Preview: Killzone Mercenary

It only takes a second after you let go of the dropship before the rocket hits. You unfold your wing suit and soar through the skies as lightning and explosions engulf you. A brief moment later one of your comrades get shot and he spins uncontrollably out of view. You’re on your own.

Two thoughts instantly crossed my mind as I jumped through the hatch of the cableway cart and raised my gun, preparing for whatever hell I was in for. The first was how familiar this felt. A strange sensation of playing a well known franchise the way it was meant to be played, but on a Vita. I immediately started moving around in the small space available just to get a sense of the movement and controls, and it was great. I’ll get back to my second thought in a minute, but first let’s talk about Killzone: Mercenary and what I played.

My preview of KZ:M took place on a Helghan base (as they often do), and lasted about 20 minutes. After a somewhat hazardous landing I was tasked with the job of taking out two Arc Towers and turning them against the Helghast themselves. All I had to do was get to the consoles, hack them and watch the fireworks. Right outside the starting point, and spread around the level, are weapon stores in the shape of a giant box you tap into. Money can be earned by various ways of killing enemies, hacking and completing missions. Your arsenal consist of a primary and secondary weapon, a special attachment like a drone, missile launcher or cloaking devices, grenades and armor. As is the norm, each thing you can buy has its special traits. You can get armor that’s light, heavy or almost makes you invisible. Combined with a silenced hand weapon and a drone that efficiently impales people in the head, a stealth approach definitely becomes an option, as well as going in all guns blazing of course.

It is a familiar sight, and as such this doesn’t stray far away from the Killzone recipe. The colors and tone of the level is very reminiscence of previous titles which means you’re definitely playing a Killzone game, but also means that based on this level alone, it doesn’t offer up anything new. What I will say though is that for a Vita title it looks absolutely stunning. The graphical fidelity, animation and details in this game makes it almost comparable with the console versions. It’s a shame though that a lot of this is hidden behind a mountain of HUD elements. A total of seven elements are on screen at all times: A big radar, your rank, your money balance, secondary weapon, primary weapon, grenade option and position (prone, standing). When you approach interactive objects you get one in the middle of the screen as well. I’m sure some of these elements could’ve been mapped to buttons to free up some of the space on-screen.

Being a Vita title, Killzone: Mercenary does of course take advantage of the tech available to it, and sadly falls into a few pitfalls that I wish were a thing of the past. I’m completely fine interacting with icons on outer edges of the screen, like weapon changing and grenades, but the second you put something in the middle of the screen that I have to click on, I get mildly annoyed. Whenever you’re supposed to take actions like pushing a button, pulling a lever, stealth kill someone or pick up ammo you have interact with a prompt in the middle of your view. Thankfully they have also made it optional to click triangle to perform said actions, but the prompt will still cover up some of the real estate that’s better spent on showing how gorgeous this game is. Picking up ammo by clicking anything at all still feels old fashioned to me, as well as having to swipe the screen after I’ve clicked something to perform a stealth kill. I would advice you to check out the control options to avoid some other frustrations, as crouch and run is mapped to the same button which can cause some accidental alarm raising. What does work well with touch features is the hacking mini-game used to unlock intel. You are presented with a simple but timed match-the-pattern puzzle, and since it fills your whole screen it makes perfect sense to use touch controls.

Despite this there is a lot to fall in love with in Killzone: Mercenary. The drone action is some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time in a game. Controlling a flying killing machine and successfully taking out a whole room without being noticed is hugely satisfying and incredibly cool. Another one lets you simply tap on an enemy and heat seeking rockets will send them to their doom. You can switch out your arsenal, including drones at every weapon depot and there’s plenty of them. The weight of movement and weapons has been perfected since KZ2 and KZ3 and it’s a joy to play this game on a hand-held.

I have played first person shooters on Vita before, and this brings me to my second thought: Why was Resistance: Burning Skies and Call of Duty: Declassified even made when we could’ve had something like this? Based on this preview alone, this is what Sony needs to promote dual sticks on a hand-held, and that a first person shooter can exist on such a device.

Killzone: Mercenary is looking out to be one of the best looking Vita titles when it launches later in September. It also plays pretty damn great. Could it be a reason alone to buy a Vita? We’ll let you know in the final verdict.