If Killzone 3’s cinematics were compiled into a Hollywood movie, they’d make Battlefield Earth look like Blade Runner by comparison. It’s a shame that there are so many of them, since they’re a constant interruption of a game that ranges from good to excellent during the moments that you’re in control of what is happening on screen.

It may seem churlish to carp about the quality of a story in a first-person shooter (FPS), but you’ll spend 90 minutes or nearly a quarter of the time you invest on a Killzone 3 playthrough watching cut scenes. Game developers that are going to position story as a major element of their games should at least hire decent writers to script them.

Killzone 3 arrives just two years after its predecessor, a flagship exclusive for the PlayStation 3. It’s a worthy sequel to its much-hyped predecessor, though it adds as many new problems as it solves to a franchise that has always been divisive among reviewers and fans alike. It picks up where the player character Sev and his space-marine buddies left off the fight with those space Stalinists, the Helghast, in Killzone 2.

Killzone 2 took some fire for the lack of variety in both its gameplay and its environments. Developer Guerrilla Games has taken the criticism to heart and has thrown a host of new gameplay mechanics and locales into the mix.

The game’s on-foot shooting sections are broken up by far more on-rails shooting and vehicular combat sections than Killzone 2 offered, and there are some neat twists on the straightforward FPS elements of the game to discover as well. Killzone 3’s set-piece moments are nothing short of stunning, partly thanks to the terrific visual and audio design.

This “more-is-more” approach is a mixed blessing. It adds welcome diversity to the game, but it also makes it feel a lot more like rivals such as Call of Duty than did Killzone 2. This feeling is compounded by the fact that Killzone 3 dials back some of the more tactical elements present in its predecessor. Sev’s movement and the aiming of his weapons no longer feel as weighty as they did in Killzone 2; the game focuses more on straight-ahead shooting than on careful cover-to-cover play.

The pacing of the campaign also feels somewhat choppy. The game rushes from a cinematic to an on-rails shooting segment to a straightforward shooting sequence and between Helghan’s jungles, frozen wastelands, and scarred cityscapes without taking a moment to breathe. But even though Killzone 3 doesn’t hang together as cohesively as Killzone 2, its standout moments are both more memorable and numerous.

The real meat of Killzone 3 is the multiplayer component, which offers a truly credible alternative to the Call of Duty and Halo franchises. It’s a class-based team shooter that feels like a clever blend of

Team Fortress, Battlefield and Call of Duty. The refinements Killzone 3 adds to multiplayer make the game feel faster-paced and more accessible than its predecessor.

The unlockable rewards you’ll earn as you spend time with multiplayer are nicely paced, there’s a good selection of modes to pick from, and the abilities and weapons available to different classes (engineers, medics, marksmen and so on) are nicely balanced.

Though the maps aren’t quite as well designed as those of Killzone 2, they are still reasonably good. Guerilla has committed to releasing more multiplayer maps in the months to come. One neat feature carried over from Killzone 2 is a “botmatch” mode where you can hone your multiplayer skills against computer AI before taking the fight to human opponents online.

Of course, Killzone 2 existed largely as a showcase for the technical prowess of the PlayStation 3, and the same is true of Killzone 3. The already impressive visuals of Killzone 2 have been cranked up to produce one of the most striking games you’ll find on the PlayStation 3. Lighting and particle effects are sublime throughout the game, which manages to maintain a crisp frame rate irrespective of what is happening onscreen at any given moment.

The game is packed with detail and motion — consider the smoke and snow swirling around your character in a wintery landscape battered by icy waves in one of the game’s many striking pieces of eye candy. Impressively, the game maintains its graphical splendour even in online multiplayer and local split-screen cooperative games.

Killzone 3 trailer (via YouTube):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWrduBxozT8

Two key new features include support for 3D visuals and an option to use the PlayStation 3 Move motion-control scheme. I didn’t have the opportunity to test the retail version of the game with a 3D television. As for the motion controls, they’re serviceable, but most people will find the traditional Dual-Shock 3 controller to be more accurate and responsive.

Killzone 3 is a stunning advertisement for the PlayStation 3’s capabilities. Despite flawed storytelling and pacing in the single player campaign, it comes highly recommended to FPS fans looking for a technically impressive shooter. — Lance Harris, TechCentral