These two moments are a nice little microcosm of the way Killzone 2 keeps you guessing by sharply switching up the scale and intimacy of battles. Later chapters perform a similar trick by quickly altering the setting. The first few hours of the game will be spent running through demolished cities, but later you'll find yourself in different locales like an elaborate Visari palace and a windswept mining town that wouldn't feel entirely out of place in a Star Wars movie.
Fights tend to last a while due to clever AI on the part of the Helghast soldiers. They seem to have attended the same school of cover techniques you have, because they'll be spending just as much time behind crates and walls. What makes things interesting is that their behavior seems to change as the odds of their survival are whittled down. You'll see them get brave in a group and pop up quite often, but when they're in a bad spot they'll stay put and frantically blind fire while defiling your good name.
Of course, you do have teammates alongside to lend you a helping hand at nearly every point in the game. It can be anywhere between one and several dozen at once, but the ebb and flow of battle is something you determine on your own since you're generally taking the lead and letting the others follow you. You won't need to worry about any sort of squad commands, but a bit of teamwork is required when a buddy goes down. In situations like this, you'll need to pull out your trusty medic gun and zap him back to health with a quick spark of life. It's an oddly simple mechanic, but a critical one because your buddies are expert shots who help a lot in battle. Along with constant banter, this helps to provide a feeling of belonging to a greater group despite the fact that you're taking the fight into your own hands most of the time.
Finally, with this being Killzone 2, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the graphics--or more specifically, how awesome they are. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say Killzone 2 is the best-looking console game we've seen. The use of lighting is probably the most impressive of the game's technical feats: with so much of the game taking place in demolished urban centers with gray steel, concrete, and asphalt, those moments when you're flushed with color are extremely striking. This might include an orange street lamp, the blue glow of a faulty electrical tower, or the green haze in a sewer tunnel, but the way it all reflects off nearby objects like your gun and character models looks terrific. Add in sharp textures, great smoke and explosion effects, terrific depth of field, and an ominous sky that looks like the world might cave in at any moment and you've got a combination of technical and artistic brilliance that's hard to understate. Best of all: the framerate does a good job of keeping up, with the only noticeable hitches arriving during an autosave between checkpoints.
If you were to nitpick the presentation, most people's attention would probably fall on the audio. While the sound effects and music are both great, the voice acting could give Gears of War's Delta Squad a run for its money in terms of smoldering, manly rage. In fact, it can often be difficult to separate one gruff voice from another when your vision isn't fixed on a squadmate's face. It's not exactly an abrasive fault, but it does stick out when you consider how stellar the rest of the presentation is.
Small gripes aside, we had a thoroughly enjoyable experience with Killzone 2's single-player campaign. The combat is intense, the visual aesthetics are amazing, and the level of difficulty provides a rewarding challenge. It seems that PlayStation 3 owners will have a lot to look forward to when the game is finally released. You can expect that to happen on February 27.