Hands-on with Killzone 3

The xylophone from "Sunday Morning" starts to plink away. The contrast between it and the yellow, staring eyes on the cinema screen is striking. Then, another Velvet Underground track frames the world's first view of Killzone 3 even better. A collage of images from the new, brutal close combat attacks starts to roll. A Helghast soldier gets a boot in the face, following by a well-aimed knife. Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather...

A few minutes later I'm holding a Dual Shock 3 and (almost) feel how a rocket shoots past my left ear. For a second I'm afraid that it will crash through the screen, blow away my 3D glasses and completely ruin the Dutch cinema where Killzone 3 is being demoed. The cinema still stands. But not the Helghast that tried to blow me up. I strapped on my jetpack, boosted my way through the air and then finished him off with a close combat attack. Killzone 3 brings a lot of good news, and 3D is only one of them.

Since Emperor Visari bit the Helghan-dust at the end of Killzone 3, the nuclear explosion that took place has changed the planet to an even more inhospitable place. There is no longer any central authority, and in the power vacuum two new bad guys have stepped forward to try to claim leadership.

When I have a moment to sit down with Guerilla's art director, Jan-Bart Van Beek, I ask him how the power struggle in Killzone 3 looks.

- In Killzone 3 you're stuck between two factions that use different strategies to sieze power. The first leader uses pure force and has access to large military resources on Helghan. The other one uses industry and new weaponry. That means a lot of new Helghan technology is available in Killzone 3.

In the middle of all these we find the humans, Sev and ourselves and the idea is that we will get even more up close and personal with Helghast this time around, which of course a pair of 3D glasses can help with. When I try Killzone 3 in 3D it's a cool experience that actually add something to the game, instead of being an overblown, gimmicky effect.

The gun does stick out a bit from the screen, but aside from that Guerilla has mostly been working with depth. The environments are the most impressive parts of the 3D and when I'm jumping between ice floes in the new winter levels it truly feels like visiting a new world. The resolution of the 3D world during my time with it was quite low - it does take more processing power to draw the two images needed for 3D - but Guerilla promises to have fixed this before release.

I also get the chance to fly around with the help of the game's jetpacks, or jump packs as they are called in Killzone 3. Helghast themselves use these and when I've killed one of them I can steal one and take advantage of it myself. Jump packs have a limited flight time, but I can activate a boost mid-air to make my flying a bit easier.

Suddenly I'm attacked by three or four new soldiers and a dog fight breaks out. It's a lot of fun to fly around, aiming for the tanks on the enemies' jump packs. Just like in Halo: Reach the hovering could be awesome in multiplayer, something the guys from Guerilla don't want to talk about right now.

Killzone 3 will feature larger levels than the second game, and they are supposed to be more varied. If there's one thing that Killzone 2 can be critisized for it's the lack of variety when it comes to its colour palette. While I only got to see the winter environments, the fourth level of the game, the developers promised jungles filled with phosphoric light.

They've tweaked the graphics in Killzone 3 quite a bit, and the brilliant use of lighting we saw in the second game in the series looks even more real and esthetically pleasing this time around. During my interview I do ask if we're going to feel less overwhelmed this time, considering that Killzone 2 was released for a brand new console.

- Sure, we don't have any new hardware, but we've become a lot better at handling the Playstation 3, Van Beek tells me. Last time we used about 60 - 70 percent of what the machine can handle, this time we're aiming for 90 - 95 percent. The Killzone 3 engine is about 50 percent faster than the one in the first game.

The so called "Brutal Melee Kills" are new as well, incredibly violent close combat attacks that are activated when we close enough to a Helghast. When I try this out I'm equipped with infinite health so I can make a detail study of the brutality. A Helghan fires at me in desperation while I approach, and when I'm next to him a L1-symbols pops up on screen. I quickly press the corresponding button, the camera dives towards my opponent that doesn't stand a chance as I drive my knife through his eye and twist it around. It's brutal, but to such a degree that it's more humorous than disgusting. I ask Jan-Bart Van Beek if they've chosen to go for close combat because of the 3D feature.

- Not really, but sure, they look great in 3D, it's nice to the knife move for example. But we've always wanted to do more with close combat. It was present in Killzone 2, but it was pretty simple, more or less just a shove with your weapon. In Killzone 3 it's all nicely animated and very fun to perform.

Killzone 3 is the sequel to one of last year's best games and while we would have been happy with a safe "more of the same", the new stuff looks a lot cooler than we had even hoped for. When Guerilla mentions that the war will be taken to space towards the end of the game, our interest meter for Killzone 3 spikes. With space travel and jump packs, Killzone 3 looks like it will be able to stand on its own.