Part 2: New Beginning
- Chapter 1, with Blind Sally and nine-gear crow, co-op
- Chapter 1, with nine-gear crow, ChaosArgate, and Jobbo_Fett, single player
- Chapter 1, no commentary, singleplayer
Welcome back for real! We finally get to see some gameplay!
Well, sort of...
We don't really get to experience any gameplay. You'll see.
Anyways, for the first time in a Killzone game, the story jumps around. So six months after Visari nuked Pyrrhus City and got shot by Rico, here we find ourselves—
—at a massive rally. Only without Visari to give the speeches, Ray Winstone gets the chance to ham it up as Admiral Orlock. It's not bad. Not quite on the same level as Brian Cox, but it hits all the right notes and gets the crowd pumped up. If anyone is gonna replace Visari as the resident speech-giver, Orlock is certainly proving himself capable.
As a side note, that mural behind Orlock is the same we saw in Visari's throne room at the end of the last game:
Anyways, Stahl doesn't seem too impressed with Orlock's speech.
No, definitely not impressed at all.
Camera pulls back and we get to see the size and scope of the army that the Helghast leadership was able to put together six months after the initial ISA invasion. It's big. Really big. Like, holy crap, there's still a whole planet of these guys left big. The armada is presumably a lot of what went with Orlock to Konstantine City. Reminder: before Visari nuked Pyrrhus, he had the civilian population evacuated to to Konstantine. I'm assuming Orlock oversaw those operations.
Also of note: on the horizon you can see what look like a pair of giant walking mech death machines. They aren't relevant now, but think of them of Chekhov's Mech Death Machines—at some point in the story, someone is going to use them.
Considering how few ISA soldiers were left on Helghan just six months ago, I'd say any survivors are well fucked by this point.
The scene ends with the iconic Helghast triad. In many ways, this feels like it really should have been the game's opening speech. It strikes me as a little more similar in vein to what Visari delivers in the beginning of Killzone 1 and 2. Can't have a Killzone game begin without Visari, I suppose, so here we are getting the propaganda rally after the introduction.
Elsewhere, at one of Jorhan Stahl's major weapons facilities—
—a gondola approaches the facility proper, a massive mountain top factory, heavily armed and armoured. The image of a giant futuristic facility is reminiscent of the ISA base on Vekta that we saw at the end of Killzone 1:
There's a reason for this, but again, it's something I'm going to touch on later.
We finally get control of a character and find ourselves within the goggles of a Helghast uniform playing as part of a Helghast unit, Argus Two. As it turns out, the world doesn't look like a blurry orange hellscape behind those lenses. Vision is fine—if perhaps a bit obscured by numerous readouts on the heads-up display. Spoiler alert, though, so don't get too excited: we aren't actually playing as a Helghast. This section is one big fake-out. Argus Two is actually Alpha Squad; Sev and Rico (and Natko) have infiltrated Stahl's facility.
Another note: this is all Stahl's stuff, no regular Helghast military at all. Observe the symbol. It's not Helghast iconography, it's Stahl iconography. He's the single wealthiest man on Helghan, richer than Visari even. There would be no Helghast without Visari, but Visari wouldn't have been able to create the Helghast without Stahl. You see, Stahl Arms is the single largest arms corporation on the planet. It's focus is primarily on weapons development and production for the Helghast military and they are good at it. Pretty much everything you see worn, used, and driven by the Helghast has been manufactured by Stahl Arms.
Though Jorhan Stahl has been the CEO for (presumably) the past several games, it was his father, Khage Stahl, who originally founded the company. Whatever happened to Khage, we'll never know. Dead, missing, retired—it's never brought up. Jorhan Stahl is in charge and that's all the matters. The biggest competitor for Stahl Arms is Visari Corporation. Whereas Stahl Arms focuses on mass-produced firearms, armour, and vehicles for the Helghast infantry, Visari Corp has always been about high-tech, experimental weaponry and medical equipment. That said, Stahl Arms has never been adverse to a little competition and has its own experimental and high-tech weapons division that it has been expanding rapidly—though much of it is still under wraps to even the Helghan High Command.
Moving through the facility, we see a number of things. First of all, the soldiers in the Stahl Arms facility are dressed somewhat differently than the Helghast soldiers we are used to seeing. That's because they're all Stahl's private military, Armoured HAZMAT Soldiers. They get the best and most up-to-date equipment available at the facility. (In combat, they're especially brutal, often armed with Arc Cannons and able to take obscene amounts of fire). We also see a dropship land and offload a pair of prisoners. They're both ISA and the one taking up the rear is Captain Narville himself. They are led away and all we can do is make our way through the facility.
As we get funneled towards the end of the level, we get a chance to see how heavily armed Stahl's personal fortress is. Beyond the soldiers and security drones, Arc Towers ring the mountain as anti-air defenses. Stahl's even got his own personal navy standing watch.
Deeper inside we find a room full of ISA prisoners. You have to wonder if the Helghast High Command or the Helghast military proper know they're here. Regardless, there's nothing we can do for Stahl's guests at the moment.
The "weapons testing" is boring and is bog-standard FPS fare. Tutorials in previous Killzones at least had the decency of being woven seamlessly into a combat level. Shooting at targets is not exciting—though it is funny that the "correct" targets to shoot at are unarmed, surrendering ISA soldiers. Remember what we said about the Helghast being the bad guys?
