News

movie · by **movie** » 31 Jan 2013 00:52

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killzone:_Mercenary

Killzone: Mercenary is an upcoming first-person shooter video game for the PlayStation Vita. Developed by Guerrilla Cambridge, it is the second hand-held title in the Killzone series of video games, and fifth overall. It is scheduled for a 2013 release. It is the first installment to not be developed by Guerrilla Games directly.

For the first time in a Killzone campaign, players will be fighting alongside Helghast forces as well as ISA specialists, carrying out missions that the regular soldiers just won’t — or can’t. As a mercenary, players are free to decide which tactics and loadouts they’ll use to fulfill their contract; employers will reward players with weaponry and money if successfully completed. The game will utilize PS Vita's touch screen and rear touch panel to some extent.

Announce Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W38ycjEvZQw

http://www.ppe.pl/news-17281-Nadchodzi_ ... nary!.html

movie · by **movie** » 31 Jan 2013 04:20

New trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfZbJ5Z5c3k
A Guide to Weaponry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOy5ztkZr3c#!

Some single player details from http://www.vg247.com/2013/01/31/killzon ... 3-to-vita/

Killzone: Mercenary single-player – from PS3 to Vita

Killzone: Mercenary may be a fresh take on Guerrilla’s shooter for Vita, but the PS3 quality of the experience is largely intact. Roll on September, says Patrick Garratt.

We arrive at the coffeeshop, one of the most famous in Amsterdam, too late. It’s mid-week, so the bouncer sends us to another bar round the corner, a black, empty hole. It’s full of cigarette smoke. Gangnam Style is bellowing from the PA at such volume that Killzone: Mercenary director Piers Jackson is forced to shout into my ear.

“There’s a tipping point,” he yells. “There’s a tipping point where it goes from being an FPS to being Killzone. It feels like a Killzone game now.”

He puffs his cheeks out, as if he’s told me something momentous. Mercenary, the fifth Killzone game and the first for Vita, is the first chapter in the franchise made outside the Guerrilla headquarters in Amsterdam. There have clearly been some nerves, but thankfully any doubts over collaborating with Sony Cambridge on a full project (Cambridge contributed to both Killzone 2 and 3) have been dispelled. Mercenary couldn’t be anything other than Killzone.

You play muscular grunt Arran Danner. He’s a body-suited skinhead with an assault rifle, as is every combatant in Killzone. He murders people and blows stuff up for money, whether working for human or helghast. Mercenary’s first contract is set just after the events of Killzone 1. It lasts “6-8 hours” in single-player, has six multiplayer maps and three online modes.

The campaign isn’t far removed from the Killzone 3 experience. It’s built on the same tech, and keeping the emphasis on cover, spectacle and grit gives you the more considered take on sci-fi shooting you expect from these games.

Lightning Strike, single-player’s third level, starts with a drop-in by wingsuit through a sky speckled with platforms disintegrating from upward fire. It’s objective-based and certainly a “full console experience”. Killzone’s signature gameplay means you’re not just running at the enemy, and precision shooting works well with Vita’s twin sticks. Your opponents have to plan position just as carefully as you do, and you’re able to pick them off from a distance as they cower. Headshots work best.

Danner’s role in the level is to hack computers, kill attackers and eventually defend a transformer from helghast soldiers so your compatriots can power-up some cannons. The enemy AI is noticeably excellent. I was flanked repeatedly, and forced to make solid use of cover to progress.

The “brutal melee” system introduced in Killzone 3 has been linked to Vita’s touchscreen. You tap it when you’re close enough to an enemy, then swipe in whatever direction the game picks to get nasty with your knife. Again, this happens at a manageable pace, as is befitting the format. The languid stabbing’s like killing in a dream. Not that I regularly kill people in dreams, of course.

Every kill and completed objective gives you Vectan dollars to spend with Blackjack, a weapons dealer. His shop – which looks suspiciously like the PS Store – allows you buy and equip gear, either through in-level crates or at the start of missions. Blackjack has daily specials, primary weapons, secondary weapons, equipment (such as differing types of grenades), and armour. The entire game’s based on money. Everything you earn in single-play can be taken over to multiplay, and vice versa.

