Killzone Mercenary

I was once dispatched by Jeff Rothschild to help out Id Software on Quake's networking code on DOS. After I was done with the work, I was invited by Carmack, Romero, and Cash to a friendly LAN game of Quake. "We'll give you all the weapons and come after you with axes." That match barely lasted 15s, with me dead and all I was carrying gone. As you can imagine, I'm not a great first person shooter (FPS) gamer, nor is the FPS my favorite choice of genre.However, I'm cheap and love a good deal, so when PSN had a sale on Killzone Mercenary and I saw the rave reviews online, I picked it up. I tried the first mission and died very quickly, and so dismissed it as being too hard for a noob like me until I bought my brother a PS Vita Slim for his birthday. Unlike me, he's a FPS aficionado, and so I started playing the game again in the hopes that we could do a multiplayer game one of these days. Surprisingly, the PS Vita Slim has been sold out on all on-line stores, so if you want one my advice is to place an order with Amazon and then be patient while it ships. This is surprising news because up until now the PS Vita simply has not sold well at all.First of all, the graphics on Killzone is gorgeous. The lighting is superb, the textures brilliant. The sunrise or sunset scenes are beautiful, and the game play graphics is so true to form that the first few times I hit a cut-scene I kept on fiddling with the joystick and buttons expecting to have control over the character!The storyline is even interesting for a FPS. The conceit is that you're a mercenary working for pay, hired (initially) by one side to help out in a war. This is supported by the game: everything you do from shooting an enemy, interrogation, or hacking into a system has financial implications. You can then spend your booty on weapons, ammunition, and armor upgrades at the frequently found vending machines in the game that also double as checkpoint save locations. The storyline has several twist and turns, and soon you end up working for both sides and discovering how untrustworthy your initial impressions were.In addition to the primary, secondary, tertiary weapons (grenades), and armor, there's also a special type of weapon system called a Vanguard. This is additional gadgetry that you might see in a modern battlefield today, giving you the ability to pilot a killer drone, cloak you, or call down artillery strikes. These are very expensive, so don't expect to buy more than a couple on your first play-through. They add to the game somewhat but maybe if you have all of them you might not find the game challenging.Once I got through the first mission, the rest of the game was fairly addictive. In fact, at one point I zipped through several missions without even realizing it, and found myself at the last mission under-equipped to face my enemies. At that point I had to quit out, go back to some earlier missions, and replay them with an eye on making extra money so I could buy the appropriate weapons to finish the game. With Bioshock, I complained that this was too much of a chore, and gave up on the game entirely. Killzone, however, is fun to play and the gameplay is designed to let you flip back to previous missions and play them again without having to go through the campaign again linearly, so this was a minor annoyance at worse.There's a multiplayer mode, which I tried. But as mentioned previously, I suck at FPS games. I think my contribution to the multiplayer game is to be a target to be shot at and a source of loot. It's definitely not something I'd try for fun. The flaw here is that because I'd nearly played through the single player game before trying multi-player, my in-game rank was pretty high, and so instead of getting put in with other newbies, I was placed with experienced players and pretty much got wiped out every time.Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun and could see myself going back and playing the single player game again at a higher difficulty level or to try out the special missions. I'm also interested in getting some of the stronger weapons to see how it impacts the game. I'm also now interested in going back to try out other Killzone games on my PS 3.Coming from a non-FPS fan, this is high praise indeed. If you own a PS Vita, buy this game even if you normally wouldn't play an FPS. Highly recommended.

I picked this up on Black Friday for half the normal retail price and you to be honest with you it's worth the full MSRP. This game is surprisingly good. I say that as I play FPS competitively so I was reluctant to pick up this game because honestly the killzone trilogy on PS3 was not my type of thing. I hated the "weighted" controls and ditched those games quickly. However the controls on this game are actually very good and not "weighted" at all (think KZ shadowfall on PS4). At first I had a hard time getting used to it b/c the Vita's analog sticks are small and they don't click in nor to they have the same range of movement as the ones on the DUALSHOCK, however after some time I really got used to them. Here is an example of how the devs made use of the Vita's limited buttons compared to DUALSHOCK. To sprint you tap circle and you character runs automatically while you just guide him in the traditional way you would on a FPS. Want to stop sprinting, simply press circle again and you character will stop. This may seem crazy but trust me it's actually an extremely natural control scheme on the vita. Also you switch weapons by pressing the switch weapon button on the touchscreen as opposed to using the face buttons. This is actually better b/c the switch weapon button is in the lower right hand corner of the screen and it's actually easier (faster) to move your thumb from the analog to the bottom touch screen as to reaching up to the touch one of the face buttons. You use the touchscreen to melee and it's pretty cool actually. When you get close to an enemy a prompt to melee will flash and you tap the touchscreen to begin the melee in or you can simply press triangle. Once you begin the melee animation, you are presented with a of quick time event (a keen to God of War) whereas you are presented with a random direction to swipe on the touchscreen to perform the melee. To counter this, depending on if the melee is an assassination (behind the back) or melee from the front the enemy player will have an opportunity to counter the melee by swiping in a random direction. It's actually well done. I could go on and on about the controls but they are very well executed by the devs.Also the weapon selection is extremely robust. There is a primary and secondary weapon for everybody in this game. Oh yeah the graphics are AMAZING! Seriously, your mouth will drop when you see the graphics. The MP is very, very good. In fact I have yet to play the campaign, I've been to busy playing MP. My friends and I all have this game and KZ Shadowfall for PS4 and we all agree that the Mercenary's MP is in some ways is much better than Shadowfall's MP. I'm really glad I took a chance on this game I'm in no way disappointed and you won't be either if you purchase this game b/c for once the internet was right, this game rocks.P.S. if you are obsessed with trophies like I am, then be warned this game takes after the other KZ games with a long trophy list that will take some time to earn. I estimate the time to get the Platinum trophy is 40-50 hours.

This game is pretty awesome and i love it very much!!!! Thanks for kingoftradeonline for good service!!! See you again nextime!

Es un excelente juego, con muy buenas gráficas y bastante entretenido, el mejor que he jugado hasta ahorita con PS Vita.

日本のPS vitaで操作可能です。当然音声も字幕も全て英語。日本国内版との大きな違いは、ゴア表現が解禁されていること。つまり、局所破壊力が高い銃でヘッドショットをすると、頭部が吹っ飛び、血液が頸からピューピュー吹き出ます。最初は、オォすげーと思いましたが、見慣れてくると飽きてきます笑

hello, this game was really impresive. a psvita must have.

Just like new! 100%functional