The original Killzone was release on the PlayStation 2 on November 26th, 2004. It wasn't all that great, but it did lay the foundation for Killzone 2 on the PlayStation 3, which was pretty great, so we'll let Guerrilla have its little celebration. It works out well for us anyway, what with a double XP weekend in Killzone 2 running the 27th through the 30th, and reduced prices on Killzone 2 DLC until December 10th. There's even a Killzone 2 retro tournament this weekend, using only the Beach Head and Southern Hills map from the second map pack.

Those of you who earnestly want to celebrate the original game can head over to Killzone.com, where this week there'll be a complete play through of the original game later this week, followed by a detailed comparison of the two titles next week.

Happy birthday, Killzone! We will celebrate this Thursday by eating until we pass out.

Killzone is (almost) Five! – Celebrate with a Double XP Weekend and More [PlayStation Blog]

The game's rousing soundtrack was recorded by a session orchestra (at Abbey Road, no less), not some guy with a synthesiser, and if you've ever wanted to make your office feel less like a rat race and more like a military junta, you can grab it on iTunes right now for $10.

Killzone 2 Soundtrack Released On iTunes [PlayStation]

Of course, the game doesn't call it torture. I think the term they use is "extreme interrogation tactics." But when is something "interrogation" over "torture?" Is it just how badly you beat somebody up, or does it matter what you're trying to get out of the person/NPC?

In Brink, this is what happens: you're playing as a military operative in a futuristic setting. During a firefight, you sneak behind enemy lines and happen upon an injured rebel writhing on the ground. An option pops up, prompting you to press X to interrogate the guy and it looks like if you select it, your character pulls out an iPhone-iish device. Your character then shocks the heck out of the guy until he screams, "Okay! I'll talk!" Then your objective screen updates and a new icon appears on the map.

In the grand scheme of violence in video games, it's not graphic. It's actually similar to what happens to Snake in the first Metal Gear Solid when Revolver Ocelot has him strapped spread-eagle style and shocks him (as the player, you press buttons to Resist or Submit — Submitting kills Meryl and I couldn't hit that button fast enough). The difference in Brink is that my character is doing it to someone else. So on a gut level, I don't want to call it torture because I'm the "good guy," right?

But then there's the Punisher game with interactive torture. That's torture because I think the game goes so far as to call it so, but as a player I'm comfortable with it because I'm playing as the Punisher. Yeah, he fights for justice, but he's not what people would call a "good" guy. So it's okay for me as a player to play as him torturing somebody because that's what the Punisher would do — never mind what I would do. Besides, they were probably bad people who deserved it anyway.

Now think about Red Faction: Guerrilla where you're playing on the side of a rebel faction. Like Brink, it's a wartime situation and gaining information is crucial to the success of missions. In one scene, explored by Stephen Totilo, an NPC sidekick "interrogates" somebody for said information. With knives. Is that torture? If you're not sure, apply the same line of questioning to Killzone 2 when Rico gets a little "extreme" when interrogating an enemy.

To confuse you even more on the subject of torture, think about situations where it's not about information — it's about control. For example, there's the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City mission, Death Row and the Ransom mission in Grand Theft Auto IV. In both cases, somebody is deliberately hurting someone else for revenge or just because they're violent by nature. That's really easy to spot as torture — but at the same time, in GTAIV, you're playing as Niko, the guy that hits a woman tied to a chair and then takes a picture of her. You don't really want to call that torture, do you? It's easier just to play it down as no big deal or write it off because it's not an interactive part of the game — so "you" didn't torture anybody.

Lastly, let's talk about torture being inflicted on you, the player. In these cases, you probably wouldn't think of what you're going through as "torture," (unless it's a Saw game), but by definition, a game is deliberately inflicting suffering on you. Example: Missile Command. The game is about mutually assured destruction in the Cold War era, but at the same time, it's a psychological exercise that tortures the player: by design, you cannot "win" Missile Command. Sure, a lot of early arcade games were un-winnable — but by forcing the player to realize that no matter how good you are at the game, no matter how many quarters you sink into it, you cannot save six cities from a nuclear holocaust, the game is deliberately messing with you. A more obvious example of mental anguish inflicted on the player would be Fable II — because it's not just that your character is being electrocuted, it's that you're losing all of that XP you gathered and racking up evilness (which is torture to a goody-two-shoes gamer like me).

