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Who is your favourite Killzone 1 hero? This poll is closed. |
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| Templar |
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7 | 3.24% |
| Rico |
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14 | 6.48% |
| Luger |
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23 | 10.65% |
| Hakha |
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64 | 29.63% |
| Don't talk to me about Killzone 1 |
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108 | 50.00% |
| Total: | 216 votes | ||
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Goddamnit, crow, I blame you for this. How does Stargate keep happening??? EDIT: look at Kurt Russel motor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvhR0qvIZcg Sally fucked around with this message at 16:03 on May 6, 2015 |
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May 6, 2015 15:27
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nine-gear crow posted:We also learn what has befallen Rico in the half hour since we sent him out to find a medpack you should literally be able to trip over thanks to their ubiquity on Helghast-dominated battlefields and now. He's been capture by Metrac as well. 1. Rico literally trips over a medpack and incapacitates himself. 2. Rico finds the medpacks. Helghast medpacks. He is frozen in rage and indecision. A passing Helghast soldier manages to wedge a handtruck under his boots and carts him away. Blind Sally posted:EDIT: look at Kurt Russel motor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvhR0qvIZcg
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May 6, 2015 22:29
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Fish Noise posted:I'm imagining it went either: Alternate: Rio finds the medpack full of  .
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May 6, 2015 23:00
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You know, I was watching that last video with Cjacobs again because the "work camp" thing was getting to me. It's a loving Borderlands town. Someone ripped off someone with that design. Either Guerrilla should be getting money from Gearbox or the other way around.
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May 8, 2015 02:12
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Fish Noise posted:I'm imagining it went either:  You know you want it. It could be yours:  Lazyfire posted:You know, I was watching that last video with Cjacobs again because the "work camp" thing was getting to me. Yeeeeeeeah. Huh. I dunno. They were developed and released around the same time, so maybe there was some cross-chatter? Maybe just a coincidence. I dunno. Maybe it's that kind of thing where two different movie studios release a super similar movie at about the same time. Like A Bug's Life and Antz. Or Mission To Mars and Red Planet. Or A Shark Tale and Finding Nemo.
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May 9, 2015 02:55
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Daniel Jackson will always be James Spader's least-creepiest roll.
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May 9, 2015 04:02
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Hey, I've had a major life event hold up the latest update: Sincerest apologies. New update forthcoming.
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May 19, 2015 04:04
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  As we enter the home stretch for Killzone: Liberation, Sally and I will joined for the rest of the LP by our good Internet Friend CJacobs. CJacobs, you might remember, previously joined us for Chapter 9 of Killzone 1, as well as the majority of Killzone 2 not commented on by Lazyfire. Sally and I have also joined CJacobs (and fellow Killzone 1 and Killzone 2 guest commentator JamieTheD) for the majority of Dead Space 3. He's also done some really sweet LPs of Resident Evil: Revelations 2 with Skippy Granola, and Spec Ops: The Line (where I and my esteemed goon colleagues Faerie Fortune, poorlywrittennovel, Tyty, FPZero, ddinkins and Mersenne make his life a living hell during the FUBAR Mode bonus stream!). This first video of Chapter 4 sees us whisked off to the last Helghast stronghold in Southern Vekta, their fortress and airfield in the Adlez Montains south of the Redavni Plains. We have two objectives ahead of us: locate and rescue both Rico and Evelyn Batton, and capture Armin Metrac and get him to reveal the identity of his ISA mole.   STAGE 1: INFILTRATION  First up, the stage names of this chapter all have –tion suffixes to them. I don’t know if this is just a coincidence or if it’s someone at Guerrilla being funny, but regardless, we’ll see the payoff to this naming scheme in the next update. And second off, oh poo poo we’re starting this stage on yet another rickety ISA Dropship. You know, after the disaster showing they put in last chapter, I can suddenly see why Vekta expedited the deployment of the Intruders for Killzone 2.  Templar  Actually, it’s someone we’re already very familiar with. Why, it’s Luger!  Yay Luger! You and Hakha were the best non-General Anime parts of Killzone 1.Chapter 4 is Luger’s first, and ultimately last physical appearance in Killzone: Liberation. You can play as her in multiplayer though, but you’ll have to unlock her first. To do so requires the Chapter 5 DLC, which you then need to beat on any difficulty level, and then score Gold Medals in each of the DLC’s 6 Challenge Mission minigames, which I touch on the updated Chapter 2 and will cover more in-depth in the Epilogue update. Beyond that, we also learn that Luger is a redhead, apparently. Well, more dark aburn, really, but the point remains, we now have a complete picture of what Luger looks like as a woman. Ironically, however, while she exposes her hair, she covers up her face in Liberation, even though we’ve already seen it in Killzone 1 (and made fun of its wacky proportions). …Aaaand we still don’t know whether or not Luger is her real name or a codename or whether it’s her first or last name if it’s the former. To this day, “Shadow Marshal Luger” remains one of the enduring mysteries of the Killzone franchise, and I’m actually kind of surprised that Guerrilla never published any supplementary material designed to flesh out her character like they have with just about every other character in the franchise. Perhaps it was intentional on Guerrilla’s part, as Luger is a black ops operative, after all. Literally the only tangible link between her and the audience is Templar. He’s the only person who knows anything about her having dated her in the past, and we’re gonna see how they part company for good in short order. Blind Sally and Neruz had this to add about the portrayal of Luger's face, or lack thereof, in the Killzone franchise: Blind Sally posted:I find the design changes for Luger kinda lame. She's joining us on a SNOW level. Why would she suddenly decide to wear less of her mask? At the very least, she'd want a toque or something. I mean, I understand the changes. With the camera zoomed out, Luger dressed entirely in black, with no ISA orange highlights, might be confused for a Helghast soldier. But why not give her some other visual qualifier? Adding some ISA orange isn't going to hurt. Giving Luger a ponytail reminds me of giving Ms Pac-Man a bow--it's because their both girls. Neruz posted:The mask problem again! Sometimes I feel like we will still be asking this exact same question "Why did this character take off their mask" a century from now and a century from now filmmakers and designers and whatnot will still be responding with "Because otherwise you can't tell who they are!" And they will still be wrong.  So just because she’s joining Templar Secondly, the ISA apparently didn’t even know this place existed until just recently (we can thank our carefully positioned mole for that one), and Luger was only able to triangulate its position by monitoring transmissions between Cobar’s spider tank and Metrac here at the base. And thirdly, we’ve found out that this is where the Helghast are storing the Red Dust bombs they stole from Rayhoven. So it looks like everything’s lining up for a nice neat Action Movie Finale. We’ll get the girl, save our best friend, defeat the villain, and recover the stolen nukes in one fell swoop, preferably while flying away from a giant fireball in a sweet rear end jet plane. …Or we would, if this wasn’t Killzone.  