An Evening With: Killzone 3 Multiplayer

14 Mar 2011 at 16:45:00 by John Robertson

Following on from our review of Killzone 3 we bring you a more detailed look at the game's multiplayer elements. The following games were played on Sunday 13 March after updating to the v1.04 patch.

Presenting, An Evening With: Killzone 3 Multiplayer.

Game 1

Game Mode
Operations

Map
Frozen Dam

Team
Helghast

Personal Score 
12 Kills – 11 Deaths

Despite how much I enjoy the ‘Operations’ game mode, Frozen Dam is probably my least favourite of Killzone 3’s maps. It’s a shame because Operations has only three maps in total - it doesn’t take a mathlete to work out that that makes 33% of my favourite game mode’s maps redundant.

And so, imagine the bad taste in my mouth when, as I sat down to chronicle my evening with Killzone 3’s multiplayer, I land Frozen Dam. Great start, then.

Unsurprisingly, given my cool attitude towards Frozen Dam (cool attitude… Frozen Dam… nice, right?) things start badly. I select the Engineer class because, as the Helghast, our first task is to protect the ‘blast doors’ from the ISA and I like to set up turrets at the key choke points.

However, best laid plans fail to generate positive results. Before I can deploy my second turret (there’s a long cool down period) an enemy has somehow snuck past my first turret and stuck a knife into my abdomen. When I enter back into the game I spawn at ‘High Base Camp 1’, one of the most ill-conceived spawning locations I’ve ever seen in a FPS and the main reason I despise this map. The problem is that it’s located at the base of a stairway which leads straight to the spawn of the opposing team.

The result is a spawn-killing frenzy of biblical proportions. I manage to set up a turret at the bottom of the stairs but the sheer number of grenades being launched from the top meant it was destroyed within 30 seconds. Eventually those same grenades took my life too.

I get a brain wave… I’ll switch to the Marksman class, take a step back from the action and snipe the enemy from a far – taking advantage of the chaos. This is going to be awesome, kill/death ratio increase imminent.

…it doesn’t work. I can’t spawn anywhere but High Base Camp 1 and, three five-second-or-less lives later, I switch back to the Engineer class to get my machine gun back. Anyway, the enemy were so caught up with the fight that they neglected to bomb the blast doors. An easy, frustrating victory.

Game 2

Game Mode
Operations

Map
MAWLR Graveyard

Team 
ISA

Personal Score
Kills 18 - Deaths 10

I go from my least favourite to my absolute favourite. The MAWLR Graveyard map looks great, plays great and is nicely balanced without being too predictable and/or symmetrical. In an attempt to mix things up a little I pick the Field Medic class as I’ve not yet used it for an entire round and I’m feeling a bit Florence Nightingale this evening.

My team’s first job is to secure the control rooms in a bid to activate the power core (read: capture the headquarters). One of the reasons I like MAWLR Graveyard is that there’s an underground passageway linking one of the buildings beside the ISA spawn point to the Helghast starting area; a passage that no one seems to use. Despite my role as a medic, I leave my team-mates to capture the control rooms by themselves because I just can’t pass up the opportunity to score a few easy kills.

As ever, it works. I emerge from the passage right behind three enemy snipers and quietly stab each one violently between the eyes. First life as a medic, three kills. Not bad.

Rather than pop back down into the passage and wait for the enemy to spawn so I can do the same thing (a tactic I’ve used on a number of occasions), I decide to be a team player and make my way to the closest control room. It seems I’ve been missing a trick by neglecting the medic class because it’s extremely useful for keeping your buddies alive as we attempt to capture the required points - they get shot down, I get them back on their feet and the capture ticker keeps on ticking. Perfect.

With two whole minutes still left on the timer we’ve captured the control rooms and moved on to the next objective: place three explosive charges at key points to disable the ‘crusher’ and stop it from destroying our power core.

It’s so great to play Killzone 3 (or any online FPS for that matter) when you’re part of a team that actually plays together. I’ve barely begun to think about making a move to plant a charge when I’m informed (via the little green flashing lights on my HUD) that my team have already placed two of required three. We’re way ahead of schedule so I take advantage of this extra time to sweep the map and hunt some bad guys. This is when I realise I should have thought things through before selecting to enter the fray as a medic. Because I don’t use the class I’ve not used any unlock points to equip myself with a sidearm for it, which caused a couple of hairy moments in which I was caught reloading without any means of defence.

Anyway, live and learn. Again, with minutes to spare, we complete our objective and battle on to the next one.

However, the opposition finally get their act together and start making things difficult. Our goal is to take a battery to the power core but the enemy is making it extremely difficult by blocking key choke points. No matter how many lives I take, or which route I choose, it seems that there’s always another enemy waiting around the corner.

Five minutes later and the timer hits zero. We’ve failed. Oh well, I did well enough to get my ass handed to me in the cut-scene (Operations shows cut-scenes featuring the top three players from each team between each new objective) and I ranked up - providing me with two unlock points. Time to get that sidearm for my Field Medic class.

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