So what's really going on in Brink? When I zap the guy with my iPhone-looking device, am I committing torture or just "extreme" interrogation? I didn't see an option to just question the guy before shocking him. I'm not sure if there were other ways to get the information that the subject had. I do know that if the game actually called it "torture," I'd be way less inclined to play as that class of character. For me, that would be the worst kind of torture: role-playing as a character that I want to play as benevolent, and then being forced to do something I'm not okay with because the game has other ideas about where the line between torture and interrogation lies.

P.S. You want the line clearly drawn? Check this game out.

Image Cred — GTAIV
Image Cred — The Punisher
Image Cred — Fable II
Image Cred — MGS

Before you say anything, yes, we know Metal Gear Solid 4 has been out in select PAL territories for months now. Guess it's now out in more territories.

Killzone 2 plays a big part in tomorrow's PlayStation Home update, with the launch of the Visari Throne Room bringing with it a ton of new Killzone 2 items you can use to make you feel more at home in Home. Along with the influx of Killzone 2 merchandise comes the Post-Apocalyptic Apartment, guaranteed to make your high-tech virtual presence look more like a total dump. The update includes more than 70 post-apocalicious items dedicated to this new apartment alone. You can almost taste the radiation poisoning.

For those of you preferring to spend your time in PlayStation Home as a transient, there'll also be animated city t-shirts to help show off your civic pride, and animated glow sticks to help show off your love for animated glow sticks.

It's a veritable cornucopia of worthless virtual items you can spend money on! I'd point and laugh, but I frequent Second Life and have no room to talk.

Over 100 New Pieces of Content Releasing This Thursday in PlayStation Home [PlayStation Blog]

This compendium will be called the - wait for it - "Map Pack Bundle", and will sell for $12. It'll include not just everything that comes with "Napalm & Cordite", but everything that came with "Steel & Titanium" and "Flash & Thunder" as well.

It'll be made available later today, as part of the same PlayStation Store update that'll bring "Napalm & Cordite".

Killzone 2 DLC "Napalm & Cordite" and Map Pack Bundle Releasing Tomorrow [Sony]

Showcased are the Suljeva Cliffside and Arctower Landing maps, plus the two weapons that give this downloadable content its name. Official release date via the PlayStation.blog is July 23rd in North America. Make the necessary digital wallet preparations while enjoyin video game trailers after this.

Killzone 2 Napalm & Cordite; The Weapons pack [PlayStation.blog]

It'll introduce two new maps, "Suljeva Cliffside" and "Arctower Landing", along with two new weapons (well, new for multiplayer), the flamethrower and boltgun.

The DLC will also be accompanied by a new patch for the game, the features of which we've listed below. The update will be out on July 14, while pricing and release info on the DLC will be released next week.

* Feature - Higher values for Bodycount mode. Players can now create games with 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50, 100 and 200 points to increase the time of the mode for 32 player games.
* Feature - Moderators can now create double-points events.
* Fix for persistent squads now working correctly when users using separate Japanese accounts join Friends.
* New loading screens.
* Moderation – Additional powers and functionality for online moderators.
* Fix for Clan Leader leaving his clan before an active Tournament of Clan Challenge.
* Fix for score replication on different clients.
* Fix for a Clan Challenge results displaying a won/lost games as a ‘Draw'.
* Fix for incorrect Tournament timings being displayed for (semi)-final.
* Fix for an empty message pop-up being displayed.
* ‘High Precision Mode' now defaulting when requested.
* Fix for stuttering audio on the Asian version.
* Fix for network error displayed when trying to log in with another users account.
* Fix to reduce network traffic and improve performance.
* Fix for occasionally being displayed an empty background when ‘Join Friend' via Communications tab.
* Exploit – Pyrrhus Rise map boundary fix.
* Exploit – Radec Academy collision fix to prevent players being revived inside a pillar and using it to their advantage.
* Cosmetic fix for Medic Gun visual effects.
* Cosmetic fix for Search & Retrieve object being cloaked by the Scout.
* Cosmetic fix for Scouts body remaining cloaked after being mortally wounded (i.e. headshot).
* Gameplay – Damage from Sentry bots tweaked back on request of the community.
* Collection of minor code fixes.