Replayability is a focus. Every single-player level has three difficulty settings (Recruit, Veteran and Elite) and four contract types, three of which (Precision, Covert and Demolition) are unlocked when you complete a Basic run-through. All require different tactics and afford different awards. Assuming it’s as good as it should be, you could be playing Mercenary for a long time.

Guerrilla’s focus, MD Herman Hulst tells me at the end of the day in his office overlooking the Herengracht canal, was to create a benchmark portable shooter, a console-style game which took total advantage of the Vita format. It’s Killzone, but it’s handheld. It’s still a way off, but there’s a good chance the Dutch studio and its Cambridge partners will deliver on the project’s intentions.

And multiplayer: http://www.vg247.com/2013/01/31/killzon ... -shanking/

Killzone: Mercenary multiplayer – shorelines and shanking

Killzone: Mercenary is looking to deliver the full FPS experience on Vita, packing six multiplayer maps and three modes. Patrick Garratt gets helghasty deathmatchy.

Killzone: Mercenary, the fifth Killzone title and the first for Vita, is a console video game. There’s nothing “bite-size” about it. It has a single-player portion Guerrilla’s promising will last 6-8 hours, and a multiplayer side consisting of six 4-v-4 maps and three modes. The online aspect is of a significant size.

The level I played at Guerrilla’s office in Amsterdam last week was called Shoreline. We tried a team deathmatch mode and free-for-all. Its look is instantly recognisable as Killzone 3, with waves crashing up through a series of walkways and the series’s trademark neon-sludge palette coating the geometry. Six custom load-outs were available in the build. You carry two weapons, so there was a soldier type with an assault rifle and a rocket launcher, a sniper with a pistol, and so on.

Grenades and weapon-swapping are handled via the touch-screen, with small buttons placed on the right-hand side of the display. It works fine.

Throughout play, Vanguards (equipment pods) are dropped onto the map, presumably from your benevolent friends in the sky. They grant power-ups, and are activated by walking up to them and pressing the screen. If you’re the first to arrive you grab a perk, which, again, is activated by touch. Goodies include Porcupine homing missiles, Sky Fury drones, and a flying thing called Manty’s Engine which kills people by pinching them to death. Plenty to keep you occupied.

Whenever anyone dies they drop a playing card, which is related to rank. The level was littered with the two of diamonds early on in the day, but by the evening we were seeing eights and nines. This is a bit like dog-tags in CoD. You get money for picking them up. In fact, you get money for everything. All the cash you collate in the game is emptied into a single account and stays with your character through Killzone: Mercenary, both in single-player and multiplayer.

There’s no aim assist in Mercenary multiplayer right now, and I was told it’s still under discussion as to whether it’s to be included (there’s an iron-sight lock-on in the campaign), but you can fiddle with the sensitivity as much as you like. We were told in a presentation that you can tilt the console to alter sniper aim, but I couldn’t get it to work. Melee attacks can be instigated through the touch-screen, just as in the campaign. There’ll probably always be something intrinsically satisfying about shanking a competitor in the neck, and nothing allows you to do it better than Killzone.

As with single-player, there’s a slow pace to online play, even when you’re running. (As a note, I actually couldn’t work out how to run. I had to be told how to do it in my interview. Some of the controls are still work-in-progress.) You quickly learn to take your time. It’s far removed from CoD’s run-twitch, and if you’re not paying close attention to what’s happening in the distance you won’t last long.

Graphics-wise it’s pretty, and unmistakably “Killzone”. There’s obviously not complete parity with the PS3 version and the framerate’s noticeably lower, but there’s no question it’s a good-looking game. It’s worth bearing in mind that Mercenary isn’t out till September, so there’s plenty of time for optimisation.

My biggest take-aways from my time with Killzone: Mercenary’s multiplayer is that it’s fully featured and unquestionably enjoyable. The franchise’s online play is woefully under-recognised, in my opinion, with Killzone 3′s multiplayer being a shocking amount of fun. Mercenary isn’t Call of Duty, nor is it supposed to be. Given that the woeful Black Ops Declassified is the current shooter benchmark for Vita, Guerrilla’s certain to be pleased about that.