Guerilla Games debuted a new game mode in Killzone 3 with much fanfare: Operations. I played it for a while last night with Tosh. It’s great to have a partner who actually knows what’s going on! He usually placed near the top of the leader boards and I usually placed near the middle. Here’s the Good, Bad, and the Ugly.

Good

Operations is a lot of fun. It’s true. There are three maps with an Operations mode, and we played the two that were not in the beta – Akmir Snowdrift and Mawlr Graveyard. We played each map twice. It’s great fun to stop the ISA or pummel the Helghast. The objectives are similar to the objectives in Warzone mode, but the game strings them together nicely with cutscenes that show players that were instrumental in achieving the objectives. I saw my handle in these cutscenes several times, and it’s a blast.

I played the Tactician, and it was only on the second go-around on these maps that I knew them well enough to actually capture the occasional spawn points. Tosh did all the heavy lifting the first go arounds. Spawn points are key to winning Operations, and therefore the Tactician is of vital importance. Being a Tactician myself, I like that.

I am very much a run and gun player, so it was hard at first for me to pull myself back and think before I rushed in. Once I started doing that, my score went up. It also helped that I got to know the maps.

Last night there were several people playing with mics on. This is normal on the 360, but not so normal on the PS3. It was nice to actually communicate with team mates. Great stuff.

The maps look great. I was especially impressed by Akmir Snowdrift. For those of you who don’t live in cold climates, that’s really what it looks like. Made me glad I was on a couch instead of outside in the snow.

Bad

Is there an overall winner? If the ISA get the first two objectives but the Helghast prevented them from getting the third, who won? It wasn’t clear to me. Once the match was over, the game tells you the score, like “2-1”. So does that mean whoever won the most sub-parts of the match won the match? I don’t know.

Unless you’ve played the map in Operations before, you’re going to be lost. Often I couldn’t find the objective, and I was running around like a headless chicken. Eventually I figured it out, but it was quite frustrating at first.

Spawn camping. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but even in Operations mode I encountered some of this. It wasn’t as bad as in previous games (especially in Warzone), but it still happened.

Ugly

Killzone 3 comes with a paltry eight multiplayer maps. Operations is only available on three of them. Considering that Operations could very well be the best multiplayer part of the game, it’s a shame that it’s limited to only three maps. Come on, Guerilla, please patch some of the other maps with an Operations mode.

Summary

So there you have it. My thoughts on Operations. I know some of you out there have a hate on for me just because I like to express my opinion. That’s your character flaw, not mine. But nobody else on this blog seems to be doing opinion pieces on Killzone 3 multiplayer, so I don’t have a problem doing it. Do you guys agree with me this time?