With the release of the second Killzone 2 downloadable content pack “Flash & Thunder” on PlayStationStore today, we have been able to uncover Helghast documentation on their movements in the newest maps: Southern Hills and Beachhead. These two maps might be familiar to veterans of the first Killzone on PS2, but they have been completely reworked and re-imagined to suit the PlayStation 3 experience. With that in mind, here’s a report from the frontlines on how to survive the Southern Hills and nuclear attack!

Helghast Field Manual 15: Surviving the Southern Hills
The treacherous ISA forces have resorted to using nuclear devices in their futile efforts to invade our beloved home-planet of Helghan. This cowardly act will not go unpunished and the Helghast High Command training corps has prepared a field manual to ensure its loyal soldiers do not die in vain. Read the below carefully as it could be the difference between your survival of a nuclear attack and turning into a burning corpse.

• When you hear the siren, drop whatever you are doing. Just run like heck. A live soldier is a lot more useful to the Helghan Empire than a scorched, smoking one. You’ll only have a couple of seconds to get to cover, so don’t waste any time.
• Science be damned! Just Duck & Cover! If you see the nuke going off the in the distance, simply ensure that you have a roof above your head. You don’t even have to close the windows or anything. Anyone caught outside will be turned into a something resembling jerky.
• If you spawn in your base and hear the sirens going off, just stay where you are and the let the folks outside deal with the problems. You’ll be much quicker off the mark once the dust settles.
• Sentry Bots and Sentry Turrets are not immune to the devastating power of the nuke. Don’t leave them sitting outside, or they will turn into burning chunks like anything else. Place Sentry turrets inside to ensure their safety and they will cut off the enemies path to shelter.
• If you are inside, watch the doorways for enemies ducking inside to safety. Or even better, mow them down with an emplaced machine gun before they get anywhere near. That’ll teach ‘em to run like dogs!
• Out in the open? Any base can be a safe spot from the impending nuclear annihilation. If you find yourself far from home, just go duck into the enemies’ base. Your chances of survival will be higher than out in the open.
• The Bots in Killzone 2 do have a sense of self-preservation and when that siren sounds, they will try to save themselves as much as any living player. Follow them for the closest safe-spot, but make sure no sneaky ISA scum are hiding in there in the first place.
• Repaired ammo boxes and Emplaced MG’s will not be destroyed by the blast, so you won’t have to repair them again.
• Assassination targets! If the siren goes off, get to cover. I repeat, run like hell. Nothing worse than successfully defending the target and having it turned into smithereens before your very eyes and not being able to do anything about it.
• If all else fails, climb up the ladder to the roof of the central base to get a good view of the explosion in the east. It might cause you a fiery death, but damn it the explosion is too sexy not to look at in all of its splendor.

Keep these tips in mind when the ISA Cruisers launch their gutless assault on our beloved planet and you might just survive another day.

All hail Visari!

Master Sergeant Downie
5th Helghast Training Corps

Pyrrhus Rise

For a Q&A on the Flash & Thunder DLC pack, visit www.killzone.com.

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The last round of voting in the 27th Annual Golden Joystick Awards, where gamers get to vote on their favourite games from the last year, is now underway! Some truly superb PlayStation games are shortlisted in the various awards categories…

Sackboy is dusting off his tuxedo as LittleBigPlanet is nominated in the Family, Multiplayer, Soundtrack, PlayStation Game of the Year and Ultimate Game of the Year categories. Killzone 2 is on his six and competing for the Multiplayer, PlayStation Game of the Year and Ultimate Game of the Year awards.

And with all of the announcements and revelations from E3 fresh in your mind, now’s a good time to vote for your most anticipated game in “The One To Watch” award; where God of War III and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves are battling it out to see who’ll be at the top of our wish lists for the next year.

Head over to the Awards website for a full list of the categories and nominees – cast your vote and you could win some cool prizes for yourself in the Golden Joystick Awards prize draw.

The Golden Joystick winners will be announced on 30th October as the grand finale to 2009′s London Games Festival.

Who will you be voting for this year? Let us know below, or head over to the PlayStation Forums to see what games everyone’s talking about and compare notes on your favourites.

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Hello everyone! My name is Victor and I’m the Editor for Killzone.com at Guerrilla. For my first post on the European PlayStation.Blog, I have the honour of announcing the new Killzone-themed content for PlayStation Home.

Have you ever peered out of the windows of your cosy Harbour Studio apartment and wished that the view was a little less… serene? Maybe you’ve stared down at the calm, sunlit marina and wondered what it would be like to overlook a burning, war-torn cityscape. Perhaps you feel that the clean, contemporary architecture of the Studio doesn’t quite possess the grandeur to match your megalomaniacal ego.

