Inside the box we have the usual manual and advertising gubbins (Sony’s own PS3 insurance scheme and obligatory action game strategy guide advert). Oh, and there’s a disc too, which is marked with a communist wartime-style sketch of Helghast soldiers, much like the posters littered throughout the game itself. That’s matched by the other side of the sleeve, which also looks nifty. Sweet!

As for the manual, it’s a stern lesson in not judging a book by its cover. Certainly, it looks very, very nice (and the Helghast themselves look positively badass) but once you open it up it turns a little miserable. Maybe it was an attempt at emulating the planet of Helghan, itself a rather miserable place?

Sony have obviously prepared for Killzone 2‘s success, cutting costs in the manual production by printing it all in black and white (does it say a lot for their hopes for LittleBigPlanet since they printed that manual in colour?). The result of this is that the manual is as interesting to read as toilet paper,  and probably just as informative. It’s wafer thin and is packed with an extended description of the controls and the equally-wafer-thin characters.

If you thought the manual couldn’t get much worse, you should see how they wasted the back…

Inthenameofallthat’sholywhywhywhywhy. You get the point.

Overall I would rate this box art 7/10 because it will probably be over-rated by those caught up in the Killzone 2 box-art hype (all those crazy professional box-art reviews will be all over it in days, just watch) but I think that it is not brilliant but sort of good.

And don’t worry, there’ll be some real Killzone coverage on the site soon! Watch this space…

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