Gun fights, nanosuit options, car chases, tank battles, helicopter flights, gunboat ride - Crysis packs so much action!
Seriously Crysis is one of the greatest shooters ever released, and it's not just about graphics. In my opinion, the graphics are second to what Crysis offers in terms of level design and gameplay.
The Story in Crysis is pretty straightforward - an alien invasion occurs in the North Korean territory while the US special ops are on a secret mission to rescue the archaeologist crew and are to get any data on the NK operatives.
You, Nomad, are one of the top special ops guys, and will work mostly on your own, besides moments when you will combine forces with the rest of US forces for a coordinated massive attack.
First impression of Crysis - it's all cracked up about you nanosuit - equipped with a futuristic looking costume, you have the abilities to increase your speed to run unhuman fast for a short amount of time, raise your strength to be able to lift and throw heavy objects as well as have the power to crush anything in your path, cloak invisible while standing still or simply be durable as a rock. For these abilities truly to reveal themselves, you need great realistic environments, and lots of objects and subject to ''maneuver'' with..
And so it comes, that Crysis offers the greatest environments seen in a shooter game. Everywhere you go, you are located in one giant island and the abilities to explore it are so immersive. This what level design really means - you can approach you enemy base from the other side of the island, storm ahead with a machinegun in a car, or snipe them out from great distance. You had never experienced so much freedom of movement. This freedom is present everywhere - in the jungles, mountains, beaches, in the water, underwater... Finally there will be a level with zero gravity, that is basically a giant alien ship - and it looks fucing awesome, i mean Crysis really makes you say ''wow''. With this great free level design you appreciate the fact, that your nanosuit has those special abilities, because you really need those moments: strength, where you to jump through the mountains or bash trees and throw objects across the terrain, speed - where you need to approach something fast or escape from something fast, cloak - in most cases where the jungle hides you and you await for your victims and in most cases you will have your nanosuit at default mode, which makes you durable and regenerates health. The nanosuit needs energy for every of it's action, so you won't be able to overuse it - just in moments where you really need it fast and then you will wait until the nanosuit regenerates energy. Hence, Crysis would be a fun and fair game even without the nanosuit - there are plenty of powerful weapons and vehicles to overtop your foes.
Since Crysis tries to be a really realistic game, for starters it will offer you to choose what weapons will you be using at the same time, since you can only carry 3 of them, but of course can replace any of them whenever you find a new one. As you would expect, weapons range from pistols to rocket launchers, not forgetting that your nanosuit is also a weapon when you enable strength mode and release your fists of fury on whatever gets in your way.. With that said, it's just plain fun, to choke your enemies, beat them to death or throw heavy objects at them. And in Crysis, almost every game object can be picked up and thrown - from smallest tree branch, to cars (not exactly lifting a car, but you get the point). Firing weapons is not really easy, and the greater the distance - the less precision invoked, not like in many other shooters. So it will be quite a challenge to take out a foe with a sniper rifle from a great distance. Lucky for you the North Koreans get the same formula.
Speaking of enemy AI, it's pretty challenging - from obvious sighting, the North Koreans will react also to your movement sounds, as well as to the light, coming from your guns. And the foes obviously won't just rush in on you - they will try to flank you out or will be hiding themselves. Once the alien invasion starts, you can't really tell what should be the AI of those things... But sure enough, they will act ''appealing'' and you will expect something similar from alien creatures... As mentioned, there will be moments when you will work with your team mates - they should not make any trouble for you to work smooth alone, although some of their actions you will find questionable for their own sake - most noticeably in tank battles.
So, Crysis has lots of vehicles to use. Almost in every map, where you will find a car or a boat, you know that you can control any of those things and go almost wherever you want. There are at least several types of vehicles to choose from - some gun boats, civilian cars, military jeeps or armed trucks. This is also an alternative way of getting the missions done - if you don't prefer the idea of killing every North Korean with your own hand guns and advance slowly, you can just get into a gun boat, and destroy the whole beach while riding the waves. Or you can get into a military jeep and storm the NK base with a machine gun, attached to the car. In Crysis you will also be using tanks and a helicopter - this is not ''when you want'', but rather there will be specific missions made for tank and helicopter action. There will be a level, specifically designed to drag the player into the massive tank battle, and i mean really fucing big battle - the operation map is huge, with lots of space to maneuver and you have the option to get out of the tank whenever you want. You can also get inside other tanks, as well as get inside the tanks of North Koreans. Your tank gets destroyed - you live! Of course, you will have allied tanks, ground support, and other war vehicles by your side, while the opponents, beside all that, will throw at you helicopters, those you will have to destroy with your rocket launchers. Finally having lots of fun with boats, cars and tanks, you will be given the command of futuristic helicopter, although it might be least fun for some, since you will be framed inside the levels 3D invisible walls, so don't think that driving a helicopter means total freedom...
Guess i don't have to tell how great Crysis looks, but just a remark: i personally don't see any benefits by turning DX10 over DX9 with that strong decrease in frame rates in mind.. Other then great visuals themselves, i appreciate the level of detail found in things like debris, leaves, animals - this is not your ordinary generic shooter.. After the alien invasion, you will be impressed for the second time by the ''onslaught'' of winter and all the details, of the frozen world..
Amazingly the developers have scouted a great soundtrack, that fits very well to the atmoshpere - it's kinda similar fashion to those Alan Silvestri themes.
Crysis sure has great replayabilty value on the hardest difficulty setting - North Koreans speak their own language, damage is severe, and crosshairs are just iron sights - cool, ha?
Multiplayer is definitely for more than 6 people, read other reviews about it.
Unfortunately Crysis is really buggy - too much for me not skip. There are lots of moments when enemy bodies and game objects get stuck randomly in terrain, cars explode without any explanation just by bumping them or again - cars explode after a while just by doing slight damage, which does not make any sense. There are bugs with things like some animations missing and video glitchy rendering. Worst of all the bugs - you die just like that, because you bump into a stone or get stuck behind the tree. This is all present with updated game to the latest patch.. So Crysis in not perfect due this and this can not be forgotten.
Crysis is just so awesome in many ways, even of you might not like the genre, you must see how much stuff can a game pull out and what to expect from future games..