The Visari Throne Room apartment for PlayStation Home is just what you need. Based on the throne room inside Visari’s Palace from the final mission of Killzone 2, it combines the majestic proportions of Helghast architecture with the regal aesthetic of the Autarch himself. Tastefully lit by a hellish, alien sunset, it is guaranteed to impress and humble anyone you invite over for a chat.

Of course, no palatial chamber is complete without stately furnishings to match. For the Visari Throne Room, we’ve created five pieces of furniture based on actual palace furnishings from Killzone 2: two types of Visari-style chairs, an administrative desk, a plant container with authentic Helghan vegetation, and a freestanding painting which portrays an important moment in the colonial history of the Helghast. In Killzone 2 these were mostly used by Radec’s elite guard to barricade the palace hallways, but don’t let that stop you from arranging them however you like.

The Visari Throne Room and matching furniture are scheduled for release in the second half of June, with pricing TBD. Be sure to visit Killzone.com soon for a closer look at the new PlayStation Home content, including additional images of the throne room!

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Hi folks,

Nice new home you guys have here and thanks for inviting me. My name is Seb Downie and I am one of the Producers at Guerrilla Games and want to start off GG’s contribution to the blog with details of the latest and greatest update to hit Killzone 2. It was meant to be out a week ago, but on the 11th hour before release we found a bug that needed fixing, so unfortunately we had to delay it, but now we are ready to rock, erm I mean, ready to patch!

Today, Guerrilla Games has released their 9th patch for their best-selling shooter, Killzone 2.

This patch not only contains fixes, but also new functionality that has been requested by the Killzone community. Patch 1.27 will be 75MB in size (272MB for Asian release) and will be released worldwide with the following fixes and features:

• DLC – Enables support for downloadable content pack #2 “Flash & Thunder”, released on June 11th on the Playstation®Store
• Network errors – Improved handling of large message groupings to decrease network errors on heavy loads. Should decrease some instances of network errors
• Stability – Fix for potential Quick-join stability issues when DLC pack “Steel & Titanium” is not installed
• Stability – Removal of DLC could result in stability issues when using game pre-sets
• Stability – Crash fix for potential Search & Retrieve issue
• Stability – Fix for infrequent hang on loading when using spectator mode
• Exploit – Search & Destroy objective exploit fix
• Exploit – Collision fix for map MP04 – Visari Hammer
• Exploit – Collision fix for map MP07 – Blood Gracht
• Exploit – Collision fix for map MP07 – Blood Gracht (2)
• Exploit – Collision fix for map MP08 – Corinth Crossing
• Exploit – Collision fix for map MP08 – Corinth Crossing (2)
• Stats – Fix for clans not always receiving the clan match win medal
• Controls – Addition of High precision mode option for both Single Player and Multiplayer. New accounts will have this mode set as standard and existing users will have to enable it manually. More details can be found here:
• Feature – Players will be automatically placed on the same faction, if they are friends upon using the ‘Join Friend’ option
• Feature – Players will be automatically placed on the same squad, if they are friends upon using the ‘Join Friend’ option
• Feature – Squads will remain constant over multiple rounds unless disbanded. More info on the above features can be found here
• Feature – Faction balancing only checked when entering the game to the pre-game lobby or spawn-select New faction select screen on spawn-select
• Feature – In-game faction changing now allowed on heavily unbalanced factions
• Feature – Skirmish – All Badges and Abilities are now unlocked for Skirmish mode to allow users with lower bandwidth network connections to experience the full range of weapons and abilities available in Multiplayer mode
• Gameplay – Invulnerability when spawning on a deployable spawn-point outside of a base-camp is now disabled
• Gameplay – Armor of Assault class reduced from 100 to 50 hit-points
• Gameplay – AI and health of the flying Sentry Bots has been tweaked upwards
• Gameplay – Firing rate of the Sentry Turret’s rocket system has been reduced slightly
• Bug – Cooked grenades dealing friendly fire damage despite the option being disabled
• Bug – DLC Pack 1 “Steel & Titanium” front end text fix for Japanese sku
• Moderation – Enhanced moderation tools for SCE Moderators
• Killzone.com – Revived players now appearing correctly in Battle Replays
• Misc – Various minor bug fixes

For more in depth information on some of the bigger features to come with this patch, check out the Q&A with Eric Boltjes our Lead Multiplayer Designer here.

I’ll be checking out the comments section and will try to answer some of your questions about the update. We are by no means done with Killzone 2 and will continue to improve the online experience with your (constructive, fair and balanced) feedback *ahem*.

So thanks for having me and I hope you enjoy this latest update. We’ll be back soon with some news on Home. Also make sure to keep an eye on www.killzone.com for the latest news, gossip and content.

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