It's more of the same. That means more of the white-knuckle-gameplay that made Resident Evil 2 such a tense and often scary experience. It's a bit less scary than its predecessor though, due to a regular emphasis on spectacle and a quick succession of levels that hardly ever leaves the payer time to let things soak in.

That s%#@ costs money!The Vita has been out long enough now for me to proclaim that I love that system. Its screen is gorgeous, and the amount of content coming to it lately has really invigorated my interest in it as a platform. That said, I wish Sony would stop trying to legitimize the machine by proving it can handle a solid FPS. Resistance failed to prove it, Call of Duty failed to prove it and now Killzone does little to enforce the idea that the Vita needs this genre to thrive. Mercenary is yet another disappointing attempt to bring the genre to this portable device.The story behind Killzone has never grabbed me. The futuristic opera was always overshadowed by its annoying characters, and cookie cutter plots. Mercenary feels no different, and never gets a chance to.

Doomsday clicker theme. The campaign mode lasts a paltry four hours at best, and the dialogue continues the tradition of poorly written attempts at humor. Portable versions of consoles biggest shooters often feel stripped down, but Mercenary takes the cake. I never cared about a single character, and even with a big twist about midway through, I never once felt compelled to push forward.jwplayer config=”Age Gate” mediaid=”45501″As a first-person shooter on the Vita, Mercenary is hardly the worst attempt. What drags it down is that Guerilla Games’ series has always been known for its more realistic weapons and movement.

A lot of the things that make Killzone unique are what hurt it here. The contextual cover becomes an issue early on as does the shooting.

Being a slower, more methodical style, it never felt right. Combined with the tiny, and not as responsive analog sticks of the Vita, it took me far too long to get comfortable performing headshots, or aiming in general. I had to crank the sensitivity almost all the way up before it started to even feel somewhat manageable.Then there was the touch stuff. Sprinting by tapping the rear touch is a horrible, horrible idea. Stop implementing it developers, please.

I turned it off, which I was thankful was an option. The melee however, seems hopelessly tied to swiping the screen. Tap triangle to instigate, then a series of swipes that require far more efficiency and effort than I received in satisfaction. I stopped doing melee kills after the first level or two.While the campaign is miniscule in size and interest, the multiplayer fares better, as is the story for most Killzone games. Traditional modes are here, but the real draw has always been Warzone.

This randomizing event keeps players on their toes with cycling objectives that keep the action fresh and fun. Controls become less of an issue here as well thanks to the more run-and-gun mentality as compared to the campaign. I had a lot of fun diving into quick matches on-the-fly. This is the real reason to own Killzone Mercenary, I can only hope it holds up over time.I did like that the developers opted to share upgrades and currency across both single and multiplayer. Cash is earned for performing feats such as headshots and killstreaks. These can be used to buy new weapons and other upgrades.

I liked that the slogging I did through the campaign didn’t go to waste once I started in on the multiplayer. It is a cohesive system and it works. I rarely felt like things were unbalanced, but again, I am jumping in very early on, long before the dedicated players have time to build up and dominate. Over the river and through the woodsVisually, things look great. I am constantly amazed at what the Vita can output on a graphics level. The trademark gritty realism shines through once again.

Sure, there are some flat textures, but the solid frame rate and unique design make the world of Mercenary stand out. Hero hunters easter egg hunt. The voice acting doesn’t fare quite so well, with some truly poor deliveries and questionable writing. Thankfully the music and sound effects make up for the lack of presentation in the rest of the audio.On the surface Killzone: Mercenary checks all the right boxes, with superb visuals and a robust online mode.

Sadly the methodical controls and tacked-on campaign really drag down the experience. Then the issues with the hardware itself start to creep in and once again remind me that the Vita is not the best platform for the genre. Still Mercenary is the best example of it so far, and those clamoring for more Killzone will find a lot to enjoy in the multiplayer. Sony continues to fight for that must-have shooter on its portable playhouse.Review copy of game provided by publisher.tab:Screenshotstab:END. This review is ridiculous.This may be the most amazing graphics I’ve ever seen on a handheld. It’s the freakin Killzone 3 engine and it shows.