But because this IS Killzone we get to see the one thing nobody really cared about seeing in the first game again: Jan being kind of a dick to Luger. I should also point out, that this comes at the end of the first stage, so we've already been through about ten minutes worth of Luger being awesome and helping us out to get this far. So, no, Jan is not immediately sending her away like it kind of looks like he is when you go from the last screenshot to this one.   Actually, he’s cutting her loose to protect her. Ever the gentleman, eh Jan? Hey, what about Hakha’s court-marshal? Did you ever stop and think about tha—oh right, you can’t court-marshal a hallucination. My mistake. We also learn here that this little excursion to save Rico and Evelyn is being done off the books, so to speak, most likely so as not to tip off the ISA mole who we still totally have NO idea what-so-ever who they are. Am I right? I mean, NOBODY has guessed who the mole is yet, right? Riiight? That being said, I’m pretty sure Luger can beat the rap for this one. I mean, the bar for court-marshaling a Shadow Marshal over anything has got to be ludicrously high given how they’re the ISA’s top in-field operatives and are responsible for all sorts of black ops and wetwork poo poo that would get ISA regulars a next-day appointment with the firing squad if done openly, don’t you think?  Still, Luger protests.  And Jan comes back with probably the most unnecessary  in the entire franchise. And, is it just me, or does this line seem to imply that after all their relationship ups and down and all the angst Luger’s recruitment into the Shadow Marshals and her focus on her career over him caused for him, it was ultimately Jan who dumped her, not the other way around like we’ve been led to believe by the first game?So yeah, way to be a needless dick and bring up a rather dark part of both of your lives for no reason, Jan. Still, if nothing else this shows that after everything they’ve been through over the course of Killzone 1 and now Liberation, Jan is now finally 100% over Luger. Taking down Adams helped him find closure. Taking down Metrac will help him finally move on.  But Luger isn’t about to take that lying down. For you see, Luger is an Action Heroine, and she too has her own reasons for finding Rico… which we never really learn of. I want to be snide and chalk this one up to “because friendship  ”. Seriously though, I think she’s doing this rescue mission more for Templar’s benefit than she is Rico’s. Luger never really struck me as having warmed up to Rico over the course of the first game, but she knows Jan well enough to realize what a solider and a friend like Rico would mean to Jan in the midst of a war where he’s been betrayed by men and fate more times than he probably should have over the span of about three months.STAGE 2: REVELATION  Stage 2 begins with our first sighting of Rico since the middle of Chapter 3. …Forgive the terrible PSP-quality video passed through several layers to visual screwery look to the image. Trust me, that’s him in the very centre.  See! Look, there’s Rico! And he’s with Metrac too. How convenient. Metrac’s carting him around the base openly and in handcuffs while simultaneous exposi-gloating to him as villains of his Shakespearean stature tend to do. Here, he’s letting us in on a plot detail that will inform the back half of this chapter; Stratson’s ordered an airstrike on the Adlez fortress to take out both the Red Dust nukes and Metrac’s forces in one blow. Rico and Evelyn have already been written off as casualties of war, it would seem.  Rico has a surprisingly philosophical take on being hung out to dry by his superiors. It’s a surprising moment of situational insight from a man who once literally said, and I’m quoting here: “  ” The sad part is, Metrac actually has the moral high ground here. Despite whatever damage the Helghast are currently doing to Vekta, nuking an entire hemisphere of a planet—regardless of how “tactical” these tactical nukes really are—would do more crippling damage than anything the Helghast could be capable of inflicting themselves. Ya know, it’s almost like Straston’s plan is designed to intentionally cripple the Vektans and further inflame the Helghast socially and politically. I wonder why that is?  Oh and then Metrac goes and immediately loses said moral high ground by revealing he’s torturing Evelyn. Nice work, jackass.   So under pain of torture, Evelyn has spilled the secrets of Stratson’s plan to Metrac… plans Metrac already knew thanks to his mole in ISA command, but I guess wringing the info out of Batton provides the mole with a measure of plausible deniability. Oh, and it also makes Metrac look like a huge rear end in a top hat to the audience. But moreover on that, the REAL thing Metrac is trying to torture out of Evelyn are the detonation codes for Red Dust so that the Helghast can use it against the Vektans instead! MWAHAHAHA!!! …The gently caress was I saying about “moral high ground” again?  Yes, especially you, Armin.  And now we begin a subplot that will stretch well into Chapter 5 of Liberation and the ramifications of which we will be feeling up to closing seconds of Killzone 3: The Temptation, Fall, and Condemnation of Rico Velasquez. Metrac has made the fateful offer: join me, and together we can end this destructive conflict. The question now is, will Rico listen to him, and why the hell would he even?  And as Metrac leads Rico away, the big steel doors slam shut on Evelyn’s torture chamber again as she pleads with her Helghan interrogators for mercy.  For all the poo poo I give Killzone 1, I will at least grant it this: at least it didn’t have (overt) torture in it.  When Jan happens upon her at the end of the level, she’s in a very bad way. Even more so if all that blood is actually hers  . “I’m Jan Templar, I’m here to rescue you… again.” ...Also, where the gently caress did you go, Evelyn? Ah, good old PSP "what is this 'Effort' you speak of?" cutscenes.   Aaaaah, she’s lost like three people’s worth of blood there, Jan. I don’t think she’s what you’d call “okay.”  But Jan has no time for the old “I was just repeatedly electrocuted in various unspeakable places on my body” excuse, and drags our fair Dr. Batton up and out of the torture chair.  To Evelyn’s credit, she’s no distressed damsel when push comes to shove. She springs right up and is on the move again, ready to be of as much help as a delirious, malnourished, scared, and pain-wracked non-combatant can be to Jan  Interesting piece of continuity here: Evelyn hasn’t officially met Rico yet and doesn’t even know his name, yet by the time Killzone 2 rolls around, Evelyn and Rico will be on a first-name basis and have roughly the same working relationship as him and Luger once did.  And with that, Evelyn gives us or final destination for the base game of Killzone: Liberation, the Adlez Base airfield.  And that’s it for plot for this update. Despite this stage being called “revelations,” the doozy reveals don’t actually come until Stages 3 & 4. But when they get here, ooh boy… they needed to make a free DLC fifth chapter for the game to explain what the gently caress just happened.  Somehow I still have more nitty gritty gameplay mechanics to explain about this game despite it being 3/4's over now. Thanks, Luger Obama!  So yeah, the biggest and most notable addition to this update is that Luger joins us as our AI partner for all of Stage 1 and most of Stage 2. She has a full 100 HP like the player characters do for this stage and wields the explosive-tipped crossbow during gameplay... yet, as Blind Sally points out, she appears holding the ISA M82 Assault Rifle in cutscenes. Go figure.  Also, here’s more of Guerrilla being as detail-oriented as ever: all the Helgoons patrolling Metrac’s snow base have white uniforms rather than gray ones. Though, really, all the game is doing it taking advantage of its multiplayer team colouring system, which allows you to customize your multiplayer character in a variety of pallets including, you guessed it, white.  