Continuing on we see some sort of control room with an ominous holographic of Earth. I swear it'll be relevant later, but once again, I'm going to focus on it later.
We move through a testing facility filled with various Helghast HAZMAT soldiers, both of the scientist and military variety, and eventually find ourselves in the execution chamber. "Argus Two" take positions around the sci-fi weapon tripod. (Natko is standing just off camera).
Here we see Stahl giving his own speech. I'm guessing he didn't much care for Orlock's version, so he decided to fly to his secret base to record his own. Like Orlock, Stahl also has a flair for rhetoric.
Unlike Orlock, Stahl has in his possession the commanding officer of the ISA soldiers that killed Visari. As far as Stahl is concerned, Narville might as well have given Rico the order to shoot. Things don't look too bright for Narville, but then he doesn't realize Sev is standing in as his "executioner".
The look on Stahl's face when Sev points the gun at him is priceless. I get the feeling that Stahl isn't used to having things not go his way.
Such indignant rage.
Anyways, the screen goes dark at this point and we time-skip back to six months earlier, moments after Rico Velasquez left Visari bleeding out on the floor—
—moments after a horrified Captain Narville and Shawn Natko arrived only to discover they were too late—
—moments after Orlock's fleet returned from Konstantine City—
—and moments after a disillusioned Sevchenko, resigned to his fate, sat down on the steps of Visari Palace and wept.
Next update we get to deal with the immediate fallout of these events.
Presented against my better judgement and the will of Blind Sally, in loving memory of CJacobs, and in defiance of peace and sanity, I give to you here and now, Let Us Playeth Killzone the 3rd, the Alternate Reading. Joining me for the duration of these first three chapters are visiting scholars ChaosArgate and Jobbo_Fett.
I [Crow] have been progressively dragging ChaosArgate closer and closer into my orbit of insanity via Ace Combat and now Killzone, and he has, up till now, been a rather good sport about it. Argate has tackled LPs of (among other things), Saints Row IV, No More Heroes 1 & 2, Sleeping Dogs (with Jobbo), and the Restless Leg Syndrome-curingly* amazing Devil's Third (with Jobbo and my LP nemesis Artix).
Jobbo_Fett, meanwhile is no stranger to the Killzone LP threads. In addition to joining Argate for Devils Third, Sleeping Dogs and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, he also helmed an LP of 007 Legends with Argate, and is currently running LPs of Panzer Corps and
)* NOTE: Watching the Devil's Third LP will not cure Restless Leg Syndrome. Please consult a doctor before viewing.
There's been some changes between Killzone 2 and Killzone 3. Some not-so-good, but for the most part, they're improvements. I want to talk about them, but we didn't really get any gameplay this video, so instead I'm going to hold off on that for the next update.
The knuckleheads all return. It's sort of a poorly kept secret at this point. Thanks to co-op, it's pretty easy to see the "SEV" and "NATKO" words hovering above each player's character. With that in mind, it's not too hard to put two-and-two together and realize that the other member of Argus Two is actually Rico Velasquez. Since we're starting this game in media res, we currently have no idea why the three of them are dressed up in Helghast uniforms infiltrating one of the largest weapons facilities on the planet. It'll all make sense in due time now that we find ourselves back at the end of Killzone 2. Just wait.
Captain Narville also returns. Although how he got from were he was at the end of Killzone 2 to being a POW at the hands of Stahl is all still a mystery to us. What matters is Alpha Squad seem to be staging a prison break. Like the others, we'll soon find out how Narville got to this point.
HAZMAT Soldiers
Stahl's personal elite soldiers. Heavily armed and armoured. Their armour lets them take more punishment than most other Helghast regular army soldiers and their experimental weapons mean they're one of the most dangerous enemies in the game. Fortunately, there's aren't a lot of them. We see a handful hanging around Stahl Arms and there's usually a couple around Stahl himself. Since it's usually the Arc Cannon they're armed with, taking them out from a distance is usually the best tactic—that heavy ordnance.
One annoying thing about this enemies is that you can't pick up their Arc Cannons when they die. I guess they're finger-printed or something, if we're going to give Guerrilla the benefit of the doubt. What that means in practical terms is that there's no Arc Cannon gun in Killzone 3.
Lightning Gun (and
nine-gear crow's "Lightning Gun Returns" joke)There are also hooded varients of the HAZMAT soldiers. They function as scientists and you don't really see them in combat. They can be seen milling about Stahl Arms working on the various experimental equipment his facility produces.
Arc Cruiser
Advanced offshoots of the standard Helghast Cruiser utilizing petrusite ore. Includes a long-range warp jump generator and four under-belly mounted petrusite cannons, perfect for air-to-ground bombardment and long-range ship combat—a weakness present in the original Helghast Cruisers that allowed the ISA Cruisers to wreak havoc on them. They carry far fewer leech pods than standard Helghast Cruisers, presumably because the petrusite generator take up that space. Although it's probably also because the petrusite cannons make for better ranged combat, meaning there's less of a need for the Helghast Cruisers to rely on boarding tactics for victory.
Regardless, they're better at standing up against ISA Cruisers in a straight fight.
Just a bunch of returning weapons in this video. The StA-52 Assault Rifle and StA-18 Pistol remain the standard go-to guns for the Helghast military. They function the same as they did in Killzone 2.
Stahl Arms Deep South Facility concept art:
Stahl Arms skybox:
Concept art of the HAZMAT scientists in Stahl Arms:
More concept art of Stahl's HAZMAT soldiers:
