Killzone 3 Part #11 - Interception

Part 11: Interception

Last time on Killzone...

Just to get it out of the way: I love how the two narratives, that of the ISA and the several month long argument between Stahl and Orlock, intertwine in this chapter. We begin with a shot of the ISA soldiers riding up the space elevator to the station, then quickly switch to an image an advanced Helghast Cruiser—

—where we find Stahl about to board the station to meet Orlock.

By now, I hope that you all know Stahl well enough to know that he isn't just going to take Orlock's appointment as Autarch lying down.

As their ships dock with the space station—

—the ISA catch a glimpse of them through the window. This will be a recurring motif throughout the stage: the ISA as background characters. Right now, the focus of this chapter is the struggle between Orlock and Stahl. It's barrelling towards its ultimate conclusion as Sev and co. struggle through the station. By the time either Stahl or Orlock realize the threat that the ISA pose, it will quite literally be too late for them to do anything about it.

Even as Orlock's aides warn of him their presence on the station, not to mention the fact that they took down the fucking MAWLR, Orlock brushes it off. In his mind, the ISA are all but an after thought. Stahl is his only real enemy now and he plans to revel in his defeat.

The final conflict begins. Two ~~warriors~~ grumpy old men size each other up before battle.

Well, let's be honest, Stahl, neither of you brought very many men. That said, I agree. Orlock is underestimating his opponent. This may be intentional, an attempt to throw shade in order to further insult Stahl. Still really foolish. Orlock plans to have Stahl killed and while he brought along a retinue of soldiers that are, quite frankly, outclassed. Stahl's troopers are more heavily armed and armoured. They have gigantic electricity cannons on them.

Orlock is being foolishly arrogant.

Yup. Super, super arrogant. Look at the smug look on his face. This is a man who thinks he's already one, who is toying with his prey before going in for the kill.

An excellent shot here. Upon first viewing, it doesn't seem all that ominous. A quick glimpse at the soldiers standing behind Orlock. Perhaps they're tense. Makes sense, they're getting ready to put a bullet in Stahl and his troops.

Of course, Stahl has already planned ahead, bringing another unseen advantage into the confrontation: money. Stahl finally gets to put his alleged prowess as a business magnate to use for a moment and literally bribed his way to victory. The fate of Helghan was just upended for want of two grunts' shitty paycheques. The silent disappointment on Orlock's face is majestic. So much rage must be boiling under the surface. Again, the facial expressions in this game are amazing.

Look at this. Look at this face. This is the face of a man who was centimetres, no, millimetres away from ultimate victory over his most hated foe, only to completely fucking botch it in the end. Shoulda brought more people Orlock. Shoulda shot Stahl as he walked in. Shoulda just torpedoed his ship from orbit. Heck, you shoulda bombarded Stahl Arms from orbit with Stahl inside. You shoulda done a thousand things differently, but instead here we are.

Good job.

Good job, Orlock.

Well done.

Stahl then immediately decides to show his superiority to Orlock by doing what Orlock should've done in the first place by, uh... w-wait, by blowing up other Helghast? Well, fuck it, it looks like we're in for a coup. You've messed up Orlock. If Stahl can get himself elected by the Senate, he'll make himself Autarch.

It's at this point we discover that Stahl has created energy shield. Presumably from irradiated petrusite, since that's the macguffin that just keep on giving—oh, and due to the green hue. This is a pretty big game changer for the Killzone universe. We know this from Orlock's reaction:

The ramifications are huge. If it's petrusite-based, this is a technology neither Vekta nor Earth have. Stahl will be able to fly his ships in largely unopposed and enforce his will on any other planet in the galaxy.

This has gone too far, even for Orlock.

Mean bastard though he is, Orlock still has an internal moral compass of some sort.

Stahl, having rubbed Orlock's face in it a bit, finally draws his weapon, ready to end it.

But even Stahl can't help but do the villain's monologue, even after he showed up Orlock for doing it. Orlock, who conveniently always carries around a blade with him ever since his rough childhood on the streets of Helghan (this isn't mentioned in-game—probably in the tie-in novel, I don't remember), makes his move.

Between this and Rico, Guerrilla is damn good at giving their audience what they want. I mean, look at that face: this is an incredible "oh shit!" moment that Stahl is on the receiving end of.

Seriously, though, why is everyone such a colossal screw up? You shoulda just shot him, Stahl, etc., etc.

The nameless mooks make short work of each other—

—and Orlock suddenly has the upper hand once again. Only this time it's down to the two grumpy old men.

Stahl ducks out of the scene—

—and we're reminded that the ISA are still very much a thing. I love that there's this incredibly intense and personal battle for the very future of Helghan taking place on one side of the space station, and here we are on the other just doing our own thing watching it all fall apart from the outside. We're going to keep doing our own thing, and again, by the time Orlock or Stahl realize what a threat the ISA still are, it will be way too late.

It's also at this point that we get our last orders from Narville. The plan to warn Earth and deorbit the space station is out of the window. Thankfully. We really didn't need to add anything else to the War Crimes Counter.

