Crytek create a strong campaign and a enjoyable multiplayer which is brought down by a plethora of bugs and oddities

User Rating: 8 | Crysis 2 PS3
Crysis will always be a point of contention amongst the sad fraternity known as "gamers". For PC gamers it is (was) the last bastion of their world beyond the RTS and MMO genres. "Can I run Crysis?" the moniker of many a hopeful PC owner willing to spend top dollar/pound/bartering unit of significant value, on a new PC that might just be able to tackle the un-optimized heights of Crytek's PC flagship. Now its sequel is upon us, having not played the original beyond a tentative install of the PC demo, I'm new to this subgenre of open-world FPS. Please don't judge me harshly.

Presentation/Synopsis:

Crysis 2 is not what you would call an ordinary shooter. The singleplayer is a lengthy (for shooters) romp through NYC with all manner of plot devices and hints about the origins of that shaved gorilla suit your chap is wearing (read: Nanosuit) and why the aliens with tentacles are here etc etc. Without giving too much away I would say that the story definitely improves towards the final 5 hours. The first 4-5 are quite dull by comparison as they seem to make up a lengthy yet fun tutorial of how to use your suit. Setpieces are infequent but potent, less really is more especially as the whole story is presented either by flashbacks or in first person. Alcatraz (you) is the typical mute murderhouse and none of the characters are particularly interesting apart from a couple. Needless to say the story never tries to be "Epic" but seems to achieve it nonetheless.

Graphics/Sound:

I'll come out and say it, Crysis 2 is not the best looking game on the planet, at least not when it comes to art design. When it comes to consoles (I played the PS3 version and spent a couple of hours with the Xbox and PC versions) it certainly blows everything but the lauded PS3 exclusives out of the water. Light cascades, reflections, well they reflect and textures are superb. However there is a huge amount of post-load pop-in ala Unreal Engine 3 and the PS3 version gets blurry on occasion. Its not Killzone, but the lighting is so refreshing and the design so realistic that I will say that you will be dumbstruck with how graphics have progressed since the original. When it comes the console war, the Xbox version has a higher average framerate at about 1.4 more than the PS3 (this is from an aggregate of testing sites) but the PS3 I found crashed less, was more stable during the most frantic of setpieces and had no screen tearing whatsoever, so swings and roundabouts.

The art design I found to be slightly dull, yes destroyed New York looks wonderful but Enslaved did more with the premise. The alien architecture I think is immensely derivative of Resistance Fall of Man's already questionably original design. Spires coming out of the ground? armour plated structures and glowing lines? please Crytek you're better than this.

Soundwise the game is quite impressive. Each weapon is unique and the reloading animations when you empty your gun look and sound terrific. I did tire of hearing "MAXIMUM ARMOUR" and "STEALTH MODE ENABLED" every time I decided what life should feature right now would be some resilience or invisibility. The main theme is impressive thanks to Hans Zimmer himself but the majority of the other tracks are the typical orchestral fare but not overly bombastic.

Gameplay (Singleplayer)

It is a joy to play a crafted singleplayer in this attention deficit era. The campaign is semi-linear, taking you through a variety of locations but always giving you options as to how you wish to play. Everything centres on how you want to use the Nanosuit. There are 2 usable modes (essentially), Stealth and Armour. Stealth makes you invisible but slowly drains the suit's energy, Armour ensures bullets drain shield energy rather than penetrate your skull. The game also puts you high in relation to battlefield allowing you to highlight with your visor/binocular things certain points of interest such as ammunition and weapons to tactical options and routes. Playing through on normal its perfectly easy to sneak around like the coward I am and avoid encounters. When I played through on Hard difficulty I found that now I knew the mechanics it was much easier to go from Solid Snake to Master Chief to Faith (the default Strength/Mobility mode) with alacrity. The overall effect once you master it is like being Predator (yes there is infra-red vision too) with a touch of Batman to it.

The latter half the game is where it all happens, though you will be forced to live in the Armour mode for most of the time as the aliens have a habit of disabling your suit when suspicious. Thankfully the shooting mechanics are smooth yet physical, you feel your firing a weapon but also that you are wearing some of the most advanced tailoring known to man.

