Killzone: Liberation is not really a sequel for Killzone released on PlayStation 2 in 2004. Killzone: Liberation is developed by Guerrila Games, the same guys that made the first Killzone. If the original Killzone was a first-person shooter and it didn't had much success, Liberation is a third person shooter that promises a lot.

The action in Liberation is placed two months later than the original game, where Captain Jan Templar, a highly trained soldier, must advance through a number of missions against the troops of Helghast and their mad leader, General Metrac. All the missions are fairy simple: get from one point to another, rescue and escort missions, plant C4 at the designated spots and basically, is something like kill them all.

The game begins with a Helghast counter-attack where Templar is sent to secure the area and evacuate the ISA VIP's. Things get a bad twist and the VIP's falls into Helghast hands. From now on, your main objective is the rescue of those VIP's (which is kinda the whole plot of the game). This game is not only about going in the middle of the enemy, fully armed and kill everyone. That way will surely get you killed and you will have to start over from the last checkpoint, which can be a long way back. You must use everything the game offers to make it through. You need to take cover behind crates, cars, trees to avoid bullets. When there are more enemies near you, you'd better take them one by one. Lob a grenade, shoot an enemy, melee attack another, time your actions. You will need to do all this because the enemy will do the same. They will surround you, take cover, trow grenades, hit you... until you are dead. At some point you will have to fight against Cobar (Metrac's right hand – which is kinda of boss fight in the game) and he controls a robot that shoots with a turret, trow grenades and fires missiles. This fight is pretty challenging and you will have to think it strategic.

Killzone: Liberation is composed of four chapters, each having 4 missions. Even if the game is pretty challenging, the completion will take about 10 – 12 hours tops (with the respawning after death). After you complete each chapter, a series of challenge games will unlock. Challenges consists in Target Practice, destroy objectives with C4 as fast as you can, defend your base from invaders and more. If you complete them, it can reward you with bonuses to your abilities: you can carry more grenades, halves time of planting C4, more health and unlimited Ammunition are just some of the rewards available.

Along the map you will have to look for crates that will give you cash. With this cash you can upgrade your weapons, eight at number (from M3 Revolver,Shotgun, Crossbow with explosive arrows to Slar Sniper Rifle and more). But be careful. These crates also contains spider mines and it won't be funny when one pops out from a crate.

As you go through the game you will have the pleasure to control tanks, hovercraft or a jetpack. Controlling a tank or a hovercraft is a real pleasure as you can shoot missiles and fire a turret at the same time. Even if missiles kill and destroy everything, it's nice to squash Helghast troops like bugs (now and then, we aren't that sadistics). You won't be invincible controlling one of this vehicles, each having its own durability, and surely you don't want to be in one when it explodes.

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The aiming is also very simplified. It's enough to face an enemy that is in your range of sight, so that you will have a lock-on. It doesn't matter if your one level higher on ground than him or vice-versa. You can also lock-on trip-wire mines or explosive barrels so it'll blow in your enemy face.

Every now and then you'll will have some support with you, generally a soldier named Rico. He carries a heavy machine-gun that shoots through enemies like cheese. He's also good at following orders. You can select the order panel by pressing up on the D-pad and give you ally commands like: attack certain enemy, plant C4, take cover or simply follow you.

Rag-doll physics is very well implemented. When you throw a grenade at the enemy or they had the misfortune to step on mines, you'll see the corpses flying through the air. But sometimes when i killed Helghast soldiers i noticed a bug. After they died and lied down, the corpse kept moving in circles. Another bug i saw was that when hitting an enemy with melee attack he disappeared into the floor. Now that's funny.

Even if the game offers a linear storyline, Killzone: Liberation has a solid action, good sounds and the graphics and animations are also well done. This title is surely to catch every gamers eye.

Gameplay: 84

It's all about action baby! What if the game has a linear storyline and the maps tend to look similar? When it comes to big hordes of enemies, it's up to you to take the situation in your hands. Even if the game has 16 levels, the time of completion doesn't take too long, that if you play it on-the-fly, but Liberation keeps your interest alive by offering challenges for you to evolve your character, giving your gameplay a new depth.

Graphics: 86

The game begins with a great introduction that amazes you for its level of detail and the story told.

The animations look great, the explosions and the rest of visual effects are well rendered also. Also the camera mode and the aiming are very simplified, resulting in a much more fluid gameplay.

Sounds: 76

More or less, the sounds and music do their job.

Multiplayer: 80

The multiplayer modes unlocks as you complete the chapters of the single player game. Through the Ad-hoc mode, up to six players can enjoy Cooperative, Capture the Flag, Deathmatch and Assault. Sadly the game does not go online and the possibility of having six friends (optimal number of players for a real experience) is slim and may tend to get boring because the map are designed for a large number of players. Let's hope that the next patch will solve this matter, because this game is surely designed for online play.