Raven Squad hopes to blend the first-person shooter experience with the command and overview elements of a real-time strategy game in battles that take place in the jungles of the Amazon. The game will let players switch between the two genres on the fly.

It's now due out this fall on the PC and Xbox 360.

I was surprised at how deftly the game seemed to handle... with one exception.

The Conduit is meant to be a solid first-person shooter built from the ground up for the Wii. I was impressed with just how customizable the controls are, allowing you to tweak just about everything in the game to try and create, or recreate, your favorite shooter controls.

Taking the Wii remote in hand, I was able to adjust to the controls within a few seconds and was pulling off head shots in minutes.

I found the controls exceptionally tight and more than able to deliver a solid shooter experience. I did run into one significant problem though.

To look around, you need to aim the remote to the edge of the screen. This worked fine normally, but when I pointed too far off the screen the game would sort of flip out, sending me spinning in circles until i was able to recenter my controller and stop the movement.

Of course, the problem is that when playing a fast-paced shooter, one that may expect you to spin around quickly, the possibilities of over turning are pretty high.

Hopefully this is something High Voltage can fix with software, because without the one flaw it seems like the best controls for a Wii shooter that I can remember.

On top of tracking headshots and nailing precision aiming, every gun you use also has a zoom option and many, I'm told, will have secondary fire.

While the controls seemed mostly flawless, when I saw the game is still lacked a bit of polish. In particular, the graphics seemed to need a little work, but nothing that is insurmountable.

I wish I could say there were a whole bunch of amazing first-person experiences to compare it to on Nintendo's console, but sadly that isn't the case. There are plenty of ports, and Red Steel, but nothing that really stands out as a contender for the definitive experience. If The Conduit shapes up as well as I hope it will, I'd gladly let it wear that crown once it sees release this June.

It is, on its surface, a big ball of science fiction and video game cliches, but what first-person shooter isn't? What matters here isn't whether Killzone 2 tells a compelling story, but whether it delivers on nearly four years of promises. Four years of expectations stoked by glimpses of incredible graphics, deep gameplay and barely mentioned multiplayer.

Can Killzone 2 live up to its unspoken promise and deliver a game that not only sells, but sells systems?

Loved
Graphics: Graphically, this is one of the most impressive games I've played to date. Every scene, every moment of Killzone 2 is teeming with detail and nuance, from the drift of smoke, to discarded shells, to the flecks of concrete that pop off when you shoot a wall. And it's not about just the intricately detailed scenery, it's also about the artistic flair of Helghast's design. The lighting, the architecture, the landscapes all do a masterful job of capturing the oppressive ambiance of the game's undertones.

Entrancing Set Pieces: The experience of playing Killzone 2 ping-pongs between the ordinary and the sublime. There were moments when I paused in mid-play to take in what was happening around me. I wasn't just playing out a predetermined role, triggering events by pushing forward, I was engrossed in a battle—bullets zipping by, friends and foe falling on either side. The intensity, the mayhem of war, perfectly captured. It is at those moments that Killzone 2 is fully realized, when it delivers not a single-player experience, but an experience that despite its solitary nature, makes you are part of something larger. You aren't the hero in this game, you're one of the grunts and it's just as likely that any one of you will die.

Level Design: The levels almost all take place in dark locations with muddled, mild colors. But despite the outward sameness of some of their design, they offer an eclectic range of challenges for experienced gamers. Instead of having players charge across a rolling battlefield, working to get from one end to the other, Guerrilla Games made sure to keep players on their toes through skilled level design.

Story: Killzone 2 isn't a game you buy for its plot, so I was surprised to find myself enjoying the relatively light touch of a well-written story sketched across the game's campaign. When the end does finally come, it delivers a subtle look at the complexity of morality in war, without getting too heavy-handed.

Pacing: Killzone 2 is a tightly-paced shooter that walks gamers through an eclectic mix of levels in an experience that comes in at just under eight hours. But it's also another one of those games that, because of its relatively short length and its perfect pacing, can feel more like a movie or a book than a game.

Multiplayer Experience: As much as I enjoyed Killzone 2's campaign, it pales in comparison to the multiplayer experience. The game's 32-player matches includes seven classes, each with two unlockable abilities, five modes and support for four 4-player squads in a team. You also get clan support and the ability to replay your battles in a top-down 2D map on the official website battle replays. It's quickly become my favorite online game.

Multiplayer Map Design: The game's included eight multiplayer maps are some of the best I've played. Not only do they sprawl both horizontally and vertically, but they are packed with clutter, buildings, wreckage, all of which you can climb up and through. The myriad of hiding spots and routes adds a much welcome level of depth to game sessions.

Hated
Load Screen Hiccups: It's certainly no deal breaker, really more of an annoyance, but the game tends stick for just a second or so whenever it hits a loading spot. The longest I noticed lasted about three seconds.

Extremely Long Unlocks: I love, absolutely love the multiplayer gaming, and I'm OK with earning unlocks in a shooter, but Killzone 2's unlock system may turn off those who want to dabble and not grind. To unlock your first new weapons, you start with two main to choose from, you have to rank up to Sergeant 1st Class by earning 200 points. To unlock the first new class you have to earn a total of 350. To unlock the scout you need to earn 2,800 points and then to unlock their second ability you need to kill quite a few people while cloaked.

It's easy when playing a game in an over-saturated genre, like first-person shooters, to judge the title not by what it is, but by what it isn't. Too often, games concentrate more on separating themselves from the pack then on delivering a solid experience.

But Killzone 2 avoids that trap, ignoring the temptation of gimmick and instead wading into the thick of things and proving that you don't have to be unique to deliver an engaging experience.

Despite its minor shortcomings, Killzone 2 is a must-have for any owner of a PlayStation 3. It shows what the system can do and delivers a multiplayer experience rarely seen on the system. The single-player campaign is short, but enjoyable, and from my time with multiplayer, it's a game I'll be playing for quite a while.

Killzone 2 was developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It was released on Feb. 27 for $59.99. Played single player campaign to completion, played multiple battles on the PlayStation Network against other players.

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Bioshock Exclusive Interview 1 [Pro-G]

Ah, nothing like a bile-clearning rant to kick-start a Monday. Clive Thompson's latest column is all about the pure, simple, violent pleasures of running-and-gunning first-person shooters. Screw plot, screw game mechanics, screw intricacies, screw complexity, sometimes all you really need is to deliver an up-close-and-personal gut shot to a friend with a sawed off.

Let us now praise insanely violent first-person-shooters.

Let us praise the joys of double-wielding a pair of Uzis with unlimited ammo; let us delight in the gorgeous fractal carnage of a rocket launcher as it slams into your target. Let us talk openly about how just totally awesome it is to grab a fully loaded railgun in Quake 4 and wade into a mass of gibbering Strogg aliens and kill and kill and kill again, until there are guts on, like, the ceiling.

While we're at it, let us meditate on the subtle joys of deciding, while playing Far Cry, that this sneaking-around "stealth" stuff is for the birds, and it's way more excellent to just barge out into the open with fully loaded machine guns and slice through waves of oncoming mercenaries with the crimson fury of the angel of death himself, blasting and blasting until your trigger finger is aching and you are basically tripping over the corpses, and the battlefield is silent but for the distant plaintive cawing of seagulls on a far-off beach.

I probably sound like I've lost my mind.

I haven't. No — it's just time to defend the indefensible: The allure of grotesquely violent shoot'em-ups.

Amen. And now, let us gib.

The Glory of the Shooter [Games Without Frontiers]