*----------------------------* Killzone Character Guide Written by Angelo Heartilly Last Updated: March 15, 2005 *----------------------------* WARNING!: This FAQ (quite stupidly) has a few spoilers in it. If you haven't beaten the game yet and don't want to have a few things spoiled for you then skip the character descriptions. I personally don't believe the spoilers are much of a deal since what I point out should be pretty obvious to you, but people have emailed me saying to mark spoilers. *=============* Intro *=============* FAQ number five for all of my fans that are keeping count. I decided to write one for Killzone, currently my favorite game that is sadly underrated. A full walkthrough wasn't very appealling to me since that would take an actual amount of work and skill... so I opted to instead do a short FAQ on the four selectable characters. As you should know, Killzone follows the adventure of a small group of four ISA soldiers as they carve a path of destruction through the invading Helghast forces. There are eleven (I believe) missions in the game and each of these consist of three or four smaller levels. At the beginning of each mission you get to choose which one of the four characters you want to control and you go from there. Some people claim there are few differences between the characters and, frankly, I say they are full of crap. In most levels the character you are using affects many more things than you would expect, the number of enemies, the path you take through the level, weapons you find along the way, dialogue... they are all at least slightly affected by who you choose. So personally I think this aspect of Killzone helped make it an awesome game. Templar, Rico, Hakha and Luger all manage to feel very different from eachother and make replaying most of the stages very enjoyable. They achieved a great deal of balance, the characters don't feel marginally different nor do they feel like you are playing four completely different games. Granted the teamwork aspect would have been better if you could give orders to your partners or if they would have acted a bit smarter, like Rico taking the lead when you enter new areas or Luger going to higher ground to snipe enemies when she has the chance to, but I guess that is what sequels are for. Anyways, down to business I guess. This FAQ is basically to inform you of all of the differences between the characters and if you are new give you some pointers on which character to use and how to use them. As always I welcome all emails so if you have a correction or additional info or just want to compliment or bash my guides you can contact me at homicidal_bunny@hotmail.com. *=====================* Table of Contents *=====================* - Introduction - Templar - Luger - Rico - Hakha - Health/Stamina Comparison - Closing/Disclaimer/Credits #--------------------# Templar, the leader! #--------------------# Available: Start of the game. ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Templar is your typical main hero kind of guy. He starts off on the front lines kicking Helghast butt just outside the city of Vekta. He volunteers to rescue the spy Hakha and that is where the story kicks off at pretty much. Personally I don't like him that much, he spends most of the earlier missions attempting to keep his team from killing eachother and prevents us from seeing Hakha and Rico from going at it. As the story progresses we slowly find out that he and Luger were once lovers... psh, he isn't deserving of Luger's love. - Templar is your average all around guy... and I personally consider him the worst character. - As far as mobility goes he can climb ladders and vault over stuff. - Default weapons are the ISA assault rifle and ISA handgun. | ISA Assault Rifle ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ A painfully average weapon in my opinion. The primary fire is decent but as you continue to fire the recoil pushes your crosshairs up. This doesn't cause any major problems but it is still very annoying to have to deal with it, particularly in long range firefights. The secondary is a powerful grenade launcher but between the two normal grenade launchers, two rocket launchers and all of the grenades you can find laying around, you don't really need that much more explosives. | ISA Handgun ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ To be fair it is more powerful that what you would expect, it can down weaker Helghast soldiers with just one or two shots but it is still a weak weapon. No zoom, limited amount of ammo, no secondary fire and I'd generally rather have a fully automatic weapon or some type of explosives in a gunfight. Ditch it as soon as you find a better weapon. ~ Templar Tactics ~ An average character requires average tactics. Take cover and take out enemies with 3 to 5 round bursts of fire, firing off some explosives to weaken larger groups. Take what you want as your other weapons, Templar can use pretty much any weapon okay. #--------------------# Luger, the assassin! #--------------------# Available: At the start of the third mission. ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Luger is my favorite character in Killzone so excuse me if I am a little biased. She is basically an assassin/sniper, which every ragtag band of soldiers needs at least one of. Vaughton sends her to help Templar rescue Hakha and she unfortunately has to endure that assclown's lame attempts at flirting, don't know what she ever saw in him anyways. Luger might not be the strongest character you can use, but I consider her the best. She demands a certain finesse to be used effectively. You can take out ten or so Helghast without them knowing what the hell is going on and you can drop a charging group of elites before a shot can be fired back, avoiding a lengthy and risky firefight in both cases. Meh, I just find it more satisfying to completely avoid a firefight rather than charging in and pumping a couple hundred bullets into everything that moves. - Luger is quick. She runs much faster than the others and her health and stamina recharge faster. - Such speed comes at a price however. Her armor is light and thus she takes more damage than the others. - Default weapons are the silenced submachine gun and the combat knife. - Can use heat vision goggles to spot enemy. Just push square (I map it to R3) to switch between the views. - Most mobile character, she can vault over crap, climb ladders, climb wires and crawl through tight spaces. - Generally has access to higher areas where she can snipe with ease. | Silenced Submachine Gun ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ This is a fairly awesome weapon, the problem is it's usefulness isn't as obvious at first since the secondary fire really should be the primary fire. Primary fires a fully automatic stream of accurate bullets at the enemy. Useful though it is, you will find your supply of ammo dropping quickly and there are few places to get extra ammumition. Secondary fire is far superior. It fires a single bullet, making hardly any noise. The bullet does a great amount of damage and is fairly accurate as well, making it a great substitute for when you don't have a sniper rifle with a load of ammo. Hell, many people consider it superior to the sniper rifle in several ways. | Combat Knife ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ A very cool but useless weapon. The idea here is that it does a bit more melee damage against the enemy than guns I think... but considering how often using melee attacks is actually beneficial and any gun can do slightly less melee damage anyways, it isn't really worth holding on to unless you just like stabbing guys. ~ Luger Tactics ~ The key here is neutralizing enemies before they can become a threat to you. Luger's armor is light, even a standard Helghast assault rifle will beat the crap out of you if its wielder can get close and if you are around 3/4 of your health or lower other snipers and enemies with explosives can take you out in one hit. Pick enemies off at an extreme distance using the secondary fire of the SSMG and use the primary fire only in emergencies, you shouldn't have any ammo shortages this way. Use your heat vision to help spot enemies and keep on the lookout for cables or any other way to reach higher ground and give you the advantage against the enemy. When fighting elites you should also get good at headshots, as you can take them down with a single bullet this way. If you get overrun by Helghast don't hesitate to flee behind Rico and let him cover your butt for a bit too. The sniper rifle is a no brainer for her third weapon. That is mostly all you need but you can replace the knife with a Helghast assault rifle or a grenade launcher if you want something for engaging enemies at closer ranges. #-------------------------# Rico, the err... swearer? #-------------------------# Available: At the start of the fourth mission. ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Largely considered the most powerful character in Killzone, Rico is one hell of a tank. He wears heavy armor and uses a large chaingun, making him all but invincible but at the same time barely capable of movement. He has a certain disliking for the Helghast after they wiped out his entire squad and as you can expect he and Hakha get along less than perfectly. He tags along with the team simply because he wants to kill some Helghast. It should also be noted that he has quite a mouth on him, using the F word in most cutscenes and shouting obscenities when engaging the enemy. He has some pretty hilarious lines as well, like "What the **** is a Shakespeare?" - Slow as all hell, his running speed is low and his health/stamina recharge slowly. - Immobile too. He can't really do anything, can't climb ladders, can't vault over anything, so he is basically restricted to following the main path. - His armor makes up for all that though. Rico can take a massive beating before he falls. - Default weapons are the ISA chaingun and pistol. | Chaingun ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ The ultimate tool for destruction. You start off with 800 bullets and simply pour them into the enemy by holding R1. No reloading is necessary, although a gauge shows you how close your gun is to overheating. If it overheats you can't fire any bullets until it cools down, which could be a problem except for the fact that you will be hard pressed to find any groups of enemies that will survive that long. It obviously is most effective up close, where you can shred any enemy in seconds, but it is surprisingly effective for taking out snipers as well. Taking out an enemy standing far away usually only takes a 5-10 round burst for me, although if they are taking cover it can be a bit more difficult. As if that wasn't enough, the chaingun also has three rockets it can fire to take out tanks or very large groups of enemies. | ISA Handgun ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Exactly like Templar's I believe. Good for a pistol but still inferior to most any other weapon you can pick up. ~ Rico Tactics ~ Not a whole lot to say here, just run and gun. Rico generally has a larger number of Helghast to deal with than the others although it isn't really an issue with his chaingun. Chaingun ammo is rare, but those boxes of ammo boost it's ammo all the way back up to 800 regardless of how much you currently have. You will occasionally run into ammo shortages though, and I usually switch to a different gun at around 100-150 ammo left. The Helghast light machinegun is a good alternative to his chaingun, or the Helghast assault rifle (if only for the unlimited supply of ammo you will find laying around). #---------------# Hakha, the spy! #---------------# Available: At the start of the fifth mission. ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Hakha is half Helghast and half human, something Rico isn't too fond of. He was once a high ranking soldier in the Helghan army but defected to the normal human side for no clear reason. Vaughton sends Templar and his crew to rescue the spy after he is caught by the Helghast, supposedly because he has some vital information for the Vektan forces. His ability to enter Helghast territory and harness their technology makes him a strong addition to the team, but man can't he put on a baseball cap or something? I'm continuously shooting him thinking he is the enemy... - Default weapons are the Helghast assault rifle, Helghast pistol and hunting knife. - Hakha is about average in mobility and speed, like Templar. He can climb ladders and vault over things but can't shimmy up them cables. - Because he is part Helghast he can slip through Helghast securities and infiltrate their bases and such. - Also thanks to his Helghastliness in a few levels he can reprogram sentry bots to fight on your side. Granted they are idiots and don't help much but they are still nice to have. - He has increased accuracy and can store more ammo for the Helghast assault rifle and light machinegun (maybe other Helghast weapons too? I'd appreciate some confirmation from somebody...). | Helghast Assault Rifle ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ The fact that Hakha starts with this weapon isn't anything special, since about 500 of them are dropped in every level. The fact that he transforms it from a crappy weapon that takes a full clip of ammo to kill anything that isn't standing five feet in front of him into a much more accurate gun that stores 1.5 times as much ammo is what makes it so good. It is a very effective weapon with nearly an unlimited amount of ammo laying around for you to use. It's secondary is great too, firing off a shotgun blast which is good for close quarters combat or softening groups up. | Helghast Pistol ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Slightly better than the ISA sidearm thanks to it's ability to shoot a single shot or three rapid shots but it still suffers from lack of zoom and ammo. | Hunting Knife ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ I don't think there are any major differences between this and Luger's knife. It is still a fun but mostly useless weapon to use. ~ Hakha Tactics ~ Don't worry too much about conserving ammo with the assault rifle, you have all the ammo you should need lying around you. When using the shotgun blast keep in mind if you continue holding in the secondary fire button it won't reload until you let off, so you can continue firing the primary fire. This makes the shotgun blast infinitly more useful and makes Hakha particularly deadly up close. He holds more ammo for the light machinegun too, which makes it a good backup weapon. His third weapon will probably vary between stages, the grenade pistol probably being the most popular choice. #--------------------------# Health/Stamina Comparisons #--------------------------# At first I thought the amount of health you can have restored automatically and the length you can sprint depended on the character but it turns out they all get 6 bars restored and can sprint for about 5 seconds. However, their stamina and health restore at different rates which should be of mild importance to you. That and I felt this guide was kind of short. Armor will also be compared in a... primitive way. | Templar | Luger | Rico | Hakha Health | 15 seconds | 11 seconds | 26 seconds | 15 seconds | | | | Stamina| 9 seconds | 8 seconds | 12 seconds | 9 seconds | | | | Damage | 6 bars | 9 bars | 3 bars | 6 bars Health - Amount of time it takes for them to restore 6 blocks of health, starting from the moment they take the most recent hit to the moment they restore the sixth block. Stamina - Amount of time it takes stamina bar to go from empty to full. Damage - Amount of bars of life taken away from a single self-thrown grenade at minimum distance. *===============* Closing *===============* Thanks for reading my guide and happy Helghast hunting! #-------# Credits #-------# - Thanks to Guerilla for making an awesome game, hurry along with the sequel! - Thanks to me for writing this FAQ. - Thanks to AOLesInfern0, muddy_lee, and Syffer Bidan for their excellent FAQs that helped me with some parts of the game. - Thanks to some helpful reader that emailed me about the ISA Assault Rifle and spoilers in my guide. Unfortunately his email was deleted and I lost his name, if he would send me another email I can give him proper credit. - And thank YOU for reading. ^_^ * * * This document is Copyright 2004 Tommy "Angelo Heartilly" Chambers. You are free to use this FAQ in any way as long as you don't make a profit off of it. The ONLY site that has permission to post this FAQ though is GameFAQs, don't bother asking if it can be posted on yours because the answer is no. * * * ~ thEnd ~