Part 13: Lazar Highway

• Chapter 10-1, with minimal commentary

Have I had a chance to talk about how great the sound design in Killzone 2 is? Well it's awesome. The soundtrack is awesome, the sound effects are awesome, and the voice acting is awesome. Aside from a brief introduction, this video has no commentary, so if you haven't had a chance to experience the game without us talking over it, now's the time (I recommend a decent pair of headphones or proper speakers for the full effect). There's a reason this video in particular doesn't have commentary, though. One, because Chapter 10 itself is LOOOONG. Most chapters can be finished in 15-20 minutes. Chapter 10? You're going to need at least 30 minutes. At least. Thus, we've cut it into more manageable segments, and the first one, Lazar Highway, is the shortest. More importantly, there isn't much soundtrack here. Aside from the opening cutscene and the brief skirmish with tank armour, the OST is absent. In its place is the sound of screaming, gunfire, and what sounds like a frequency test on loop. It sounds strange, but it works in being incredibly unsettling. Fitting, considering we're wandering around the aftermath of a nuclear blast.

_{Since there's only one version of the video, "Rambo-vision" is turned off here.}



It's official: the ISA are screwed.



That's Visari Palace on that clifftop in the distance.




This is true. I mean, there are a few scattered ISA survivors that we'll meet up with in Killzone 3, but for all intents and purposes, the ISA's ground forces were incinerated in the Red Dust blast. This final mission is a last ditch attempt at getting Visari. If Narville's Convoy can't do it, then this invasion has failed. I'm sure Narville's men are up to the task, though--



Uh.

Heh, Narville has gone full on R. Lee Ermey.



And this is the moment where everyone realizes this has basically turned into a suicide mission. Alpha Squad, the professionals that they are, basically say "fuck it, let's do this". Aw, yiss.



As an aside, I love that the Red Dust nuke has turned the world red, as if the sky itself is burning.



Remember when Evelyn said she found a smaller Arc Grid, separate from the Tharsis Refinery Grid, beneath Visari's Palace? Yeah! It's relevant now! This is why we can't land our Intruders on the front steps of the palace, or inside a courtyard, or whatever. There are a bunch of anti-air batteries surrounding the place. Also, some of them are large enough to shoot down the ISA Cruisers. So what we're doing now is landing a few miles outside the palace and walking in. Destroy the batteries powering the tower, the Cruisers can bombard them from orbit, and our reinforcements can land in relative safety.

The very first part of Lazar Highway, when you're up against the Helghast turrets on the walkway, is incredibly difficult on Elite. Reinforcements spawn quickly enough here, that you can quickly become bogged down in a prolonged firefight. The hardest part is, since there's not a tonne of ground to gain, it's hard to push forward and easy to be pushed back, Fortunately, the containers provide lots of cover, which is good, because the enemies you're up against here are all armed with LMGs, stationary and otherwise, and they can kill you incredibly quickly.

The trick here is to rush in, get up the stairs, and quickly knife the Medium Mounted Gun troopers. Once they're dead, the door behind them opens up and a few LMG Troopers come out, but at that point, you've broken the defenses, so you can more or less make your way into the hallway at your own pace.

After the brief tank battle, you come out onto the Arc Cannon platform and have to blow up the four batteries powering it. It's a pretty video game-y objective, but this fight is pretty fun regardless. It's a large open space, you can take it in any order, there are Heavy Troops milling about, mounted guns, and troopers just scattered around. It's fun!

Also, Natko's bad joke system is in full swing here and it's hilarious. I mean, like I said earlier, this is more or less a suicide run now. I appreciate that Natko is trying to boost everyone's mood:


This one is a blink and you'll miss it joke, as Natko's "I've got your back" line isn't subtitled. Also, if you're not thinking about it, you won't truly appreciate it. I mean, why does Natko emphasize those words in that specific manner? If I was to interpret his meaning, and I absolutely am, he's referencing the whole Garza debacle. Last time Sev was in a stressful situation, it was Rico who had his back. The results of which wound up getting Garza killed. Here we are in another stressful situation, and Natko is basically saying, "hey man, don't worry, I'm not going to fuck things up." It's hilarious, and Rico either a) didn't hear it, b) chose to ignore it, or c) didn't get the reference. You decide.