Instead, the plan is to hijack some of the Helghast Strike Fighters and to attack the Helghast fleet with conventional weaponry. With all the confusion of the Helghast ships attacking other Helghast ships, I suppose it won't be too difficult for the ISA to swoop in and knock out the flagship. It's more traditional combat and is probably a nicer way to end the game than initiating a colony drop.

Hooper and Jammer are told to forget the whole communications subplot, though, which seems like a mistake to me. Yeah, sure, go grab some fighters and start shooting at bad guys, but it's probably a good idea to warn Earth as well. It looks like they're already there. I mean, didn't Hooper just help Jammer get some sort of access key? Can't we use that to warn Earth? Wait, I guess Jammer said "way ahead of you", so maybe she had already decided warning Earth was a waste of time, preemptively ignored Narville's orders, and instead grabbed a key to the strike fighters? But what if Narville hadn't changed orders? What if Stahl's forces were about to make the jump for Earth and Narville was all like, "hey Jammer, at least you got the message off to Earth, right?" but instead it turned out she and Hooper had wasted everyone's time by grabbing keys to space jet fighter? What would they have done then? Ah fuck it.

I guess this moment is to show that even Rico and Narville's No. 1's can work together. It feels a bit superfluous—a tacked on scene so Jammer and Hooper's VAs would have more dialogue, but here we are.

Anyways, we move on to some more combat—

(This one's for you CJacobs).

It's nice to know that Guerrilla didn't forget about the exploding spider robots from Killzone: Liberation.

Oh, and the artificial gravity is turned off. Except it's not. It's just weaker, so you can space jump. Except, uh, when you get shot at. So if you are a piece of destructible environment, a Helghast soldier, or one of their guns or helmets, the moment you die you become weightless. This is because

Okay, the back half of Portal 2 makes more sense because there's now a war going on outside and I imagine the station is taking some collateral damage. Still, the whole gravity but no gravity thing is absurd, even for an already absurd FPS.

Back to the real plot, Stahl gets in a sneak hit on Orlock, producing one of the most gifable moments in the game:

Orlock has lost his advantage again. Sorry, Ray Winstone, Malcolm McDowell has the upper hand.

This is a great moment. So great that I think whoever wrote the script for Dredd may have been inspired by it when the did this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raqF9qsakY4

Orlock's "wait" is so human. Stahl's response is perfect.

This moment here is a great bit of character development. A genuine plea from Orlock, true compassion and concern for his fellow Helghast. I believe Orlock. I don't think this is a ruse. He's a soldier. A leader. I'm sure he's experienced with "acceptable losses", but he doesn't want the Helghast people to self-destruct. He doesn't want Helghast to slaughter Helghast. He doesn't want a civil war.

I believe this is a genuine moment from Orlock to reach out.

Too little, too late, to be frank, but I appreciate the attempt nonetheless.

(Shout out to the person in charge of captioning this game.)

Of course, Orlock is ever the opportunist and takes this moment to try and get the upper hand again. This isn't him being a hypocrite, this isn't proof of him lying to Stahl—again, I believe that was a genuine plea a moment ago. That said, Orlock is just now truly realizing what a menace Stahl is to Helghan society, hell, to the whole damn GALAXY at this point. At this point, Orlock is trying to put down a mad dog.

Sadly, it's once again too little, too late.

This mistake is more egregious than the whole gravity but not gravity thing. The nuke gun is established as literally disintegrating people, clothing included. How the hell did Orlock's suit and gloves survive? What is this nonsense?

Anyways, I love this moment. At the climax of the game, the two enemies duke it out with themselves and kill themselves. The protagonists of the game, though nearby, never actually cross paths with them. They've been influencing each other this whole time, but never directly face off. I love when stories do this. It reminds me of The Fifth Element, particularly the scene where the heroes step onto one elevator, just as the primary antagonist steps out of another only to eventually be killed off by another set of bad guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhcvbPGyFso#t=59s

Stahl is reminded that, yes, the ISA do still exist.

He throws some posthumous shade on Orlock then orders the entire destruction of the space station.

This is the man who now leads the Helghast. He's made it quite clear that he doesn't hold his people in quite the same regard as his former opponent.

(What self-respecting piece of architecture or technology wouldn't have the Helghan Triad?)

As Stahl's nuke approaches the station, our heroes make a last moment escape on the strike fighters.

Another stupid thing to note: the Helghast Strike Fighters leave red contrails.

Except when the ISA fly them, which makes them blue. (If you can spot Jammer and Hooper's fighter in this screenshot, nine-gear crow will by you a new avatar!)

This is effectively it for the game. This last part is an on-rails shooting gallery. It's not particularly exciting. It culminates with us blowing up a green metal Fruit Loop then pressing the "O" button to win.

For such a dramatic moment, the gameplay is sure ending on a whimper. All the previous Killzone games gave us some sort of boss encounter, from taking pot shots at General Anime, to Stratson's Mini Metal Gear, to Colonel Radec's genuinely terrifying and challenging invisible knife fight. It's a shame that there wasn't something here.