Reader Corey sends us this list of trophies for the game, which were updated today to include mention of stuff not previously spoken of by Sony or Guerilla. It appears there'll be two new maps: "Suljeva Cliffside" and "Arctower Landing", along with two new weapons (well, new for multiplayer), the flamethrower and boltgun.

No idea on when these will actually appear, or how much they'll cost, but if they're turning up on official trophy lists, they can't be too far away.

Sent in by a Best Buy employee, and confirmed by other BB employees, it's an 80GB PS3 bundled with copies of two of the biggest games on the system: Metal Gear Solid 4 and Killzone 2. All that for the asking price of a standard PS3, $400.

It's one hell of a bundle. It's like getting a Wii with Twilight Princess and Mario Galaxy, or a 360 with Gears 2 and Halo 3. But perhaps more importantly, it's also one hell of a saving; perhaps Best Buy need to clear out their stock of 80GB PS3s for oh, I don't know, a new PS3?

UPDATE - Looks like some Best Buy stores are already selling the bundle early. Thanks Anonymous Bundle King!

Never mind the fact these were mostly fixed by adjusting the controller sensitivity in the game's options menu. That was too hard for some people. So developers Guerilla Games are about to release a new patch for the game that, among some tweaks to matchmaking and skirmish mode, includes a new "High Precision" control scheme.

Guerilla's Eric Boltjes explains:

When this option is switched on, it makes the analog sticks more responsive to small movements. Turned off, the controls behave exactly as they did before the patch. It's not a radical overhaul of the control system, so the layout and the ‘weight' of the controls remain the same.

Still, a lot of us here at Guerrilla really enjoy the new High Precision option, so we've decided to switch it on by default for new players. Existing Killzone 2 players will have the option turned off by default after patching – we wouldn't want to force a sudden change to the controls on you!

So if you like the existing controls, you keep them, if not, you can change 'em. Wonderful.

Killzone 2 Patch 1.27 Details [PlayStation]

The Flash and Thunder Pack contains two classic Killzone maps remade from the ground up for Killzone 2. The Beach Head map sees the ISA defending a coastal stronghold against a Helghast landing force, while the Southern Hills map reverses fortunes, with the ISA storming a Helghast compound on top of a hill, assumedly somewhere in the south. Limited in size, the Beach Head map should be good for small skirmishes, while the expansive Southern Hills map is more suited for a large-scale game.

Check out the first screens from the new pack below, and look for the Flash and Thunder Pack to arrive on June 11th, with a price to be determined at a later date.

According to Gamasutra's monthly deeper dive into NPD Group sales figures, the answer is 58,000 copies last month. Good? Bad? Well, it's slower. Having moved 323,000 copies in its first month on the market, dropping to 296,000 the next month and settling into where it is now. We'll leave the ultimate judgment of whether that's a positive or negative for third month sales up to you.

Sony has already gone on record about Killzone 2's sales successes, touting a million copies already sold through worldwide and noting that U.S. sales have exceeded the company's expectations. Soldier on, Killzone!

Killzone 2 Adds 58k On PlayStation 3 In April NPD [Gamasutra]

Like other Sony online stats - which record individual accounts rather than unique users - this doesn't mean that there have been one million individual players (it's not like every single owner has played the game online), but hey, it's probably pretty close.

[via PS3Center]

While we knew it was coming out on April 30th, up until now we had no price tag for the two maps included in the first round of Killzone 2 downloadable content. Now Sony affixes a $5.99 price tag to Wasteland Bullet and Vekta Cruiser, so we're basically paying $3.00 or so per map. Is it worth the price? Check out the trailer below to see if that sort of action is worth $6 to you.

In addition to the new ranks, exploits on the Radec Academy, Helghan Industries, Salamun Market and Tharsis Depot maps are being fixed - these dealt with players getting out of the map or normal gameplay areas. Also bugs that hung people up on the medal awards screen (winning 10 clan challenges) or inadvertently booted them if they received invitations from clans with certain non-alphanumeric characters in their names.

The 57MB patch rolls out on Wednesday. Of course its major purpose is to prepare the game for the release of the Steel and Titanium DLC package, which is due out April 30. Another, even larger patch is said to be in the works already.

Here's the full list:

AI - Bots now skipping disabled/destroyed MGs in warzone when requesting mounted guns.
AI - Do not claim waypoints for the previous character when it's dead.
AI - Fixes bots getting stuck trying to arm/disarm S&D object when mission is already over.
Campaign - Fix for potential progression bug in Salamun Bridge.
Clan - User name, not users clan displayed in rankings
Clan - Winning 10 Clan Challenges causes the user to become stuck on the medal awards screen.
Controls - Lean & Peak - Zoom hold on and out of ammo it switches between regular/scope view rapidly.
Cosmetic - Blue screen tint which indicates scout cloak is occasionally enabled and will remain indefinitely.
Cosmetic - White squares on the grenade counter merge together when displayed in 1080p
Create Game - "Badge Combination" option does not work properly
Create Game - Online - "clan only" presets apply even after a player leaves a clan
DLC - DLC pack 1 - 'Steel & Titanium' support DLC - New Loading screens advertising the first DLC pack.
Exploit - Helghan Industries - Player getting out of map fix.
Exploit - Radec Academy - User is able to gain access to the roof when revived in a specific location.
Exploit - Reviving player stuck in wall collision can result in him spawning outside level
Exploit - Salamun Market - One sided wall allows people to be seen and shot from outside where they cant see or fire out
Exploit - Tharsis Depot - Player can get out of the "normal" play area and can get into some sniper/camp spots
Feature - Invite player from friendslist Feature - Join Clan Member list added.
Feature - Join Game - 17-24 players filter.
Feature - MP - Moving while seeing scores after pressing SELECT
Feature - The radar/map now has a larger radius
Feature - Three additional 'Harcore' Ranks added to the top limits.
Front-end - Add support to display more than 8 maps when creating a game /challenge/tournament
Front-end - Sorting ascending and decending ranks working better in 'Rankings'
Front-end - When in a squad, the Valor Trophy is visible in the Squad Tab, however the users rank is not being displayed on top of it.
Mods - Official tournament to be displayed first followed by custom created tournaments
Mods - Additional functionality made avalable to the in-game moderators.
Network - Server side fix for full games being displayed incorrectly.
Network - User is unable to use the 'Join Clan Member' tab due to Network Error Code 20002.
Online - File-synching with the Japanese release of Killzone 2 on the 23rd of April.
Sound - Turret placing sound continues when killed.
Stability - Crash when synching gamestate after a full mapcycle
Stability - Hang on a screen with a blank message window just before a message appears.
Stability - Reducing the load on the server related to syncing the buddylist
Stats - If a clan wins 24 Clan Challenges and goes to the result screen, the medal acquisition screen, which normally displays when you win 25 games, will display.
Stats - Number of air-support grenades used by tacticians does not add to the stats of joined user correctly.
Stats - Number of spawn-grenades used by tacticians does not add to the stats of joined user correctly.
Stats - User sometimes does not receive 1000 valor award when winning 10 Clan Challenges.
Text - % character not displayed correctly on the creating game dialogue box after selecting to create game.
Text - If a client receives an invite from a clan which has a '$' character in the clan name, the recipient will get kicked
Text - Minor Italian localization fix.
Text - Minor Japanese localization fix.
Tournament - Game decides winner if one of the two teams doesn't spawn in
Trophies - Fix for Wargod trophy unlocking pre-maturely

Official Patch 1.24 Inbound [PlayStation Forums, thanks Rick P.]

An official statement from the company gloats that "the hit game has garnered the biggest initial success at retail of any first-party PS3 title to date, and will continue to drive incentive for hardware sales throughout the year."

Sony Computer Entertainment's Scott Steinberg said earlier this month that the Guerilla Games developed Killzone 2 has "exceeded our expectations." The title sold more than 500,000 copies in the U.S. in its first two months on the market.

The DLC pack comes with two new multiplayer maps and "new gameplay element and strategic twists."

Wasteland Bullet takes place on a bullet train rocketing between Pyrrhus and the Wasteland. Vekta Cruiser has ISA troops boarding a ship to repel a Helghast assault and protect the cruiser.

How much do you think this is worth? Or should it be a free DLC?

Download Killzone 2 Steel and Titanium April 30th [Playstation Blog]

Wasteland Bullet:

















Vekta Cruiser:

















Killzone 2 [Gametrailers]