Luger’s also got a couple of token NPC prompt points which show off some of her old school Killzone 1 abilities. Here you can see a switch atop this gate rampart which will open this gate here. We can’t get to it, but because Luger is still the Stealth Character stereotype from the first game, she can climb up her Action Rope and activate the switch for Templar  Fission Accomplooshed.  And then, because this is a Killzone game in snow level, Luger just randomly decides to run into the floor. That's her health bar there hovering over the concrete in center frame, BTW.  What happened here was a wonderful three-way disastrofuck of Killzone Physics™, Luger missing a programming flag to recognize the ramp as a walkable surface, and the game checkpoint saving right there as she runs into the level geometry leading to the hilarious Benny Hill sequence seen in the video of us trying and failing to coax her out of the floor. gently caress Killzone.  Eventually, once her collision detection parameters start working properly again, you can have her climb up to this catwalk and have her systematically shut off these comically oversized pistons the Helghast have set up right in the middle of an otherwise vital thoroughfare in the middle of their base.  And just like Evelyn, Luger isn’t about to take Jan being a brickheaded goob lying down, so she storms into the base after him  Though this does have the unintentional effect of nullifying Jan’s (admittedly quite dickish) one moment of agency in their relationship (as seen by us the audience, at least), by having her come in and go “no it’s not over, sorry.” Now, more than ever, it’s easy to see that Luger was the decision maker in her and Templar’s relationship. Either way it doesn’t really matter anymore, as by this point Killzone is officially done with hokey Soap Opera Relationship Drama. …Until we get to Malcolm McDowell and Ray Winstone’s amazeballs hatemance in Killzone 3.  Stage 1 doesn’t have that much notable to say about it other than the Giant Pistons of gently caress Physics. But Stage 2 has a few more notable setpieces. First up, another fortress defense miniboss sequence.  Luger holes up in the communications bunker to try and hack her way into opening up the prison compound of the base. Meanwhile, Metrac’s forces proceed to throw as many men as they can at Templar The good part about this bit is that there’s a wide open area for you (and your co-op partner) to flank Helgoons as they try to storm up to the bunker, and there’s only one way into the bunker and one route to the entrance. So at least you’re not having to play whack-a-mole with Helghast troopers like you did on Metrac’s frigate from Chapter 2.  Once you clear that miniboss, Luger takes her leave of you for good. She’ll still keep you up to date with intel over the radio, but for all intents and purposes, we have officially seen the last of Shadow Marshal Luger in the Killzone franchise. Also open-air prison cells in a frigid climate filled with ISA POW corpses who have clearly been tortured to death or left to die of exposure. Way to commit ALL the war crimes there, Metrac. You did it!   We also get our requisite mid-chapter miniboss at the end of Stage 2, the Helghast “…I don’t even know what the gently caress that thing is”.  This guy is the Helghast Supreme Trooper, a precursor to the Helghast Heavies encountered in Killzones 2 and 3. The Supreme Trooper, as the name implies, is a genetically and mechanically enhanced, steroid and psychotropically augmented super solider pretty much custom designed to carry various Helghast heavy weaponry. Their armor is purported to be bulletproof and thanks to the cocktail of mind-altering drugs flowing through their veins, they also feel no pain. Because today is brought to you by the letter F for “that’s really hosed up!” This guy is, mercifully, the only Supreme Trooper in Liberation.  As you can see, he wields a VnS-10B Scylla “Cerberus” Chaingun, which has infinite ammo and a blisteringly high rate of fire, and does enough damage to eventually winnow away cover positions, not unlike Cobar’s Spider Tank was able to one update prior.  In single player, you need to lure him out of his spawn cradle and get him to chase you around this little one-way loop that surrounds the platform. The idea being that you would use your speed to eventually lap the slower Supreme Trooper and then shoot him in the back where he’s most weakest. All in all, a major pain and an appropriately challenging penultimate boss battle for the game.  In Co-Op, however, this guy is a little easier to deal with…  Because there’s two of you together, you can take turns rope-a-doping him, confusing his targeting strings to effectively trap him on the platform, as he will run directly at the closest target. Meaning one player can draw the Heavy’s attention and duck in and out of cover while the other player can rough him up with near impunity.  The Heavy has over 700 HP, yet I don’t think this fight lasts longer than two minutes.  Bang.  Also, near the end of the level, I pick up the Scylla Cerberus for myself out of a chest. The Scylla is actually unavailable to the player in the base game of Liberation and will only be unlocked for use if you download and use the Chapter 5 DLC, which you can get for free anyway.  The Scylla has infinite ammo in-game, though it does have a relatively quick overheat window limiting you mainly to short burst firing of it. If you let it go for longer than about 10 seconds, you’re liable to overheat the gun and be subjected to a rather lengthy cooldown period leaving you vulnerable before you can fire again.   And thus we arrive at another curtain call for a Killzone mainstay. Like I mentioned earlier in the update, there's virtually zero supplementary information available on Luger, at least which hasn't already been covered in any of Blind Sally's other updates for Killzones 1 & 2 so far. The Killzone Wiki claims that in the months following Liberation, once the Helghast were expunged from Vekta completely, Luger was assigned to another deep cover mission by Shadow Marshal HQ, one that took her out of contact with Jan and Rico completely, and she effectively disappeared from public life and recorded history alike. During the debate over Vekta's response to the Helghast invasion, Hakha fronted the proposal to the Vektan Parliament that Luger be sent to Helghan to assassinate Visari covertly and end the larger war before it even began with a decapitation strike. His proposal was declined in favor of the invasion seen in Killzone 2, with the rationale being that the ISA wanted to capture Visari alive and place him on trial for his crimes against both the Vektan and Helghan peoples, which an assassination strike would preclude. ...Allegedly, anyway. The Killzone Wiki doesn't cite any source for this info so it might just be made up garbage. And you know what, for a character with as many gray areas to her personal history as Luger has, I think a hearty "I don't honestly know" is about the most appropriate thing you can say about her in this case. Farewell, fair maiden of the shadows. You don't want to see what's coming next anyway...   VnS-10B Scylla Chaingun (Cerberus) It’s nicknamed the “bullet hose” by Helghast soldiers. That should tell you everything you need to know about this beast. A joint venture by Visari Corporation and Stahl Arms (as implied by the VnS designation on its model number), the VnS-10B Scylla Cerberus is a stripped down and portable version of the standard VnS-10 Scylla mounted turret chaingun. The VnS-10B and its Helghast Heavy operators are feared by ISA soldiers for its sheer destructive firepower. However, the weapon has a few key weaknesses, namely its weight and tendency to overheat, meaning that few non-Heavy soldiers are able to wield a VnS-10B effectively, and those that can risk damaging the weapon itself by misfiring it accidentally.   Helghast Supreme Trooper Clad in a rig of quasi-power armour and wielding the massive VnS-10 Scylla Cerberus chaingun and a massive servo-actuated claw, the Helghast Supreme Troopers are General Armin Metrac's personal bodyguards and only appear on battlefields where Metrac is present as well. Their armour and armament is so strong they are purported to be walking tanks.  WALLPAPER  Metract and his troops  soon nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Nov 12, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 11:54
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I've been looking forward to this.