The next joke is even better:


Natko, you're winning me over. Please continue to give Rico a hard time. Please, oh please.


At this point, though, Rico decides it's better to just ignore Natko. *sigh*



With all the batteries destroyed, one of the cruisers from Battlegroup Mandrake swings by to drop the good ol'orbital death laser on the cannon.

Next time, on Killzone 2:





Hey, so now that we've been through Killzone: Liberation, we can look at the History and Politics slides without anything redacted from them. I feel now is also a good time to review them to refresh ourselves on what our mission objectives are--and also since Red Dust's detonation makes it super relevant, it's nice to remind ourselves the role it played in getting to Helghan.



Okay, so that first slide is really just a review of the first game without the redacted names. The next one has some good stuff, though:



Okay, so shit, the development of Red Dust had been a Helghast plot from Day One. Stratson, likely under Visari's orders, led the development of the nukes and saw to it that they were shipped off to Helghan, thus advancing the Helghast's nuclear abilities by leaps and bounds. Evelyn Batton was duped--I suppose the silver-lining to her death is that she never lived to see her work be used in such a horrific manner.

Ah, and the use of bounty hunters to get weapons off of Vekta and to Helghan. These included things like grenades and small arms--it's one of the reasons that so many Helghast are armed with ISA shotguns. Interestingly, it was Phantom Talon Corp that did this. As shown in Mercenary, PTC is working for the ISA at that point in time. You don't start taking contracts for the Helghast until the events of Killzone 2. There are other merc outfits in the Killzone universe: Skull Force Enterprises, and Eclipse Forces, to be specific. I'm trying to recall old intel off the top of my head--I believe Skull Forces are the ones who deliver the weapons to Helghan. Ah, it doesn't really matter in the end, since it's revealed that Phantom Talon Corp runs ALL of the mercenary outfits, and plays them off each other in order to maximize profits.

Haha, and that reminder at the end: Earth told the ISA to re-instate a blockage around Helghan and then leave it. Wait for a third-party to arrive and investigate the situation.



Of course, the ISA ignore Earth's orders. To remind ourselves, though, the Vektan ISA's actual stated mission goals for Killzone 2 are:

• Remove the Helghast as a military thread.
  
• Capture Autarch Visari for a public trial.
  
• Establish a more easily controlled regime on Helghan that avoids the oppression that sparked this conflict.
  

At this point, we might be able to accomplish one of those




LMG Trooper

These guys are super dangerous! Not only do they have a super high damage dealing gun, but they don't care about cover. They're more heavily armoured. That, combined with the LMG, give them the confidence to basically stand out in the open, raining death upon you. They're also really strong, so they don't need to crouch fire to keep their accuracy. They will kill you while hip firing. They will march towards you like terminators, hip firing, killing you, always, all the time.

Fortunately, there's tonnes of cover in this Chapter, so you'll always have somewhere to retreat to. Ideally, you'll get close and take them down quickly with the knife, but since they almost always travel in groups, this can be difficult. A solid option, is getting an LMG off of one of them. This becomes a problem on Elite difficulty, when you lose the aiming reticles. On Elite, it's honestly best to just keep hold of your ISA assault rifle and try and get head shots with burst fire.

Don't let yourself get overwhelmed and you'll be alright. They're mostly a problem in that first stretch of Lazar Highway--but that becomes mitigated if you quickly kill off the mounted gunners to prevent reinforcements.


Mounted Gunner Medium

Operate the same as other Mounted Gunners. The use the mounted guns! Get close or flank them and they'll use their small arms, but by that point, they're easily knifeable. They aren't even that difficult to kill from afar. They're only truly dangerous when supported by other Helghast--as they are in this level. They only appear in the first part of Lazar Highway, so if you use the knife tactic, you'll never have any trouble with them.



For whatever reason, there doesn't seem to be any concept art of the nuke in Pyrrhus City for Killzone 2. Luckily, there's some hauntingly gorgeous artwork of it from Killzone 3 (minor spoilers in this image: yeah, the Helghast started sticking Arc Tech into their cruisers):



There is this sweet poster-like image of Pyrrhus City on fire: