify launch day prices for a new console so I will probably wait and make do with Mercenary for now.
This was touted as the first real "full-fat shooter" that the Vita would have. There was a Resistance title that came out soon after the console was launched, but it was....not the best so we will ignore it for now. I think the full-fat classification is well justified because finally we have what feels like a proper FPS on a handheld (with dual sticks and everything!) that does not feel watered down due to control or hardware limitations. The Killzone series has always been noted for it's impressive visuals, with the possible exception of the first title which now looks quite aged even upsacled to HD, and this one is no exception delivering (almost) PS3 quality graphics right in the palm of your hand.
The gameplay itself is fairly standard FPS stuff but does have a few unique twists. One of them being the arms dealer (who becomes quite important later on) that allows you to buy new weapons and such as well as "Vanguard" systems which are extra weapons systems like aerial drones, escort drones, carapace shields, etc etc which can all come in very handy especially when you are badly surrounded. Another interesting novelty is the touch screen controls, which for once do not feel tacked on. These are mostly for melees where you drag across the screen in various directions to perform various nasty moves with your knife involving necks and faces.
But the most widely publicised feature is that you are not loyal to either side in the war and are just a gun for hire. This is indeed true and you do switch sides a few times through the campaign which can cause a little confusion as to exactly who you should be shooting or stabbing but it all clicks fairly quickly.
All in all this game was an enjoyable FPS shooter if a tad generic but has some interesting twists and very cool set pieces. I enjoyed it greatly because I'm a big fan of the series and the melees are amazingly fun to do. And it's good to finally see a proper FPS on a handheld. Oh yeah. More like this.
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