Killzone: Mercenary

After the disappointing Resistance: Burning Skies and the truly abysmal Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified, the Vita finally has a top shooter, which listens to the name of Killzone: Mercenary. Guerrilla Cambridge hit it out of the park with this fantastic handheld experience. It looks and plays great, its levels are varied and challenging, and the online multiplayer is hugely entertaining. If you own a Vita, you should own this game.

Incredible to look at, to listen to, but most importantly to play, Sony should be pushing this one to the moon as a prime reason to own their excellent handheld.

A seriously impressive game. It’s a little on the short side, and has a few little quirks all its own, but there’s no question that Guerilla Cambridge have delivered the goods. I still can’t quite believe the technical feats it accomplishes, to be perfectly honest.

Mercenary is a truly great shooter, one that was crafted with the hardcore shooter fan in mind. There’s a lot to love here -- even if its campaign is woefully short – from its deep Contracts mode to its engaging multiplayer functionality.

The mobile killzone is not as refined as its stationary brethren. But it plays and looks well enough to make me start another one of its shortened missions.

As much as I was hoping (and, quite frankly, expecting) Killzone: Mercenary to be the perfect representation of a first-person shooter on the PlayStation Vita, it just isn’t. A sub-par single player campaign is only saved by the fast-paced and fun multiplayer.

At its most basic, shooting guys in the face in Killzone: Mercenary can be enjoyable but never gives the player any credit in any other facet of the game. Not to mention a repetitive, uninspired mission structure and pocketfuls of missed opportunities, the campaign length coming in at just under four hours.

ps vitası olupta bu oyunu oynamamış insanlar çok fazla şey kaçırmış inanılmaz oyunlardan biri (türkçe dublaj lı )

This is Killzone, on a handheld... and it does very well at being that. On par with Killzone 2 in my honest opinion.

buen juego, con bastantes toques made in Killzone una pena no poder jugarlo en una buena pantalla y con unos controles en condiciones es bastante permisivo con el apuntado porque se sabe el lastre del sistema en el que se juega ojalá fuese también más largo, se nota demasiado que es un juego corto para portátil

The stunning graphics along with a decent single player campaign and a great multiplayer mode make Mercenary the best Vita game for this autumn. :) :D

Killzone Mercenary is a game I want to give a glowing review, but i just can't. Let's just start off by saying this is the closest to an AAA game as you can get on a handheld. It only takes one glance to see that the game looks phenomenal. It only takes one listen to see that the sound design is fantastic. It only takes a few moments of playing to feel the precise aiming the second analog nub adds to the portable First-Person Shooter experience. It has all the technical things in place, but something is still holding it back from true greatness, some problem that could have been remedied with a more focused development. That, of course, is the length of the game. Killzone Mercenary is short. Short short. I'm talking 3 hours (with dying a few times here and there). It's only 9 missions long, each one feeling largely the same as the last except for a change in scenery. It doesn't help that each mission consists of the same type of gameplay, over and over. It's mostly going to a point, placing a bomb, then holding out, then walking foward, then holding out. It starts and stops every few moments, making progress feel like a slow crawl, and ultimately, the missions to feel like little was actually accomplished. It's lazy mission design, clearly thrown together with storyline and setting as an afterthought. The storyline is acceptable, but with so little plot advancement, it goes too fast for you to even care. It could have been great, but since there are no real cutscenes outside of briefing screens, you don't particularly care for what is going on. Instead, the ending will only leave you staring at the screen wondering why it got so cheesy all of a sudden. Don't get me wrong, I love cheesy dialogue and epic last boss fights, but in this game it was just too rushed. The controls are a huge step above Killzone 1, 2, and 3. The aiming is no longer stiff, instead smooth like Killzone HD. All of the actions are easy to perform, and the number of buttons the vita has keeps them from mapping a lot of actions to one button (though, sprinting and crouching are both the O button, which isn't a problem at all). My only problem is the touch screen. Most of the time it works like a charm. Some of the time it doesn't. Nothing is more frustrating than failing a melee because the touchscreen won't register you swiping your finger on it. It doesn't kill the gameplay by any means, it's just an annoyance. If they could have just mapped the executions to the face buttons or directional pad, it would have been much better. The multiplayer in Mercenary is pretty good for a handheld. It supports 8 players across 3 game modes. Underwhelming? You bet. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Warzone are your only match types, with only a handful of maps. The maps could have been expanded a little and player count upped to 16, and it would have been a much more satisfying experience. Medal of Honor Heroes 2 supported 32 players, I believe, and that was on the PSP. The action itself, though, is where the game shines. The multiplayer is really fun once you get into a game, due to the excellent controls. The main problem with the gameplay itself is the spawn points, which seem to throw you in a select few random locations, sometimes right in front of an enemy, or right behind one. Then again, what shooter is perfect with spawn points? I really like the fact that each individual weapon has a purpose for the most part, as one isn't really super overpowered. It plays more like a rock/paper/scissors system, where you have the usual snipers, heavy weapons, assault rifles setup. The sidearms are no joke as well, with an awesome shotgun pistol among other things. The unlocks system itself is a joke. Money comes too fast, and you'll have everything unlocked in no time. If you're a player that plays until you unlock everything, don't expect to stick with this game for long. By the time I finished the campaign, almost all of the primary weapons were unlocked, and a few sidearms were unlocked as well. Give it around 10 or so hours in multiplayer, and you'll have everything you could ever need to win in a fight. The only things that are expensive in the store are the Vanguard systems, which act as this game's killstreaks. They are pretty unbalanced, leaving someone with a lot more kills than they should have from one pickup, but they don't break the game like the first Modern Warfare or anything. So, to bring this to a close, Mercenary is a pretty good shooter for a handheld, held back by its short length, lazy level design, and limited multiplayer. However, if you're looking for a game with high production values that will wow you, get it. It surpasses Golden Abyss in its production values, and that's saying something.