By Neil McGreevy BBC

Killzone is set in a dystopian near-future

But when you sit down and play Killzone, it does not so much blow you away as satisfy you immensely.

The futuristic first-person shooter by the Amsterdam-based developer Guerrilla carries no small amount of expectation on its shoulders.

"It has really been in development for four years," said Guerrilla's Alistair Burns, product manager for the game.

"When we first came on board with Sony we were making a first-person shooter for the PC and they asked us to do it for the PlayStation 2.

"It took us 18 months to get that technology under our belt."

Detailed worlds

Producing a game for a console, as opposed to a PC, posed its own sets of challenges.

"With a console game you put your game in and get going, so we had to change the way we thought very radically," said Mr Burns.

The team had to work on controls suitable for a console

"We originally had different variations on every weapon, where you could build your gun from this barrel, that clip, that scope. That won't work on a console. We had to gauge the amount of variety so that people wouldn't get bored with it."

Then there are the graphics, without a doubt the finest yet pushed from Sony's ageing warhorse.

"That long development time allowed us to figure out a multi-layer texture systems, which allowed us to get so much detail," said Mr Burns.

"You see very few polygons in the background but massive amounts of detail up close, where you want to see it.

"We had one-upmanship between the artists and coders to get the best results, and the fact that it was exclusive to PlayStation 2 helped".

Halo fallout

While comparisons will inevitably be drawn, Killzone is a completely different kettle of Flood to Halo.

Halo 2 will be in the shops just before Killzone

Rather, it is shaping up to be the kind of game the Medal of Honour series should have been by this stage.

Set in a dystopian near-future, the harsh, burned-out battlefields are the antithesis of Halo's neon vistas as you face off against Helghast forces, a thinly-veiled version of Nazis.

"With four different playable characters, levels have been set up so each can take their own route," explained Mr Burns.

"We took that on board to give players a chance to complete levels whatever way they want. If you don't want to use stealth with a mission, you don't have to."

With a release date of 19 November coming just a week after Halo 2 is unleashed in Europe, Sony is taking the proverbial bull by the horns.

But Mr Burns is confident that the game will be able to withstand the Halo onslaught.

"Killzone will stand on its own two feet. It's going to be that flagship title that everyone wants for Christmas."

While the Xbox faithful are already fluffing up their sleeping bags to be first in line for what they see as the first-person release of the year, the sheer number of PlayStation 2s in homes could mean the battle for the number one shooter slot will be closer fought than Microsoft would like.