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May 20, 2015 00:11
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I find the design changes for Luger kinda lame. She's joining us on a SNOW level. Why would she suddenly decide to wear less of her mask? At the very least, she'd want a toque or something. I mean, I understand the changes. With the camera zoomed out, Luger dressed entirely in black, with no ISA orange highlights, might be confused for a Helghast soldier. But why not give her some other visual qualifier? Adding some ISA orange isn't going to hurt. Giving Luger a ponytail reminds me of giving Ms Pac-Man a bow--it's because their both girls. The red hair bit is funny, though. Considering people believe red hair is going to go extinct in a hundred years or so, it's nice to see that's not true in the Killzone universe.
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May 20, 2015 16:42
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Also, it's funny that Luger is armed with an assault rifle in cutscenes but then uses the crossbow in game. Continuity!!
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May 20, 2015 16:44
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Blind Sally posted:I find the design changes for Luger kinda lame. She's joining us on a SNOW level. Why would she suddenly decide to wear less of her mask? At the very least, she'd want a toque or something. I mean, I understand the changes. With the camera zoomed out, Luger dressed entirely in black, with no ISA orange highlights, might be confused for a Helghast soldier. But why not give her some other visual qualifier? Adding some ISA orange isn't going to hurt. Giving Luger a ponytail reminds me of giving Ms Pac-Man a bow--it's because their both girls. I know some of the ISA marines have orange collars but I mean in general with the teamcolored lights and all
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May 20, 2015 20:04
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I dunno, the blue light thing isn't a staple until Killzone 2, but there's orange collars and scarves abound by Liberation's time frame  You're right, though, the friendly fire warning IS "blue on blue". Give Luger some ISA blues!!
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May 20, 2015 20:20
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Blind Sally posted:I find the design changes for Luger kinda lame. She's joining us on a SNOW level. Why would she suddenly decide to wear less of her mask? At the very least, she'd want a toque or something. I mean, I understand the changes. With the camera zoomed out, Luger dressed entirely in black, with no ISA orange highlights, might be confused for a Helghast soldier. But why not give her some other visual qualifier? Adding some ISA orange isn't going to hurt. Giving Luger a ponytail reminds me of giving Ms Pac-Man a bow--it's because their both girls. The mask problem again! Sometimes I feel like we will still be asking this exact same question "Why did this character take off their mask" a century from now and a century from now filmmakers and designers and whatnot will still be responding with "Because otherwise you can't tell who they are!" And they will still be wrong. For some reason people in the business of making movies, tv shows and video games have a gigantic taboo against having major characters faces obscured in any way for any significant length of time, if at all. It was frankly a minor miracle that Iron Man spent as much time wearing his mask as he did in the movies and even then they felt they had to constantly cut to showing Stark's face inside the suit and the faceplate is still repeatedly ripped off. If you ask directors and artists and whatnot why they keep doing this they will always give you the same answer; 'Viewers need to be able to see a human face to connect with the character, no face, no emotional connection' but there is a fair amount of evidence that this is not actually true. So yeah, the reason she takes her mask off is so you can identify her more easily. The fact that exactly the same result could be achieved by just giving the mask some unique and distinctive paint or something similar never seems to occur to developers.
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May 21, 2015 01:17
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Well, Iron Man (and Batman, and Spider-Man for that matter) can get away with it because for the most part that character is the suit/mask as much as they are the character behind it. I'll add these replies to the analysis section of the update when I get home from work, BTW.
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May 21, 2015 01:37
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nine-gear crow posted:Well, Iron Man (and Batman, and Spider-Man for that matter) can get away with it because for the most part that character is the suit/mask as much as they are the character behind it. Only for short lengths of time, go re-watch some of the movies and note how often the characters lose their mask (or the camera cuts to Stark's face inside the suit for Iron Man); it happens constantly. I think Spider Man might be the exception, he spends more time with his face actually masked than most other movie superheroes except possibly Batman and Batman doesn't completely count because you can see his mouth and his eyes which are the most important parts of the face to be able to see. I honestly think this is the reason why Cyclops got sidelined so hard in the X-Men movies; his costume literally requires that he hides his eyes at all times and I'm fairly sure that it was decided he couldn't be the protagonist (or important at all) because you can't see his eyes and the audience can't emotionally connect with someone if they can't see their eyes.
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May 21, 2015 01:47
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Neruz posted:If you ask directors and artists and whatnot why they keep doing this they will always give you the same answer; 'Viewers need to be able to see a human face to connect with the character, no face, no emotional connection' but there is a fair amount of evidence that this is not actually true.
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May 21, 2015 07:45
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I don't remember anything specific unfortunately, it was just one of the many things I learned studying graphics design.
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May 21, 2015 07:48
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Sorry if someone already said this, but as much "flak" as you gave the rich commanders that stayed on Helghan having the more reliable or superior technology compared to the Anime Invasion forces in the first videos, it still fits that their Oligarchy would keep the actual worthwhile poo poo to themselves after looking at the Military Academy and merely assuming how bourgeois the entrenched wealth is like night and day to most of the thousands of Visari Squares across the planet. How likely is it that the electric spiders are used for "PROVE YOUR HELGHAN STRENGTH AND WORTH" hazing ritual? Like be locked in a closet full of them and see how long you don't scream from being shocked and/or eaten alive.
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May 21, 2015 11:01
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I would make a very poor Helghast if so
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May 21, 2015 11:03
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CJacobs can't handle real spiders much less electric robot ones.
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May 21, 2015 11:40
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NGDBSS posted:Have any links for this? It's interesting to see discussion of this in fiction. Yeah, like Neruz says, I mostly just see it pop up here or there. I, too, would be interested in seeing a more in depth analysis of it. Usually when I see it, it's in articles such as this one about superheroes unmasking.
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May 21, 2015 15:56
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I know I'm rooting for the space fascists instead of the corporate space allies. Mostly because Hakka was the only character worth a drat in the first game.
