Trying every PS-Plus Extra game: Killzone: Shadow Fall

whoisjohn (78)in #gaming • 2 years ago

If there was a formula that I could give to developers about how it is that they can frustrate me and a load of other potential players out there into NOT WANTING to play their game it would consist of many things including the following.

Put a really long cinematic at the start of the game followed closely thereafter by loads of other cinematics, some of which are unskippable right at the start of the game
Make the font so that it is only usable by people with eagle-eye vision or PC gamers who sit 20 inches from their monitors
Throw all the controls at the player in the first 15 minutes rapid-fire and use all the buttons on the controller as well

This would do the job in making me not want to play almost any game out there and unfortunately *Killzone: Shadow Fall does precisely this.

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Now before I continue I want to remind everyone that I reviewed this game the same way that I review all of the PS-Plus Extra games. This means that I evaluate it ONLY from the experience from an average gamer that they will encounter in the first hour of gameplay. I am not trying to suggest that my opinion about the overall game is valid. I'm quite certain that there are plenty of games out there that I have been less-than-impressed with that are actually great games but just do a very poor job of introducing a new player to how it works.

That being said, even though I really thought the story in Killzone Shadow Fall was solid, I couldn't get past the fact that at least from my standpoint, they did almost everything wrong in the first hour of gameplay.

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As expected, there was a long as hell cinematic at the start of the game that gives you the background of what is going on in the world you find yourself in. This is expected unfortunately in most games these days but thankfully, you were allowed to skip it, which I did. Then they do a movement tutorial that I think they actually did pretty well with. They teach you basic movements like jumping, crouching, running, etc and this was done with a rather emotional story about how your father was trying to save you and dies in the process. Thus begins your journey of revenge as you are raised by foster parents and the resistance.

Then you are subjected to more and more cinematics which were skippable but at this point I thought that if I did skip them I might miss some critical elements of gameplay so I watched them anyway. They weren't that long thankfully.

The next part, where you enter your tutorial for the real "meat and potatoes" of the game is where I feel as though the game completely falls apart as far as the average game player is going to be concerned.

First off, they try to teach you the more advanced tactics in the game in at a very rapid pace. Too rapid in-fact. By the time I retrieved my weapons cache I had a difficult time remembering what any of the controls were and this resulted in me getting wiped, cornered, and overwhelmed by enemies on the EASY setting. In my mind, the first levels of a game should be absolute pushovers until you can get some grasp on what the hell you are supposed to be doing. They also don't give you a very clear idea of where you are supposed to be heading.

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One of the biggest problems that I had was the fact that they tell you that you need to shut off the alarms in order to prevent never-ending reinforcements from arriving, but unless I missed something very critical they never told me where the alarms were or how to shut them down. Keeping in mind that I am being fired at from the front and now from behind from the reinforcements and you have a guy who is getting very frustrated.

I'm only about 20 minutes into the actual gameplay and am already required to use most of the buttons on the controller. I don't know who this sort of throwing you to the wolves situation appeals to, but it certainly isn't me.

You have a robot helper that attacks for you and it was only by accident that I found out that this little drone fella is how you shut off the alarms. I found this out by accident. Despite the fact that I was playing the game on the easiest setting I was getting killed over and over again by the very first open section of the game. This should not happen IMO

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Next up comes my biggest complaint with the game: You actually CAN access all the mysterious controls on a pause menu but the font and background they use make it pretty tough to read. I'm not blind but my eyesight isn't perfect and I play on a 50 inch screen that is about 2 meters from where I sit on my sofa. I had to stand up in order to be able to read this stuff and I don't want to do that. Maybe this sounds nitpicky to some of you out there but I think this is a terrible flaw in this, and many other games like it. They are trying to be edgy with their font and what not, but to me it just makes it too difficult to read.

Apparently this is the 6th release of the Killzone franchise and I have never played any of the previous titles. Perhaps if I had the controls are very similar across all the games and that would make it a lot easier for returning players. I am not a returning player so while the game might have been designed with those veterans in mind, it isn't very comfortable for new players like me.

I stopped playing after my required one-hour of playtime and immediately deleted it from the hard drive. This game might appeal to hardcore players with more patience than I have or for those who are fans of the previous games. For people completely new to the franchise, I believe this game does an absolutely terrible job of introducing you to the controls.

