illzone: Liberation is a completely different game from its PS2 namesake that came out a couple years ago. Instead of a FPS, developer Guerilla has made a top down third-person action game that tries to emulate the intense gunplay and war-torn atmosphere established by the first. Sadly, the tight controls of a FPS didn’t make the trip over to this portable frag-fest. Don’t get me wrong, the action in Liberation is good, and at times intense, but it still seems to lack that visceral experience I like to have with my action games, first person or otherwise.

The control takes some getting used to and might wear on your hands after extended play. I had some trouble strafing and with the lock on feature in particular (you have to hold down the R button to crouch then hold down the L button while aiming with the analog nub to lock onto objects. This doesn’t work on enemies). There is an auto-aim feature that points your gun at whatever enemy you face, and it works well enough, but still does not feel as good or accurate as pinning the enemy under a crosshair. At times, the whole set-up left me feeling weak, as though I didn’t have the power to bring down my foes.

This leads me into the other issue I had with this game. There were several points where I got stuck playing the same section over and over again because of one annoying guy with a rocket launcher, or a couple of grenade-happy guys with a pair of good throwing arms, etc. If you don’t master the strafing and lock on features and you have trouble finding or keeping cover, this game will kick your ass. There were a few times when dying felt almost cheap. However, this kind of repetitive challenge might not turn off others as it did me, and the checkpoints are generous enough that it is possible to beat this game without giving yourself a migraine.

Control and difficulty aside, there is some fun to be had here. The CG movies are very well done and the graphics in general are excellent. Driving around in the tank and blowing stuff up is loads of fun, as is leading your comrades around. You can command your allies to set C4, man a machine turret, or just watch your back. These helpers can turn into a liability, though, if you don’t watch their health. Still, I wish these segments were a little more frequent, as you spend most of the game on your own. I also wish you could carry more than one gun at a time and that the game had not crashed on me those few times just after I’d finished a particularly frustrating section.

All in all, if you like handheld action and you are looking for something that requires a little bit of skill, then this might be worth checking out.