Killzone 2 Multiplayer Hands On - Five Good Things

I spent the better part of an hour today playing through several rounds of Killzone 2 multiplayer at Sony's Games Convention 2008 headquarters, and rather than spend several paragraphs lying about how well I did, I figured I'd just round up the finer points of the session and present them here in easy-to-ingest numbered form.

5.Combat Itself: Killzone 2 multiplayer manages to maintain the fluid speed of the single player experience without sacrificing the looks that get the game featured in so many “look how pretty this game is” magazine spreads. Combat takes place at the perfect speed for me - not Unreal quick, but not Lost Planet slow. Just right.

4. Spawning Mechanics: Dying in Killzone 2 multiplayer brings up a map of possible spawn points, as well as a camera displaying what is going on at each locations, allowing you to pick the location that best fits your play style. When playing with a squad, players can choose to respawn on their squad leader to get right back into the action. Very handy when your squad leader finds himself all alone guarding an objective with tons of enemy inbound.

3. The Badge System: The Badge system represents the different classes you can play in multiplayer, from scout to engineer to medic. Each of the six badges have their own skill sets. Where Killzone 2 makes things interesting is that you can combine the power of two badges to create your own class based on your own particular play style. Want an engineer with healing skills? A stealthy soldier with a bazooka? Knock yourself out!

2. Dynamic Missions: Instead of playing one mission type and then waiting for the new map to load before beginning another, Killzone 2 features dynamic missions, which allows you and your friends to play through multiple game types on one map without loading.

1. Fully Destructible Toilets: Yes, I checked.

While I never was a big fan of the original game, Killzone 2's multiplayer is definitely an impressive effort. Of course the experience of playing with 8 people in the same room when you can yell at them when they team kill you is one thing, and true online multiplayer is another, but they are off to a very entertaining start.