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May 21, 2015 16:51
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This talk about masks is fun and all, but I feel like it's detracting from important information coming to light. Namely that when you bring up the shieldgoons about 14 minutes in that wasn't the first time you saw them. That goes to the amazing spinning shieldgoon at 3:20
FoolyCharged fucked around with this message at 20:55 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 20:52
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Haha, drat! I can't believe I missed that! First while playing, then again while commentating. Anyone willing the gif that insanity? Luger just goes to town on him and he just keeps on spinning.
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May 21, 2015 22:56
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Klaus88 posted:I know I'm rooting for the space fascists instead of the corporate space allies. Mostly because Hakka was the only character worth a drat in the first game. Oh yeah, and I love the Abraham Radec avatar. Some excellent concept art there!
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May 21, 2015 22:57
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I'm working on writing up the 4-2 update right now, but I've also updated the 4-1 post with information on the Helghst Supreme Trooper, which I originally misidentified as a Helghast Heavy. I've also updated the Intro post with a line about Colonel Vyktor Kratek, a character from Killzone: Mercenary who was retconned into also being on Vekta under Metrac's command during Liberation.
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May 23, 2015 02:06
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Kratek gets a particularly sweet mask, too: I mean, holy crap, what a super-villain: 
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May 23, 2015 02:19
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Oh hi, Head of the Umbrella incredibly deadly poison division.
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May 23, 2015 02:31
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 Templar STAGE 3: CONFRONTATION  We begin with a sweet pan through the base which reveals, somewhat humorously, that the Helghast utilize the same universal hazard symbols we’re familiar with today, showing that they’ve at least survived into the 2300’s.  You can see here the symbols for Flammable and Explosive materials, which would make sense to post around a military airbase which would be positively soaked in flammable and explosive material (jet fuel and munitions).   Evelyn reveals an understated but key detail which lays the groundwork for a major turning point in the plot of Killzone 2: she gave the Helghast the wrong detonation codes for Red Dust. So at the very least, the Helghast can’t use the warheads immediately. This also has the unintended side effect of making Evelyn Batton one of the most important people in the Alpha Centauri binary system to the Helghast from this moment on.  But first thing’s first: we’ve got a boss fight coming up soon, so we need to find somewhere to stow Evelyn while we go after Metrac.  Unfortunately, while the Helghast might be incapable of using tactics and cover properly, they aren’t deaf, and can hear Evelyn and Jan talking at normal volume while crouching behind a bin just 10 feet away.   So now it’s time to fight.  Later on in the level, we eventually find a Helghast fighter jet parked on the tarmac. Hmmm. This seems like a great place to hide a combat-averse nuclear munitions engineer. Yep. We’re going full Episode I on this one…  …Unless, you know, someone comes along and sees her in the cockpit, but whatever, Jan.   Evelyn and Jan share a touching little 90’s action movie bonding moment before Jan heads off to face Metrac.   I feel like The Touch by Stan Bush should be playing at this point just to complete the action hero tableau, because now Jan  Templar sends the plane down into the hanger via the elevator just to make sure Evelyn’s completely safe in case the ISA squadron arrives early and mistakes her for an enemy target.   So we get a brief preview of Evelyn’s role coming up in Chapter 5, namely that she’ll be our replacement Luger for reasons of “I don’t think they could get Luger’s voice actor back for Chapter 5 ” At the end of the stage, we come to the end of the airfield, and find a pair of Helghast Overlord dropships on the landing pad.  One of them takes off as the camera flies towards the soon-to-be boss arena to focus on the approaching Templar    : Templar! : One shall stand, one shall fall.: Why throw away your life so recklessly?: That’s a question you should ask yourself, Metrac.: NO! I’ll crush you with my  Hey, Hakha’s there too… allegedly.  Metrac orders the dropship with Rico aboard, who seems to be sitting there awfully quietly and contently for someone who hates the Helghast as much as Rico does, to take off and head for parts unknown.  Plans that you would have no idea what they entailed if you didn’t download the Chapter 5 DLC.  I dunno, what do you think, thread? Because to me it looks like Rico might have actually taken up Metrac’s “join me and blah blah blah” offer from the end of Stage 1 of Chapter 4. In which case, it’s time to debut… Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for Rico Velasquez’s Big Goddamn List of War Crimes, wherein we shall catalogue all the various potential war crimes committed or alleged to have been committed by one ISA Sgt. Rico Velasquez over the course of the Killzone franchise. This list shall be a recurring feature of this LP from this point onward and is only garuenteed to grow by leaps and bounds the further we head into Chapter 5, Killzone 2, and Killzone 3. So, let’s begin with the basics:
Entries on this list shall be crossed off upon presentation of exculpatory evidence, but never expunged completely. Because Rico, that’s why.   It’s a pity that this is the last we really see of Metrac before we kill him, because as you’ll see by watching the video, Metrac is as much of a glorious ham as Adams was in Killzone 1. His pre-fight back and forth with Templar here is just dripping with contempt. You can really tell that this is a man who utterly despises everything Templar stands for as a person and as a soldier.  We also get a brief up close glimpse of Metrac’s gun, a unique weapon as far as Killzone games go. Usually Killzone games try to shy away from the concept of the “unusable enemy-only weapon”, preferring to operate under the veneer of realism that anyone in real life can pick up any weapon they have the strength to hold and start firing it regardless of who made it. The closest analog I can find to it is Rico’s M224-A3 HSW hip-mounted chaingun from Killzone 1 in terms of its appearance, firepower, and secondary fire capabilities, but I’ll cover just what it’s capable of in the gameplay section coming up.  And now at long last it’s time for the duel we’ve all been waiting for since the moment the game began: Templar vs. Metrac. Our two military titans begin with a spray of mutual cinematic “that didn’t count” gunfire as Metrac makes a dash for high cover.  One asskicking, coming right up!   And after a long and brutal battle covered in the Gameplay section, Metrac lies mortally wounded.  Templar, however, still wants answers from him before he lands the final blow. I wonder how responsive Metrac is going to be to Jan’s demands?  Answer? Not very.  However, before Metrac can explain anything, bombs begin exploding all around, ripping the airbase apart. The ISA Airforce has arrived, and at probably the worst possible time if we were hoping to wring any last tidbits out of Metrac before he flames out (quite literally, it seems).    Because Liberation is still clinging to the 90’s action movie vestiges of Killzone 1, Metrac makes one last futile, rage-fueled charge at Templar across the gap between them.  …Which becomes a literal gap as the bombs dislodge the outcropping he was standing on from the main base portion where Templar is.      And for all his poetic and melodramatic flair, and his smug air of superiority, in the end Metrac is left with nothing but frothing rage as he impotently roars and runs towards his foe in a last ditch effort to at the very least make sure Templar dies with him.   HOLY gently caress! This is amazing!  And Jan gets his Action Hero Climax One-Liner in for the game…  And ventilates Metrac mid-jump.  SWEET JESUS!!!  Oh, it’s such a shame that Liberation wound up on the PSP of all places, because I’m pretty sure that Metrac has hands down the single most awesome death of any of Killzone’s numerous antagonists. Lente got shot in the crotch by his former second, Adams got crushed to death by a falling beam, Metrac OUTRUNS A FIREBALL, LEAPS ACROSS A CHASM FROM A COLLAPSING PLATFORM, TRIES TO LAND A DEATHBLOW ON TEMPLAR WITH HIS BARE HANDS, AND THEN GETS SHOT IN MID-AIR AND FALLS SCREAMING TO HIS DEATH! This. This right here is Shakespearean.  [Exeunt Pursued by Bullets] Good night, sweet prince, my flights of angels sing thee to thy rest… assuming they can find your body in the rubble.  Thus Jan ends Stage 3 looking over his handiwork, probably taking a moment to spit on Metrac’s fallen corpse for all the horrors he has wrought in such a brief time period.  STAGE 4: LIBERATION Hey, that’s the title of the game! D’aaaw, I see what you did there Guerrilla. See what I mean about there being a payoff to each of these stage names having a –tion suffix? So Stage 4, the final stage of the base game of Liberation begins with the ISA bombing the airbase.  …With Templar right in the middle of everything.  INCOMING!     So just because Metrac’s dead and done with, that doesn’t mean that Liberation is over with by any reasonable stretch. We’ve still got to get out of here alive and then we’re going to have to deal with the fallout from what just happened a few minutes ago. Chapter 4 Stage 4 is the most run-and-gun-y of Liberation’s stages. Your objective is to survive the bombing and make it back to the Helghast plane to escape.  Finally, Templar  Templar climbs into the cockpit with her. Hakha’s left behind in the rubble just off screen because there’s only two seats in the plane, and Hakha isn’t Action Protagonist material, so he doesn’t get priority.  I’d say this would be the point where Jan has completed his healing process and that now that Metrac and Cobar are both defeated, he no longer needs his Hallucinatory Hakha companion anymore and is therefore leaving him behind for good in the ruins to move on with his life… But then we’ve still got Chapter 5 ahead of us, so no Templar still needs to hang on to Ghost Hakha for a little wile longer.  Don’t worry though, Guerrilla’s working on a quick-fix DLC chapter though!  Also, good old PSP Cutscenes™; the camera is clipping through the jet’s body to get this angle.  You better call Kenny Loggins… because you’re in the Danger Zone.  I feel the need.  The need for SPEED!  Are they gonna make it?  Well they both appear in Killzone 2, so OF COURSE they make it.  WOOOO!! TALK TO ME GOOSE!  And so Templar and Batton get away clean from the base. There’s only one last thing to take care of.  I said something about “flying away from an explosion”, didn’t I?  POW!   The ISA squadron drops the big bombs on the base and triggers the base’s weapons cache to blow, causing catastrophic damage. Unfortunately, as we’re going to learn in Chapter 5, the Red Dust nukes have already been moved off-planet from Adlez Base and are on their way to Helghan at this very moment.  Luckily, the ISA fighters don’t immediately blow the escaping Helghan plane out of the sky, and realize that Templar and Batton are aboard it. The squadron’s commander, Kota, introduces himself as his planes form up into escort formation around the fighter.   Kota also informs Templar that the plot of Killzone 2 is about to ramp up; Vekta is about to go on the offensive against the Helghast and are preparing a plan to put boots on Helghan for the first time since the end of the First Extra-Solar War.  Templar, for his part, is completely on board with this idea. Of course, we’re going to see this first hand in Killzone 2, where Templar accepts a promotion from Captain all the way up to Colonel and command over the cruiser ISSC New Sun… but that’s all yet to come from the perspective of Liberation in the here and now.  And finally, at the end of the stage, Luger radios in to make contact with Templar one last time. She informs him that she was able to intercept a Helghast radio transmission detailing where the Helghast have taken Rico… and that Templar is not going to like it. This right here is the last we see and hear of Luger in the Killzone franchise.  This is also the point where the base game of Liberation ends. If we didn’t have the Chapter 5 DLC, the game’s credits would start rolling right here. To the people who only played the base game of Liberation and then went into Killzone 2, there was quite a lot of confusion bred as a result of this ending. There’s still a considerable gap between Rico flying off on that Overlord, seemingly defected to the Helghast, and when he shows up on the New Sun at the start of Killzone 2 seemingly forgiven and back at the tip of the spear for the ISA’s counterattack on Helghan. So then, is Liberation just non-canon in Killzone’s storyline? Well, no, of course not. Killzone doesn’t do non-canon. …When it comes to its games, anyway. And elements explicitly set up in Liberation will be paid off across 2 and 3, not to mention Metrac is visually referenced in 2, 3, and Mercenary. So Liberation canonically happened. It just needs the Chapter 5 DLC to make it fit into the broader Killzone canon 100%. And that’s exactly what we’re going to tackle next time.  So for the first part of Stage 3, we’ve still got Evelyn as our AI escort companion. Because she’s been tortured, Evelyn only has 56 maximum health. She also has no weapon on her. Yes, Templar could have easily found her a pistol to defend herself, but we simply assume that at this point in the Killzone storyline, Evelyn hasn’t had any weapons training yet. Her kidnapping and torture presumably changes this, because the next time we see her in person as an ally, in Suljeva Villiage on Helghan, she’s packing an M4 Revolver and seems to be decently proficient with it. No doubt the result of a hasty round of weapons training between her rescue at the end of Liberation and her assignment to the New Sun under Templar born out of the trauma of being kidnapped and tortured and wanting to take preventative measures to ensure that that either never happens again, or that she at least goes down fighting next time.  Although Adlez Base is clogged with hover tanks like the one we got to drive in Chapter 1, none of them are actually drivable in-game, meaning they’re just obstacles and cover here.  And this is pretty much Evelyn’s role in Stage 3, cowering in fear and crying for help. I suppose it’s to be expected, I mean she is a non-combatant who was just TORTURED and is now in the middle of an active combat zone while Templar Again though, by the time Killzone 2 rolls around, Evelyn will be a little more comfortable in active combat situations than she is here, so at least it shows character development across multiple games.  When you get to the airstrip itself, Evelyn is actually the one who suggests hiding in the fighter cockpit.  It’s at this point that a Helghast pilot emerges from this spawn point and makes a run for the plane.  You need to take him out before he makes to the plane, otherwise he will hop into it and fly away with it, netting you a game over.  From there, the path to the plane itself is guarded by a trio of rotating laser trip mines. You’ll need to take out all three of them because they’re pretty much purpose-placed to blow up Evelyn, whose AI doesn’t have the finesse to thread the needle around the laser tripwires like you or your potential co-op partner normally could.  One more piece of bullshit unfurls as we can’t unlock the cockpit without a keycard. And where is said keycard which we’ve never had to use before in game up till this point?  Oh yeah, the pilot has it. It’s that green blob down in the lower right of the screenshot.  With the cockpit unlocked, Evelyn climbs on in and it’s time to go smoke Metrac.  So Metrac is our boss battle for Chapter 4, the final boss of the base game and penultimate boss of the complete game. Metrac has 560 health on Trooper (aka Normal difficulty), and has multiple stages to him. This first stage has him separated from you by a gap in the architecture. In this first stage, Metrac will mostly hide behind cover and pop up to alternate between firing his chaingun and its secondary fire.  Which is a scatter shot of frag grenades.   After winnowing his health down a bit, a gangplank to the next part of the arena will extend. Metrac will run off and you’ll have to chase him down.  The same thing happens again, only this time there’s more obstacles between you and Metrac making it harder to get line-of-sight hits in on him. This isn’t much of a problem for Metrac himself, mind you, because he can still hit you by arcing his grenades over cover.  For the third stage of the fight, Metrac leads you to a more open arena where he then hops into a turret and begins firing its main gun at you. While Metrac is in the turret, he cannot be damaged himself, though the turret can eventually be destroyed.  