Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Grows on you"

When Crytek amazed us with Crysis in 2007 it raised the bar for graphics, mechanics and open world gameplay. Unfortunatly, time has moved on since then and it's not only Crytek that can produce a game of the same caliber.

Let's face it - not a lot of thought was put into the first 2 hours of the game. The single player is repetitive and boring to start with, you'll be baraged with a ton of glitches that need a workaround and you'll have to figure out that the multiplayer isn't an average shooter as they say, indeed, it's probably the lowest point of the game, and it's a massive drag. However, keep playing and it'll grow on you. You'll run into less glitches, the single player starts to become fun and you'll start employing some bad-ass tactics in multiplayer.

Let's start with the single player story. For once, nobody can give it the word 'short' each level is consistent in time and there are a lot of missions which will put your funky new nanosuit 2 to it's very limits. Unfortunatly, there seems to be an empty gap between the story of the orignal and it's sequel but there are some nice tie ins to make up for it. But I'm pretty sure we've all seen the 'aliens invading Manhatten' scenario, and it houses all the similerities - alien viruses, evil organization profiting from it and of course a small band of people trying to save the day. It's not the most original story. It also doesn't help that you play a mute who doesn't speak and it might aswell be an empty suit. No morals are to this character or anything which is a slight drag.

However the gameplay of the single player can more than make up for that. I'm sure most of us know that we can have different 'modes' of the nanosuit 2 from being super strong to rendering yourself good as invisible. All of these modes however require energy. When that runs out, you're as good as a normal human being. This encourages you to conserve it and think more tactically. This doesn't suggest that the game is slow paced. When the heat starts hitting, it really does. When in a bad situation, you're forced to think on your feet and improvise.

The weapons are slightly linear. Of course, first you'll get the worst weapon, then it'll get better and better. The bad thing is, that there's not much of a variety until really late game. Of course, customization is back, but it falls a little bit short. This time you have a restriction. For example you can't put an Assault Rifle silencer on a SMG barrel like you could in Crysis one. It does add a little balance though as some of the more powerful weapons would be a bit overpowered if they had a precision sight on them or something.

The AI is reasonably smart. They will panic, they will try to flank you and they act like an army, not a ramble of soldiers. It's quite intresting that the alien AI is a little less unorganized. They will zip about from place to place, shoot a barage of laser bullets at you, then charge at you. It's quite predictable, but it adds a sense of them not needing tactics, but simply charging at anyone who's in their way.

A special feature I liked about the game was the tactical visor. WIth this you can tag enemy units, pickups of weapons, ammo, vechiles, even tactical opertunities like sniping or flanking. It added a lot of tactics to the game and whoever thought of it deserves a raise :)

The world is not as open as it was in Crysis. You don't have the space to play about with attacking your enemies. Normally, it's straight ahead, and that's it. It's one of the biggest disappointments of the game in my view.

The multiplayer is where the game shines. It's like your average Call of Duty game but, of course with a massive twist. Your trusty Nanosuit. This makes the game a little more tactical as you can create a surprise ambush using cloak mode for example, or you can run towards the enemy then slide making it very difficult for you to hit. This, in my opinion, is a game changer.

The graphics are pretty good, better than that amazing. While some upcoming games look like it will match it in the graphics department, it still looks stunning.

Taking it all into account, there are a lot of cons, but the great multiplayer and decent single player creates a nice polished game.