Just Timepass
While the first Crysis won gamers over with its open-world gameplay and Crysis 2 was a bang-a-minute in terms of iconic set-pieces, Crysis 3 looks set to marry those two elements together to wrap up the trilogy. It hasn't quite worked out that way though.
That's one hell of a shot.
Crysis 3 is about… you know what, I have no idea what it's about. It's about a Nanosuit. It's about aliens. It's about man vs. machine, but outside of that, the complicated nature of the proceedings comes across as incoherent babble and it's hard to be captivated by it or its characters because of it.
Set in New York, actually, you know what… other than the odd location popping up at the bottom left corner of the screen every mission, you wouldn't know where it's set. The now effectively destroyed city is housed under a "Nanodome" – a self contained shell over New York – which has turned the once majestic city into an overgrown shadow of its former self. The dilapidated city, fresh with swamplands, waterfalls, rock formations, purpose-built dams, rainforests and the like, is a hybrid between Crysis 1 and Crysis 2, but honestly, that's part and parcel of why Crysis 3 fails to meets the dizzy heights that the previous games set.
Crysis 3's lack of truly wonderful set-pieces in truly iconic locations means it doesn't have the same spectacle or va-va-voom that Crysis 2 had, which had them in abundance. There's no racing down a crumbling FDR, no firefights in Central Park, no battle against a Pinger in Grand Central Station or even tumbling iconic buildings like the MetLife building, instead you're fighting against the Ceph in the tall grass, blowing up a dam, which are all great, but not up to the high standard set by Crytek in Crysis 2