Don’t quote me on this, but I think you can also disable the turret temporarily by shooting out both the generators with the big obvious glowing orange lights on them on either side of it.  Regardless, with the turret destroyed, the fight enters its final stage, where it’s just you alone with Metrac and within spitting distance of him now.  And not to brag or anything, but when it comes down to it, I’m the one who lands the killshot on Metrac.  With Metrac dead, Stage 4 is a game of “outrun the slow moving fireball.” This is the Escape From Ganon’s Castle portion of Ocarina of Time part of the game.  The really sucky thing about Stage 4 is that all those bombs that are dropping around you are active stage hazards. That means than you will take damage if one drops near enough to you and you get caught in its explosion, and they can very easily kill you if you dawdle in one place for too long.  Like so. You have very limited warning as to where a bomb is going to land. Usually you will see the shell falling on screen, and by that point it’s too late. Bombs will drop in random patterns with no indication of their blast radius, so they will fall behind you and in front of you. So you need to both run like mad not get blown up AND be cautious and deliberate so as not to get blown up. Thanks for that Killzone: Liberation.  The really neat part of Stage 4, however, is that it reuses Stage 3’s level but with obvious damage and destruction physics at play, so even though you’re backtracking for literally the entire last 10 minutes of the game, it never really feels like you are.  Eventually though, we make it back to the plane, and after hitting the switch to raise the flight elevator back to launch position, we also take out the last Helgoon of the base game of Liberation on our way out the door. From here, it’s onward and upward to Chapter 5. Oh boy, do we have some developments for this update.  With the death of General Armin Metrac, the Helghast invasion of Vekta is effectively over. Metrac was their last flag officer on-planet, and although the Helghast still have a deep cover turncoat in the Vektans’ midst, Scolar Visari orders the general withdrawal of all Helghast assets from Vekta now that the Red Dust bombs are securely in Helghan custody. Command of the retreating Helghast forces now falls to Colonel Vyktor Kratek, the highest ranking remaining Helghast officer on Vekta following Metrac’s death. Upon completion of his operations in Diotrem City east of Adlez Base, Kratek returns to Helghan to help prepare for the inevitable ISA counter attack, and we might actually see him in action in the future if we decide to LP Killzone: Mercenary.  Rico Velasquez is now the most wanted man on Vekta after his apparent defection to the Helghast for as-yet unknown reasons.  Along with General Stratson, Evelyn Batton was successfully rescued from the Helghast by Captain Templar. Though she gave the Helghast falsified detonation codes for the Red Dust bomb in the hopes of delaying a possible mass-casualty event through their use, she knows that the Helghast will eventually try to reverse engineer or brute force the bombs’ detonation sequencer to overcome this imposition. From here, she will join Templar’s retinue of operatives and accompany his strike force to Helghan to help them locate, retrieve, and disarm any Red Dust bombs still on the Helghast capital world.  Jan Templar is not about to take Rico’s apparent defection lying down. With the last piece of intel Luger provided to him before slipping back into the shadows for good, Jan prepares to track the last remaining Helghast detachment to Sedah City on the west coast of Southern Vekta and find Rico, and, god willing, clear the dumb son of a bitch’s name before he gets himself executed for treason.  ISA fighter pilot, occasional Jedi Knight, and professional Joe Biden impersonator, Commander Kota briefly appears at the end of Chapter 4 to escort Templar and Evelyn back to Rayhoven… after almost accidentally blowing them both up. Oops.  Gregor Hakha is still retired from active duty, like he has been since the end of Killzone 1. When Templar recounted the events of Chapters 1-4 of Liberation and Hakha’s alleged role in them to him via video chat, Hakha abruptly hung up on him.  Bodyguard Seen primarily in Stages 1 & 2 of Chapter 4, the Helghast Bodyguard trooper resembles a riot control officer with their large transparent shields and stun batons. They are large, bulky, and slow, but also heavily armored. They have the highest amount of health of all non-boss enemies in Killzone: Liberation, and their stun batons can kill in two hits. Thanks to their shields, they are invulnerable from the front and either need to be outflanked by a co-op player, or damaged from behind with a well-placed grenade throw.   Helghast Overlord Dropship Analogous to the ISA VTOL dropship, the Helghast Overlord is the primary rapid troop deployment platform of the Helghast military. Capable of vertical take offs and landings and hovering, an Overlord can enter a battlefield, deploy a compliment of Helghast soldiers and leave without ever touching down. Its two swivel mounted VnS-10 Scylla machine guns allow the Overlord to also function as an anti-personnel gunship and provide top cover for disembarking Helghast soldiers entering a battlefield. Its heavy armor renders it near impervious to small arms fire, and its six Petrusite capacitors allow it to remain in the air for an almost uncalculable time before ever needing refueling. Helghast Strike Fighter Official designation unknown. This craft is the Helghast’s new model adjustable wing air superiority strike fighter. Little is officially known about this craft, although it does appear to support a 35mm autocannon and missile launcher capabilities and is propelled by three Petrusite-powered thrusters at the immediate rear of the plane. ISA Fighter/Bomber Aircraft A fixed wing strike craft utilized by the ISA Airforce as a rapid action bomber platform aircraft. Thus far it has only been seen in action during the strike on the Helghast Adlez Mountain Airbase. Armament and capabilities currently unknown.  A Note on Vyktor Kratek Now, a lot of you might be wondering “who the hell is this guy that got randomly name-dropped in the post for this chapter if he doesn’t appear anywhere in Liberation itself and my god is that a stupid looking outfit he’s wearing, is he literally some kind of cartoon character or something?” And first of all, wow that’s a mouthful, and second of all, good question Implied Audience! Colonel Vyktor Kratek is a character who appears in the PlayStation Vita exclusive Killzone: Mercenary, the current gen spiritual successor to Killzone: Liberation. Mercenary begins in the waning hours of Liberation and then fast forwards to take place mostly concurrent with Killzone 2. And in it, Kratek serves as a major antagonist for the majority of the game. I’m adding this in here because of his retconned connection to Liberation. Kratek is a combination of Evelyn Batton and Tendon Cobar, a genius weapons designer (though of the biological, not nuclear kind) and a vicious mid-level Helghast officer. While Cobar oversaw the invasion of Rayhoven, and our as-yet-unrevealed ISA mole oversaw the invasion of Sedah, Kratek was tasked by General Metrac with securing the third of Southern Vekta’s three major cities: Diortem. While in Diortem, he captured and attempted to execute one of the ISA’s top commanders in Southern Vekta, Admiral Alex Grey, who we also learn in Mercenary was the commander of the ISA’s disastrous first wave of the invasion of Helghan before Templar’s battle group arrived. Without making this too much into a Mercenary derail, after Metrac was killed by Templar, as we just see happen in Chapter 4, Kratek and his men hastily pack up shop in Diortem and hightail it back to Helghan to make life miserable for Mercenary protagonist Arran Danner and the rest of the Phantom Talon PMC which Danner works for. And now, a bunch of Metrac-related artwork from Liberation in celebration of his glorious death:     CONCEPT ART  General Arin Metrac... Space Pope?  Adlez airbase, sketch  Adlez airbase and prison complex  Helghast Fighter, sketch  Helghast Fighter, cockpit WALLPAPER  General Armin Metrac on the march nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Nov 10, 2015 |
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May 23, 2015 08:02
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I'm not sure how miserable they can really be when Phantom Talon is paid for every Hig they kill and how knifey or violent that kill is. But I'll take your word on that Space Unit 731 was bad. I like how all of his artwork shows that Metrac was so full of himself that he installed dramatic lighting into his drat armor just so he can look extra menacing in the dark.
