Yesterday NowGamer posted an article claiming that Killzone 3 was just “4.5 hours long”, along with proof of the claim by way of a series of screenshots of the level select screens.
As things happen on the internet, a few gamers were a bit annoyed about this, with one saying that they “wouldn’t buy it day one” for the simple reason that the game is, apparently, so short. Indeed, the comments on the N4G post (which was approaching 1000 degrees at the time of printing) were full of similar jibes.
The official Killzone.com twitter account replied back quickly, though, confirming the 4.5 hours claim to be – in their opinion – false.
“That ‘4.5 hours’ number is a misunderstanding of the ‘best time’ stat,” said the Tweet. “Normal playthrough time (including deaths) is 8-11 hours.”
So who’s right? Well, we bombed through the game for our review on a few different levels of difficulty, but we can safely say that even on Normal we were playing a good few hours on Saturday, a couple on Sunday and a few more on Wednesday before committing ourselves to a score.
Was it as low as four and a half hours? No, it was more. Was it as long as eleven hours? No.
The truth is that for games like this, with an upcoming embargo, chances are the reviewer will want to rush through the game and ensure they’ve at least seen the ending. Would that represent an ‘average’ play-through time? Probably not, no.
There’s a chance that the reviewer in question (who was actually writing up for the game for GamesTM, a magazine that shares the same publisher as NowGamer) was above average – he’s almost certainly a better FPS-gamer than myself.
And yes – those times do represent your ‘best time’ through the level, presumably not taking into account the cut-scenes and those times you died – the timer might reset back to the last checkpoint each time you do. So, if you can total up your times and reach a figure of four and a half hours, you can add another hour of cut-scenes onto that time and the time for each of the section retries you had to do.
And on the subject of the 7/10 scores floating around: had the game just been a single player our review score would have been very different. But it doesn’t: Killzone 3 offers both a solid co-op mode and that massive, expansive online multiplayer, and because of that we’re absolutely sticking to our 9/10 score. We know our community will be right behind the game when it’s out.
But the single player length? Well, that’s going to be up to you guys, isn’t it? For the record, we think about 6-8 hours was closer to our estimates.
We’d welcome clarification from Guerrilla on this, by the way.
aerobes
I don’t really give two hoots how long the game is so long as it’s a fantastic experience.
I sometimes think games are in danger of spreading themselves to thin and I can get bored occasionally if they’re prolonged through padding.
I’ve already made up mind regarding this though, I’ve played the beta a fair bit which I dislike so I find it unlikely the main game MP will turn me around.
The game remains a rental for the story, which I know some people find to be a bit thin and quite weak but I found Killzone 2 to be a pretty enjoyable yarn and it makes it all the more impressive with such quality production values.
ARUMIR Sympozium
Fffffuuuuu I hate attention whoring websites!!
amiga_dude
Do really think Sony cares if buy on day 1 or on day 101 of release. As long as you buy it an not play pirated copy that end of day from Sony view point all that matters.
The real truth is probley a lot people who say they will not buy game on day 1 will never buy it, they are most likey do even not own a PS3 but XBox 360. And they see Killzone as a big threat to Halo.
You pull them up on this and normal reply goes like this.
I own a Xbox360 and PS3 also a Wii. If games comes out on both XBox360 and PS3 I buy it on XBox as graphics are better. I do not buy games on Wii.
Sorry XBox360 fanboys but that line is getting rather old now.
tonycawley
How on earth did you turn this article into that rant?
BG123
Yep, that sounds awfully familiar if you’ve read a few comments sections on websites, especially xbot ones like destructiod or this one in the article.
Xbots are just jealous school kids; just ignore them ;)
anzac-aldo
If the single player is relatively short.. and the multiplayer is standard.. what the hell takes up 41.5 GB, other than the obvious answers?
jayjay119
I think it’s just generally excepted that some games this generation are shorter than others, we have seen it in previous generations of course with games like Splinter Cell, but they were visually stunning so we accepted it. Like someone else said sometimes the game length doesn’t matter as long as the quality is good. I agree and disagree on certain levels. Shooters in single player are generally a short affair, about 6-8hrs seems about right, but these days shooters offer unlimited playtime via online multi-player so it’s not seen so much as a ‘rip-off’ as other games such as Tomb Raider Legend that are solely based on a single player mode. I remember being specifically disappointed with the meager 8 hours of gameplay with that compared to previous offerings in the series.
StevenHibs
6 hours is the standard of single player in FPS these days, so I’m not too fussed that its similar, does anyone know if this game is online co-op, or offline co-op ?
pipier83
i just downloaded the beta,and played about 2 hours, it’s excellent.
i prefer a 8-10 hours killzone 3 with all its content, lights, textures, everything than a 40 hours game were nothing happens, ugly, bad story, etc.
i like to play slowly, in order to find all the items, watch the textures, vistas, everything the game can give. i remember, in uncharted 2, i spent a lot of time looking at things, saying “wow how they did this stuff ?? !!”.
trying to finish a level in 1’25”, it’s not for me.
i can’t buy every game released, when i get one, why would i play the fastest as possible, and only visit 30% of the game?
playing games is a pleasure, like all other pleasures, we need to take time to listen, to watch, to feel, to enjoy. no rush.
TotalHitman
Killzone 3 should be 10/10 from what I hear :)
nofi
No. No it shouldn’t.
TotalHitman
Chuck Norris says it should :D
BG123
This is obviously just some ignorant jealous idiot from a crappy xbox fanboy website who just ran through on the easiest difficulty and ignored enemies etc. I completed Halo: Reach, MW2 and Black Ops SP playing them PROPERLY in about 4 1/2 hrs lol.
nofi
Did you read the article? It was GamesTM, a respected magazine…
jayjay119
I agree, GamesTM is like the 6th axis of the mag world. Very impartial and objective in is articles.
BG123
Killzone 2 took me probably about 10 hrs the first time, so I doubt this’ll be half as long as that LOL
xbot websites = fail!
nofi
Again, please keep that kind of response to yourself.