What irked me most were the glitches and bugs, and there are plenty of them. Enemies will jerk in and out of freeze motion where they stand perfectly upright like toys, aliens get stuck in the environment which is made all the more obvious as they normally traverse the vertical battlefields well, if you jump amongst the baddies they will run to cover rather than turn and fight even if you're next to them and you may spontaneously lose attachments you have collected or not be able to draw you weapon after a cutscene/story section. This game is by no means polished so expect plenty of patches in the weeks to come (if Cevat Yerli wants to keep his ears that is)

Gameplay (Multiplayer):

The multiplayer is Crysis 2 will appeal to some and put off others. Essentially CoD with actual cerebral tactics and a touch of Halo, the multiplayer is going to be embraced by some and discarded by others. Crysis has always been considered a singleplayer game (despite the fact each and every iteration of the series featured multiplayer) and EA, though money grubbing and divisive (I bought the Limited Edition version whatever that means) seem to be ensuring that their companies implement this feature well.

Games are frenetic, much more so than MAG, Battlefield or even the closest comparison I can think of: Bioshock 2. In some ways it does feel much like Digital Extremes tacked on feature, the gameplay is much more frantic than even the singleplayer at its most actiony and there a few great ideas thrown into the mix. The Nanosuit is a true mixer-upper when it comes to the standard CoDish game-types, Stealth is handled brilliantly as you can easily spot a fast moving cloaked opponent and if your just blind then you can turn on Predator vision for the help it might bring. Armour is well, armour although less resilient and quite easy to shoot though if subjected to a steady aim. There is a surprisingly cerebral ebb and flow to the objective-based game types as you balance which suit modes to use effectively and there is huge amounts of content, unlockables and challenges to satisfy all your little 21st century capitalistic attainment complexes. There are an oddly large number of quite expansive maps too all of which are nicely designed and most are set in single player locations ala Gears of War, there are about 12 in all although EA will want to pump us for more cash with inevitable DLC.

There are issues however, my net connection isn't perfect but Uncharted 2 runs without lag even when I only have one bar and Crysis can really chug if you don't have more than 3 bars. It also seems that it takes almost a whole clip to kill un-armoured players while when I myself get hammered the first-person replay camera shows barely a few bullets were fired. Sniper rifles are almost unusable for all but the most skilled players due to the lag issues, although itll be a lot less noticeable if you run with assault/mobility equipment rather than the light machine guns or sniper rifles. Team Deathmatch is also a sore-point, the gameplay online being so insane its almost impossible to know what the hell is going on during either Team or just normal deathmatch modes. Granted I get plenty of points to satisfy my need for things to clip onto my submachinegun that is apparently, a cat, but its still too difficult to develop a method with all the chaos going on.

Summary:

Crysis is a monumental achievement for the console community, one wonders what wizardry is going on at Crytek HQ to make this kind of technical showcase possible, and then allow it to be run with steady framerate online. Hats off to the boys (and girls).

If you're a jaded shooter fan or just want something entirely different, buy this one if only for the singleplayer because it really is value for money.

Pros:

+ Astounding Visuals

+ Unique gameplay against occasionally intelligent AI who are fun to mess with

+ Surprisingly fun and fully-featured multiplayer which may garner a cult following

+ A good story, well acted and fleshed out without a cliche to set up the sequel

+ Oodles of collectibles, alternative routes, gameplay nuances provided by the Nanosuit means you've got replay value that would shame Bioshock/Gears of War/Uncharted's singlepayer offerings

+ A mint chocolate in an ice-cream stall overstocked on vanilla and strawberry

Cons:

- Buggier than jam on an ant hill

- Lots of pop-in and occasional framerate drops in both console versions (PC gamers are spared)

- If you only have a PC, good luck to you

- No dedicated servers means migrating hosts and single latency bars will plague your online play

In short, Buy and tell the industry that we want more (in carefully regulated and crafted quantities not produced by Activision) thanks