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May 24, 2015 16:21
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But none of those are war crimes. They're crimes commited during wartime, yes, but not war crimes like massacring civilians or killing POWs/hostages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crime
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May 24, 2015 16:36
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Crabtree posted:I'm not sure how miserable they can really be when Phantom Talon is paid for every Hig they kill and how knifey or violent that kill is. But I'll take your word on that Space Unit 731 was bad. Depends on how you want to interpret Danner. Since he has the whole silent protagonist thing going on, you can view his actions a variety of ways. If he's just in it for the money, then yeah, I guess running up against Kratek's Krew is actually a pretty profitable thing. Benoit certainly would think so. With all the other screwed up stuff that goes on with the plot, though, it's definitely more of a betrayal and revenge plot, where Danner is probably just grateful that Blackjack is still paying the bills so he can fund his vengeance. Crabtree posted:I like how all of his artwork shows that Metrac was so full of himself that he installed dramatic lighting into his drat armor just so he can look extra menacing in the dark.  Hahahaha, holy crap, how have I never noticed that before? Oh, Metrac
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May 24, 2015 20:01
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Crabtree posted:I like how all of his artwork shows that Metrac was so full of himself that he installed dramatic lighting into his drat armor just so he can look extra menacing in the dark. To be fair it does work.
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May 25, 2015 00:40
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nine-gear crow posted:While in Diortem, he captured and tortured one of the ISA’s top commanders in Southern Vekta, Admiral Alex Grey, who we also learn in Mercenary was the commander of the ISA’s disastrous first wave of the invasion of Helghan before Templar’s battle group arrived. Just to extend the Mercenary derail a bit, I'd like to add that Admiral Grey is a total badass.  She was in charge of the defense of southern Vekta during the Vektan Invasion, and initially, she fared far, faaaar better than General Vaughton did up north. Which is pretty rad, because she was up against General Metrac, who I would argue was the more effective of the invasion generals (sorry, Lente, but you were kind of pathetic). The coordinated efforts of Metrac, Cobar, and Kratek eventually overwhelm her defenses, though, and she does wind up captured by Kratek. To Kratek's benefit, he doesn't actually torture Grey when he takes her hostage--well, he does force her to watch while he gasses her soldiers to death. However, all he really does to her is stick a bullet in her head. Which she survives! Takes a drat bullet to the skull, survives with a sick rear end scar, and comes back to haunt Kratek on Helghan and lead the initial invasion forces. Unfortunately for her, the first wave goes terribly and much of Grey's forces are wiped out before they can even reach Helghan's surface. Of interest, she originally supported a diplomatic approach to Helghan, and was even on point in sending a Vektan ambassador to Helghan to prevent a possible Second Extrasolar War. She changed her mind pretty quickly with the Vektan Invasion. She came to hate everything that was Helghast with a passion equaled only by Rico Velasquez. Although she was willing to go further than her allies to crush the Helghast, she never, at any point, betrayed the ISA. If they had ever met, I would imagine that Rico and her would have gotten along pretty well, despite the fact that she's an officer. Coffeehitler posted:But none of those are war crimes. They're crimes commited during wartime, yes, but not war crimes like massacring civilians or killing POWs/hostages. "Rico's Big Goddamn List Of War Crimes" sounds punchier than "Rico's Big Goddamn List Of War Crimes And Crimes Committed During A War". I mean actual war crimes will appear on this list too, but part of our joke was just to give Rico a hard time. Althooooough, I'm sure if the thread lobbied for it, we could convince crow to create a more accurate title for that section? Hmm... now I'm wondering if it would just be better to create an "Alpha Squad's Big Goddamn List Of Warcrimes". After all, I'd argue that some of the stuff you do as the player character is pretty foul already. Natko could go up on that list for using the ISA shotgun. It does have poison bullets, after all. Thoughts? EDIT: Thread Participation: Help us tally up Alpha Squad's various atrocities in Killzone 2
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May 25, 2015 00:51
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Neruz posted:To be fair it does work. Hahaha, they actually modelled it in-game:
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May 25, 2015 00:53
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Given that 'a shotgun that fires pellets made of poison' is a thing that people just build in the Killzone universe I would guess that the rules of war have changed somewhat from our time...
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May 25, 2015 01:07
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Guess Killzone runs on borderlands rules.  Has there been any developer feedback on whether or not they're actively trying to make the Helgast more interesting then the ISA?
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May 25, 2015 02:19
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Blind Sally posted:Just to extend the Mercenary derail a bit, I'd like to add that Admiral Grey is a total badass. Just a clarifying edit: I misstated that Grey was tortured by Kratek in Mercenary when she indeed wasn't. I've updated the 4-2 post to reflect that.
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May 25, 2015 02:38
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Also, BEHOLD:
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May 25, 2015 02:46
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