Previews

Hands-on with upcoming Vita shooter Killzone: Mercenary

Heaven or Helghan?

Hands-on with upcoming Vita shooter Killzone: Mercenary

When the PS Vita was unveiled, among its most lauded characteristics was its pair of analogue sticks. At last there would be a handheld device that was perfect for first-person shooters.

So far, though, a great Vita FPS has failed to materialise. There's been the good (but could be much better) Resistance: Burning Skies, and the totally awful Call of Duty: Black Ops - Declassified (which you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy). And that's about it.

With Killzone: Mercenary, Sony has another shot at cracking the FPS nut, and if the preview build we've been playing is anything to go by it's got a good chance of succeeding.

We had access to a single-player level called Lightning Strike, which sees you landing inside a heavily defended Helghast military base.

The Helghans (the baddies with glowing eyes) have a weapon that shoots highly charged beams of energy out through the atmosphere toward the ships of the ISA (the jock heroes). It's your job to take this weapon out of action, giving the ISA a window of safety as they approach the planet.

You arrive in on one of those flying platforms that seem to be in every Killzone game, and - like in every Killzone game - a proportion of the passengers on it die horribly.

As you infiltrate the base by unlocking doors, bypassing security, and deactivating the mega weapon, you're kept company over radio by the gruff meathead Benoit, who acts as your guide.

Every narrative element is there to simply justify a feature of the gameplay. The mysterious Blackjack is a weapons dealer who has bizarrely managed to sneak very obvious caches of weapons and ammo behind enemy lines, and you can use the money you earn while playing to purchase stuff from him.

Getting headshots, meleeing enemies, and even just picking up ammo all earn you more cash - putatively as a reward from your employer. This lets you grow progressively more skilful.

In a welcome departure for the series, the Lightning Strike level casts you as a lone infiltrating soldier against a large force. This numerical imbalance encourages you to approach different situations in different ways.

You can go in loud through the front door, or you can climb a drain pipe up to the roof and take a few shots from above to thin the enemy numbers before leaping in. You're given a silenced pistol, too, so once you're in you can continue to use stealth to your advantage.

Using the touchscreen to hack into security panels and sneaking around corners to avoid security cameras makes you feel far more grounded in reality than in previous Killzone games - despite the fact that you're on an alien planet in the distant future.

Thankfully, the uses of the touchscreen are simple and effective. You can change weapons with a tap of the screen, or target enemies with special limited-use weapons. It's also used in code-cracking puzzles, and to perform brutal melee kills.

The UI is full of information, with character portraits popping up; a level map at all times; dedicated virtual buttons to change weapon and to select grenades; and context-sensitive button prompts. It doesn't affect gameplay from what we've seen so far, but it does restrict your view.

Other than these changes, this is home console Killzone but in your hands. Your avatar is heavier than your Gordon Freemans and your Nathan Hales, and you have to swing your weapons around to face your targets, all of which takes some getting used to if you're yet to play an entry in the series.

The individual enemy AI is decent, with Helghans taking cover and reacting to how you lay down fire. They don't work as well in groups, though, as they don't seem to communicate with their comrades. For example, one Helghast soldier was firing thousands of rounds at me, while his mate was sauntering about in the background unaware and unfazed.

Weapons hit anyone foolish enough to be stood in front of them really, really hard, and death animations are particularly gruesome. Helghast bodies go limp, for example, as they're riddled with bullets. Or the Helghans stagger away from the impact clutching themselves. Occasionally, they're not quite dead, and you can move in for a "mercy" kill.

On a lighter note, from what I've seen the "headshot helmet pinging" the franchise has become notorious for has disappeared. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Presentation is excellent, with high-quality sound effects and atmospheric music. The stark lighting model makes for an otherworldly portrait of war, and Killzone: Mercenary contains all the little lens flare and dust cloud effects that you've come to expect from futuristic first-person shooters.

The fidelity has taken a hit in the transition to Vita, as you'd expect, but it's smooth and detailed. Very occasionally, the engine pauses for a moment, usually at a big new encounter with enemies, but there's time for the developer to iron that out.

Killzone: Mercenary is set for release on September 6th, and I'm excited to see what the finished product will look like. The multiplayer and the rest of the campaign are still unknown quantities, but the little that we've seen so far is very promising indeed.

Peter Willington
Peter Willington
Die hard Suda 51 fan and professed Cherry Coke addict, freelancer Peter Willington was initially set for a career in showbiz, training for half a decade to walk the boards. Realising that there's no money in acting, he decided instead to make his fortune in writing about video games. Peter never learns from his mistakes.