Infantry Class

Your very basic class, there is seemingly nothing very special about this class. After all what's the point in having it? You have no primary or secondary abilities, it's just a worthless soldier. You would be oh so wrong in thinking that. When you first start in the game it will be the only class available to you until you unlock others. While it may not have the same advantages as some other classes, what it does have however is a much larger weapons library. Most of the other classes are restricted to use with one weapon, the Infantry class has nearly every weapon available to them (when fully unlocked). Your first match you will be able to use the ISA assault rifle or the HGH Assault Rifle, both are extremely good but do have their differences. As you may have noticed in the videos the ISA Assault Rifle has red dot (or green dot depending on how you look at it) sight. This allows you to be fairly accurate from medium to long ranges. Shooting from the hip you'll find it's really only good up close and somewhat good at a medium distance if your shooting (this should also apply for the single player campaign). As you continue to play you�ll be unlocking more weapons such as the shotgun and the SMG. However there are a few weapons that are exclusive to specific classes, like the sniper rifle.

As the soldier your pretty much the grunt of the battle. Your best serving your team as support and racking up kills. While you will eventually find what your favourite weapons are, these are not the most important thing to win. Like any tactical game your going to need great team communication. This is where the squad system of multiplayer comes in. Your able to within the team break into little five four man squads and each have the one leader, with a total of 6 squads per team. If you end up joining a squad you need to learn how to play together well. Cover each others backs and let them know when your in trouble or where they need to go. Back to the Infantry class though, when is it best to use this class? For most people when they start ranking up you�ll find a class that fits your play style best. As others also rank up, use of the Infantry class will most likely become increasingly rare. But you still have certain advantages over other classes. For one, you have a much larger weapon arsenal to your disposal. This can be really useful for when you need to quickly choose a weapon best suited for the job at hand. Another advantage you will have is that you won�t be as focused on specific tasks. For instance, the tactition should be focused on getting the team into good locations through spawn placements and that�s their main objective. As a grunt you will be in the main action for a large part of any round. While all the other classes are focused on their duties you�ll be carrying out the mission objectives (not to say that other classes won�t be doing the same).

Medic Class

The Medic class was easily one of the most hated and loved class during the beta. You may have seen a few examples in a few videos why people would get frustrated. I suppose it wasn�t the class itself but the players *ahem* n00bs *ahem* who used it.

The Medic class starts out with a primary ability. This lets you revive injured teammates. To indicate where downed friends are, there are little markers indicating the direction of each player. However, the best way for a player to get revived and the most helpful for a medic is to communicate that you need a revival. Once you get to a downed player you need to make active your �Defibrillator�. Firing the Defibrillator will revive your fallen comrade but it will also finish off a down enemy (on occasion you may get a kill). With each revival the medic also earns a point but far what is more important you have helped a teammate get back into the battle. The medic class also has a secondary ability where you can pass out health packs. These are useful in the middle of defending an objective and you may heal yourself.

So now you know the basics of what exactly a Medic can do. Now how can you as Medic best serve your team? The biggest problem we had during the beta was that people just were not smart when using the Medic class. Getting one point for each revival can rack up to a good amount of points and this is where the abuse comes in. I�ve said it before, the class system in Killzone 2 is really more about how you can best serve your team and not just yourself. So thinking from that aspect you need to be careful and smart about who you revive. When you see a downed player there are a few things you should consider before coming to their rescue. Have they said they don�t want help? Obviously if they are saying; �Medic! Don�t revive me!� don�t revive them. Now you need to assess the situation. Are you in the middle of a hot zone where upon revival your teammate may not last very long after coming back? If so don�t revive him as your only adding to his death count and helping the other team out. Now if it doesn�t seem like their are enemies around or once your teammate is revived he can find cover, go for it. Another thing to watch for is to make sure that there is not an enemy camping around the corner waiting for your buddy to be revived. That always pissed me off when a Medic did this as I watched the enemy watching me while I was getting up. A medic is most useful in the Assassination game mode. If a player on your team is the target you must have at least one medic nearby so that they can easily provide health or revive the VIP target. It�s only common sense really. Medics are also good in keeping a good defence. If your team is trying to take a particular objective you will help tremendously if you can keep each defender in the fight for as long as possible.

Health packs are extremely useful to your team but they will not give you extra points. Your best to throw them out to someone who is asking for it, or if you are travelling with your squad just make sure your keeping their health in check. A good thing about the squad system is that you can find out exactly how much health each of your teammates have so you can better assist them. Snipers are also people you should give health packs to, if you see a sniper just drop a health pack near him or her so that if need be it will automatically get picked up. That about wraps it up for this week�s update. As for next week I�ll be introducing the Engineer with all its turret glory. Killzone is only a few weeks away!

Engineer Class

The Engineer, probably the second most powerful class in Killzone 2 (Assault being the most). As an Engineer you have the ability to set up automated turrets nearly anywhere you want and you can later unlock the ability to repair/destroy. Coming off of the heals of Medic, your going to play a drastically different game as the Engineer. Your starting weapon and the only weapon available to you is the shotgun. The shotgun has a maximum of 8 rounds per clip and a decent starting amount of ammo. It�s perfect for getting in people�s faces. Up close the shotgun is essentially a one hit kill and the farther from the target the less accurate and damaging you will be. This being because the shot gun fires out tiny pellets that as the farther away you are the more they spread. So you really want a narrow spread to be most effective.

An Engineers primary ability is to set up an automated turret. These turrets basically fire at any foe within the line of sight and a certain proximity (it won�t shoot an enemy from across the map). Each team is allowed a maximum of four turrets each. So say you spawn and there are only two Engineers including yourself. If the other Engineer builds one turret that then only leaves your team with three turrets until that one is destroyed or self destructs. Turrets don�t really do much damage to a player and are not exactly the quickest to notice an enemy. If a player is paying attention they can easily escape death by turret.

This is where effective placement comes in. Your turret will do no good if it�s sitting in an open area with the enemy behind and in front of it. Best placement of the turret would be in a higher up above the height of a player. This makes it much more likely that your turret will land a headshot. Good places to look for are areas of high traffic. If the enemy if constantly coming down a certain hallway then it�s best to find a hidden and spot to place your turret. So say the enemy is running through the door, place it right in the corner so they don�t notice as they run past. You may not get many kills but they really repel the enemy when trying to defend.

Your secondary ability is the repair tool. As an Engineer your map shows you the locations of things you can repair (a little wrench sign). When you approach an ammo pile, gun emplacement, or an automated turret, you just whip out your Repair tool and go to work. Essentially all you do is just press R1 and a progress bar will show up. For each repair you get a point and it also goes towards some ribbons. The Repair tool is fairly hard to get due to how hard it is to get the required kills with turrets. Although if you do get the repair tool, your team will love the ammo stashes. Not only can you create ammo piles but you can create gun emplacements which are great for defending, and you can repair auto turrets. Most people during the beta didn�t make use of this unfortunately, so if you have good turret placement just go around and repair your teams turrets. Along with repairing you can destroy enemy piles , etc. Quick word of advice though, the auto turrets blow up and kill you. I was victim to this several times, so just damage it until it�s nearly dead then then run away and shoot it.