You see little particles floating around, and the lighting catches through a window or wall sometimes and it’s really, really impressive.Next the controls I’ve always hated touch screen gimmicks, and really don’t play mobile games much anyway. I was annoyed by the touch screen crap in Golden Abyss, especially since everything else was good to great. This game actually got it right, the touchscreen actually feels relevant and forces the player to stay on point through melee kills. I never thought I’d feel like touch controls were a good idea I was wrong.

I can barely believe I just said that.Lastly, I’m not really as much of a multiplayer guy as a campaign player. I enjoyed the story, and felt like it was way more cohesive then any other mobile fighting game I’ve played. While the missions are all longer than 5 minutes but shorter than 15 the story does wrap around to connect the whole picture.The only thing I’ve thought was annoying or poorly utilized was the regular banter about ‘making money’. The game’s called KZ: Mercenary, and it gets mentioned again pretty much every mission. That was the one thing that really seemed tacked on.

It is hard to think of a major first party Sony franchise that has had a journey as rocky as Killzone’s. Sure, there have been a few that have endured some tough times, and some that have even come out stronger as a result but Killzone is probably the most prominently inconsistent franchise belonging to Sony. Its first game and what has till now been its last game both disappointed a lot of people, but there were also a couple of instalments that impressed millions, and were critical and commercial successes. Back during the days of the PS3, Killzone was, without a doubt, one of Sony’s flagship franchises.Though it never quite lived up to its “ Halo-killing” ambitions, Killzone was a franchise that rode a pretty strong high for a good number of years, and seemed to have firmly cemented itself as a series that Sony was prepared to invest in heavily. By now, however, it has been over five years since we last saw a Killzone game, and both Guerrilla Games and Sony have been largely silent about the franchise and what the future might hold for it. Sony has comfortably and confidently settled into the groove of the kind of games it wants to make – cinematic, story-driven single player games – and Killzone, it seems, doesn’t fit into that framework. But why exactly does that seem to be the case?

After overcoming initial hurdles and managing to carve out an identity for itself as one of the most refined shooters on the market, why is it that Guerrilla Games’ series suddenly went silent? What the hell happened to Killzone?Though Killzone was one of Sony’s most important franchises in the seventh generation of console gaming, we all know that things didn’t start out well for the franchise. Back when the series was first greenlit, Microsoft and Bungie were taking the world by storm with Halo. Combat Evolved stunned the entire industry by showing that not only could first person shooters work on consoles, but that they could even be some of the best games ever created.

Its follow up, Halo 2, took things even further, by implementing an ambitious and wildly popular online component that would go on to set the standard that the entire industry follows to this day. Sony were not the first who would look to chase that trend, and nor would they be the last- but chase it they did.Killzone was supposed to be their Halo.

Of course, they never publicly said as much, but the hype and marketing surrounding the game made it abundantly clear that Sony and the PS2 were banking on its success, and banking on it hard- and of course, given the new and fierce rivalry between Sony and Microsoft that the industry had become caught in the grips of, it didn’t take long for everyone to slap the “ Halo-killer” tag onto Killzone. Expectations, then, were ridiculously high- but we all know how that turned out. Killzone launched on the PS2 in November of 2004 (just a few days before Halo 2 came out, in fact)- and the general consensus was that Guerrilla Games’ shooter was a sour disappointment.Some aspects of the first Killzone were praised quite a lot, such as its stunning visuals to its gritty, hard sci-fi war setting.

But when it came to the things that really mattered, Killzone came up short. A poorly written and poorly told story, uninteresting characters, stupid AI that made the shooting half as good as it could have been otherwise, and a spate of technical issues and bugs were just a few of the game’s most commonly cited problems.

A Halo-killer it was not – not even close, in fact – and the disappointing nature of the game was only propounded manifold in light of the ridiculous levels of hype and excitement surrounding it before its release.In spite of that, however, Sony clearly saw some potential in it. Killzone may have been poorly received by critics and fans alike, but Sony had clearly seen enough from its sales and seen enough potential in the game itself that it was willing to turn it into a franchise, and let Guerrilla learn from its mistakes.