Overall the game is too tough for average players and they do a pretty bad job of introducing gameplay to you. Not recommended for new players

Games I have already tried in my journey to play at least 1-hour of every PS-Plus Extra game

Gravity Rush 2 (action adventure game with fast movement in every direction. It has RPG elements and a pretty decent story. Make it past the first hour and the game really opens up. Recommended)
Oddworld: Soulstorm (2D+ platformer with great graphics, sound, and voice-acting. Unfortunately it is plagued with a lot of repetition. Recommended for a few hours)
Bee Simulator (sort of like a flying FPS game but with no combat. It's graphically impressive and filled with tidbits of knowledge about bees... unfortunately it is repetitive as hell and gets boring fast. Not recommended)
Prison Architect (a prison management simulator game similar to SimCity. It's a great game but just like most simulation games, it just isn't very playable using a controller. Not recommended on PS4)
Hotline Miami 2 (a top-down shooter with gruesome violence and terrible AI. Would be great for speedrunners and hardcore gamers. Casuals like me are going to quickly tire with it)
Battle Chasers: Nightwar (turn based RPG of medium-length that does a good job of teaching you how to play in the first hour. It's pretty old-school and I happen to like that... recommended)
Chorus (3rd person open-world space fighting game. It's graphically impressive but combat is too repetitive to really hold your interest for the entire story. Still recommended though.)
Portal Knights (a very well made survival action builder game similar to Minecraft. I really enjoyed this and look forward to playing it more. Recommended)
Saints Row: The Third (clever and funny FPS game that intentionally puts you in impossible and absurd situations. It's innovative and humorous but ultimately quite dated and got repetitive and boring pretty quick. Not recommended)
Balan Wonderworld (A rather beautiful 3D(ish) platformer that is extremely easy but still engaging enough to hold your attention for a few hours. Recommended for casual gamers)
The Artful Escape (an adventure game of sorts with awesome visuals and music, but repetitive areas and controls combined with IMO far too much dialogue makes this game get boring, fast... Worth a look but not recommended to play)
Until Dawn (interactive horror game that you don't really control a great deal of. It's reasonably entertaining, you can't lose, and the graphics and sound a pretty great. It's not really a game but I enjoyed it and played it to its finish. Recommended)
11-11: Memories Retold (a WW1 story that doesn't actually involve much input on the player's part. The game is very boring despite having a wonderful graphical style: Not recommended)
Desperados 3 (a real time tactics / stealth game that I personally do not feel belongs on consoles at all. If you have never played these sorts of games on PC your opinion might be different. This one gets a "maybe.")
Maneater (Action RPG where you play the role of a deadly shark. The idea is decent but ultimately the extremely repetitive gameplay makes this one easy to miss. Not recommended)
TorqueL (physics puzzle platformer that is simplistic at first but quickly becomes maddeningly difficult. Gets boring pretty quickly on consoles and would be better suited as a time-waster on mobile devices. Not recommended on PS4)
Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon: Turn-based cutesy RPG that is extremely story-driven just like anything Square is involved in. If you are huge fan of Final Fantasy you might like it, for me it was one hour then done forever.
XCOM 2 : (Turn-based Sci-Fi game set in a dystopian future where you are part of the rebellion. Despite a very slow start IMO the game really gets involved later on... recommended)
Darksiders Genesis (Top-down hack and slash that reminds me a lot of Diablo 3 but with a more restricted environment. It's very fast paced and as easy or difficult as you want it to be. It's a lot of fun and therefore comes highly recommended.)
Guardians of the Galaxy (a copy/paste of so many other RPG's out there with too many cutscenes as is so typical of Square-Enix. Recommended for superfans of the movies, but not for really anyone else.)
Injustice 2 (a DC comics oriented fighting game with tons of characters and IMO extremely complicated gameplay. It could be great for someone who is willing to devote enough time to memorizing all of this, but I am not that guy.)
Life is Strange: Before the Storm episode 1 (A graphic adventure that isn't really a game so much as it is a movie that you have some control over. Recommended for people looking for something extremely casual but with a very well-written story)
Evil Dead: The Game (a team based multiplayer game that has the humor and gore that you would expect from anything done by Evil Dead. Unfortunately, it doesn't really stand out from the pack well enough for me to give it high props. Recommended for a short while - see if you disagree with me)
Immortals: Fenyx Rising (A Zelda-esque open-world game based on Greek mythology that is one of the best games I have played in a while. Highly recommended)
Pixel Piracy (an 8-bit adventure game of sorts that puts you in the role of a pirate ship commander. I'd love to tell you what the objective in this game is, but I don't know what it is. I was extremely bored after the required 1-hour of play and immediately deleted the game from my hard drive. Not recommended)
I am Satsuna (an old-school turn-based RPG developed by Squre Enix that functions exactly like Squaresoft games from the 90's. Recommended for people who really love that sort of game environment but not so much for anyone else)
Killzone: Shadow Fall (an open-world(ish) FPS game with RPG elements. I found the interface to be hard on the eyes and that they really do a terrible job of teaching you how to actually play the game. Not recommended for average gamers but possibly a real winner for veterans of the franchise because the story seems quite good.)