image courtesy of IGN.com
This is my little review of KZ2 multiplayer. I’ve unlocked all of the primary badges, but still have a few secondary badges to unlock.
To start, class building in Killzone consists of choosing two badges and a weapon. Each class has a primary badge and a secondary badge. After you meet certain requirements, you can freely mix and match these, with the exception that primary badges are always primary and secondary badges are always secondary. What this means is that your primary badge determines what weapons are available- and the rifleman can’t use badges. You can only pick one of each, so you can’t combine two primary or two secondary badges. Also, all characters can auto-heal only up to half their max HP.
Rifleman
This is your starting class. It has no primary and secondary abilities, and at start can only use the M82 or Sta52 rifle. The M82 has a 30 or 32 round magazine and a greend dot sight. It has very low recoil, so is great for firing bursts and range. The Sta52 has a 40 round magazine and iron sights. It has higher recoil, but has a smaller spread when firing formt he hip. Better at close range.
Eventually, you’ll unlock every weapon in the game aside from the grenade launcher and ISA rocket launcher. Usually, you’ll only use this class until you unlock other badges, since there’s usually a class that can use a weapon available to the soldier, and gets a secondary ability to boot (Saboteur and SMG, Medic and assault rifles, etc…) So odds are you won’t use this class much. Until…
You unlocks the LMGs- the Sta3 and M224. The Sta3 is possibly the best weapon in the game. When crouched and zoomed it is respectably accurate in bursts, and up close it’s a firehose of bullets. If all you want to do is kill enemies, this is the weapon for you. People bitch about the rockets, but the Sta3 is the real killer. The M224 is great for overwatch and accurtae fire, althoguh it’s slower ROF makes it less ideal at close range. Respectively, they’re essentially larger versions of the SMG and M82. Intelligently used, you will rack up crazy numbers of kills with them
Medic
The Medic can use either the M82 or Sta52 rifle. His primary badge let’s him pull out a revive gun and heal any mortally wounded ally. It has considerable range, so you can heal from behind cover. Very useful.
His secondary badge allows you to throw out blood packs that fully heal an ally. You can only throw one until it (quickly) recharges, but just laying them on the floor and letting probability take over means that if you’re defending an area, you’ll likely end up healing an ally quickly. Not used to often, as reviving an ally fully heals them.
Engineer
The engineer can only use the shotgun. His primary ability sets up an auto-turret (each team cna have 4 up at once) which are somewhat useful. In right area or up high, they can deal out a good dela of damage, but if you kneo wwhere a turret is beforehand they are easily defeated. The ebst tactic is to either put then in tighat spaces like hallways or corners, and to set up several so they can support eachother.
The secondary badge gives the engineer a repair tool (I have not unlocked this since it’s nearly impossible to meet the turret-kill requirements unless you play a levle up match). This allows you to heal auto-turrets, and repait ammo boxes and man-operated turrets throughout the level. Turrets and somewhat useful but sniper magnets. Ammo boxes are HIGHLY useful as they let your team reload on grenades and let the assualt class be devestating.
Tactician
The tactician can use the M82 and Sta52 rifles. His primary ability lets him throw out a spawn grenadde (each team can have 2 active). These let your team spawn somewher besides their base. If you have a good tactician, they cna turn the tide of a battle. A bad tactician thros the grenade in the middle of an open area and invites the enemy to rack up kills. Spawn grenade placement is the single most important aspect of team play IMO.
The secondary abiltiy let’s you summon a flying drone. These guys stay in the generl area you summoned them and kind fo shoot at the enemy. They’re not very good at killing, but do distract the enemy (since they eventually WILL kill you), and soften them up. Throwing one onto an enemy spawn grenade is highly effective, as they’ll be obscured by the smoke and can get a respectable number of kills.
Saboteur
The saboteaur can use the SMG or the Sta14 rifle. When crouched, the Sta14 rifle is perfectly accurate, and close-in the SMG is god. The primary badge lets you disguise yourself as a random enemy, except your lights (eyes for Helghast, lamps for ISA) won’t be lit up, and if the enemy aims ast you at close range he sees through the disguise. Very useful for sneaking around enemies and killing their doodz as long as you don’t make it obvious that your team isn’t shooting at you.
The secondary badge lets you throw proximity mines. You know what those do.
Assault
The Assault class can use the grenade launcher, VC9 rocket, and ISA rocket. I find the grenade launcher useless except for harassment as the grandes are time-fused, not impact (unless you hit someone with it). It is useful for ruining shit if the enemy is trying to hold a room, six grenades going offf at once will disorient them if it won’t kill them.
The two rockets launchers both have 3 rockets in storage. The Vc9 is smaller and has iron sights. The ISA rocket has a scope and can lock onto auto-turrets and drones. It’s also huge slows you to walking pace. Many servers ban rockets, although I find this a kneejerk. My stats have 50% accuracy with rocket weapons in MP. Assuming that they aren’t all killshots, and since I get three rockets, that’s only a little over 1 kill per spawn. The problem is that people don’t rememebr the 50 times they were killed by an assault rifle, they remember the one time they turned around to see flaming death haaded their way. The weapons are pretty balanced.
The Assault’s primary badge is armor. This gives him twice and much health as every other class, and also let’s him heal up to 50% of his health, which is 100% of everyone elses.
The secondary badge is the boost pill. This tints the screen a nice blue and let’s you run very fast and heal faster for a short time. Highly useful for sprinting to objectives, and when combined with the Tactician class makes strategic spawn grenading more likely.
EDIT: I also find that games that ban the assault class have a much worse problem with spawn-camping. 2 or 3 Assault soldiers can launch a couple dozen grenades out the door in a few second,s clearing out any would-be campers.
Scout
The Scout can only use the sniper rifle. It’s bolt action, holds like 6 rounds, and has a scope. It’s also a 1-hit kill (I thin, maybee it’s not 1 hit to arms and legs. But body shots are always lethal, except I think to the assault class).
The primary badge is a cloaking field that renders you invisible when still. Moving causes it to flicker in relation to how fast you run, and it also flickers off for a second when you fire.
The secondary badge is Spot and Mark, which lets’ you mark every enemy on yoru screne with a white cross and transmit that to your team. I have not unlocked it and it appears rarely used in the games I’ve played, so I can’t comment on it’s usefulness. Wait until more people unlock it.
EDIT: Unlocked it and it’s awesome. Hit the button and you have to sit still for a second while your screen is scanned. Every enemy player, turret, and drone on your screen gets a nice white X over them, and they appear on your teams’ radar. This ability recharges in a matter of seconds. On small maps it’s not as useful since your team pretty much knows where the fight is. But on larger maps, it can help your temmates from blindly wandering around corners and being shot. And it defeats the enemy’s cloaking field. They’re invisible, but just aim for the X.
