I never played or really heard of the killzone games, should i play them before shadowfall?

[Reven]

In the countries i grew up in, xbox generally dominated. This was to such a degree i had never heard any news of any killzone game until 3 was release and even then, it was never really discussed.

My question is, what is the series known for? Does it have any strengths or flaws? If i wanted to get KZ: Shadowfall do i need to play the previous games?

 

[Casual Shinji]

I think all you need to know about this series is that there are evil Jin-Roh space Nazis from beyond the moon, and the Earth Marines have to fight them.

That's about it.

 

[gigastar]

Its British Space-Nazis versus Space America.

Thats all you really need to know, but if youre wanting for more details then i reccomend you check out the Wikipedia and TvTropes pages for the games.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I love Killzone, with the exception of the first, are prefer it to Resistance series.
It has this almost unique weighty feel (especially in KZ2, but KZ3 toned it down a little), and melee finishers are very satisfying.

Most people would describe it as Sony's answer to Halo, it has a strong multiplayer mode and a decent story mode.
Shadowfall is a sequel to Killzone 3, but I assume Guerrilla Games will still find ways to bring new players up to date.

 

[Sp3ratus]

I love Killzone, with the exception of the first, are prefer it to Resistance series.
It has this almost unique weighty feel (especially in KZ2, but KZ3 toned it down a little), and melee finishers are very satisfying.

Same here, I'm excited about seeing how the balance is in Shadow Fall, compared to KZ2 and 3. I know some people didn't like the change from 2 to 3, but persoally I never really minded the change, so more of the same would be fine by me.

As for OT, I don't think it's necessary to play 1(I never did), 2 and 3, since that story arc pretty much ended with 3, seeing as Shadow Fall is set 30 years after 3. Not that the story in the games itself is all that exciting, unfortunately for the KZ franchise, most of the interesting stuff of the universe is hidden away in backstory. Still, if you're interested, it's all right here. That being said, the story mode itself is pretty good, at least I thought so. On the higher difficulties, it gets really, really intense and there's no rushing forward, since that'll get you killed pretty quickly.

The mulitplayer is where it's at for me, though, which the games do amanzingly well, in my opinion. Guerilla Warfare is awesome, since the randomization of objectives shifts the action all over the map and makes no two matches play exactly the same. A major drawback is map packs, since it splits up the community, but luckily GG have realised and corrected this for KZ:SF, since all map packs will be free.

So in conclusion, it's not necessary to get it, I think, but the games are still great and worth playing through, especially if you enjoy multiplayer FPS.

-snip for notice-

 

[TecnoMonkey]

Yeah Killzone could have been more than "just shoot the space nazis" but Guerilla decided that the (surprisingly really interesting and deep) backstory of the series had no actual place in the games. So what you are left with is a pretty good shooter that really immerses you in your character due the weight and feel of the controls.

So no I don't think you need to buy the other games since I'm pretty sure they'll explain what happened previoulsy or if you really know everything about the series go read the whole backstory.

 

[Marik2]

In the countries i grew up in, xbox generally dominated. This was to such a degree i had never heard any news of any killzone game until 3 was release and even then, it was never really discussed.

My question is, what is the series known for? Does it have any strengths or flaws? If i wanted to get KZ: Shadowfall do i need to play the previous games?

Skip it, it's just not that great. 2 and 3 bore me to death and 2 while had some weight to the feel of the shooting and carrying luggage, it was still just dull.

Like most games, it has an interesting backstory, but the games don't really take advantage of it.