Notorious by the seemingly-impossible glossiness of its E3 2005 pre-rendered ‘graphical target’ demo, Killzone 2’s history to date has been anything but impressive. But at Games Convention 2008, the lengthy demo for the game underlined why Sony has spent so much time and money on the title alternatively labeled a ‘Halo 3-killer’ and/or ‘the most expensive multimedia project ever undertaken in Holland’.

The first thing to point out, however, is that the things people didn’t like about Killzone on PlayStation 2 are still in evidence. The camera wobbles around all over the place whenever you run, reload or throw grenades. The art palette remains a mixture of over-saturated blooms and a thousand different shades of grey. The Helghast are still an impersonal enemy with day-glo orange goggles on their heads.

But these caveats aside, Killzone 2 is perhaps the first game to be worthy of the label PlayStation 3-killer app. Compared to the Resistance 2 demo that’s on the same stand, Killzone 2 is about ten times as long and four times as impressive.

Of course, being a demo, the pace is perhaps overly varied and somewhat exaggerated. You move from tight-in corridor spaces up close and impersonal with Helghast to huge vista battlefields full of the buggers, with your side fighting in the distance and you, plus AI-buddy, fighting your way to get to that action through a series of ambushes and fixed gun-emplacements you must conquer and then use against their erstwhile owners (cue overwhelming firepower and a certain amount of game timing clichés). But the process is worth it. Eventually you get to ride in a rocket-firing tank and blow the hell out of those huge battlefield vistas.

What’s really impressive about the game though are the smaller details, like the solidness of all characters with their chunky body armor and overstated battle-worn animations. Sure it’s motion capture touched up with keyframes, but looking at it you know where a large chunk of Sony’s money went and also know that it was money well spent. These troops are moving through the shattered urban environment with heavy weapons and using the cover as they come.

Perhaps the single best touch though is the reaction you cause when you riddle an enemy with bullets. The solidity of the body remains - and the ragdoll death animations are deathly - but before then, a cloud of black particles detaches itself from the now-dancing figure as if a mist of blood and bodily fluids is being emitted. It’s probably some sort of computationally-cheap special effect linked into the complex deferred rendering technique used in the game but it’s highly effective nevertheless, as are the scarlet rivers that start to run down from the top of your screen when you’re on the receiving end of the punishment. Frankly it feels like you're killing someone (and being killed in turn) and that’s surely one of the few requisites you can ask of a first person shooter.

Update: Thanks for pointing out the addition of jump. You can jump, although you cannot fire and jump at the same time. We've updated the article.