A tremendous graphics engine, great concepts and intriguing story offer much, but the game is also rife with tedium.
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Touted by Crytek as something like the most true next-gen FPS experience bolstered by the most demanding graphic set known to PC gamers, Crysis was a game surrounded in what I would call more than its fair share of hype. In fact, it is in light of this thought, that Crysis both delivers on its claim, and falls well short in the same breath.
Make no mistake, Crysis is a system hog. If you can get Crysis to play on your machine at maximum settings, and if you revel in the knowledge that you're one of few to experience the game's true visual brilliance, then I imagine it is likely that this game will exist simply on those merits as one of the better games in your collection. However, for most PC owners; those who will have to settle for a lower visual experience, will be forced to built their nests not in the dense and beautiful jungles, or under the photo-realistic mid-night skies provided by the highest visual settings, but instead, within the story and the gameplay; areas which although intriguing and partly novel, are also harbours of tedium and frustration.
As I have discussed briefly, getting the game to run the way you want it is the first frustration. In fact, struggling with visual tweaks to the point where the game looks like Far Cry may be just too much for some to handle. But if you can look past the technical difficulties and accept the graphic level for whatever you can muster, it is likely you'll look to the gameplay when trying to find what is truly "next-gen" about the whole experience.
Being able to run around an island and jungle landscape killing anyone the way you choose and proceeding to each objective any way you like can be great fun, but it has been done. For some, it could be done a thousand times more and they'd still love it, and I dig that entirely, but for others, that mechanic falls short of revolutionary. However, when augmented with the abilities provided by your Crysis suit, you soon find that your character is nothing short of a super-hero of sorts. Being able to leap tall hills in a single bound, throw hapless cronies by the scruff of their necks all the way to China, and run faster than Flash himself all sound like great abilities-and they are. In fact, engaging these feats of strength, endurance, speed, and even stealth are fun, and they are revolutionary to an extent, and when packed in with the engaging story the game in fact does seem to live up to the hype-and for many it has.
Yet, for all of this… For the graphics, the freedom, the powers, and the story; there's a lingering beast admist the soul of the game. A beast of repetition and tedium.
Once you've revved yourself fully into the pace that Crysis demands early on, and once you've been star-struck by the powers, graphics and freedom, you'll realize that as you progress through the game, and the excitement wears off, the game is little more than a novel show piece and a run of the mill FPS.
In fact, the powers are part of the problem of tedium in the game. Once you've grasped an enemy by the throat thrown them, you've grasped them all. Eventually, the novelty wears off. Yes, it's great fun to stand 3 millimeters from an unsuspecting elite fighter in a dense jungle and sock him in the face from out of the cloak field, but you'll find yourself doing that far more than once, and by the twentieth-some engagement, it loses all of its charm. More specifically, I do think that cloaking is the biggest problem with the entire experience, as I found that the game was set up in such a way that one was nearly required to cloak and assassinate their way through the entirety of the game's conflicts. You can try to run and gun but even with your enhanced armour there's simply too many men; and if you try and speed by them, you'll get clipped faster than an old man crossing the street in Grand Theft Auto.
The truth of the matter in Crysis is that what it offers up front is immense and vastly enjoyable. But its longevity is its problem. If you can enjoy mangling group after group of Korean soldiers from out of the shadows, then you will love this game, but if you find yourself bored of the whole experience after you've spent a decent amount of hours with the game, I guarantee you are not alone.
Crysis is like eating a great piece of pie alone. As you're eating it, it can be the greatest thing ever, but after that pie when you look across the table to talk about some meaty issues with your friends and family, they're not there. Forgive the terrible analogy, but what I mean to say is that Crysis is fun; it's a decidedly good game, but after the initial burst, and the tedium and frustration both with the graphics and gameplay sets, you'll likely find that Crysis was a commendable, if non-revolutionary experience.
Just as an aside, I must admit I've become a tad sceptical of Crytek and the plans for their company. I mean, with their company called Crytek, their graphics engine called something close to that, and their games called Farcry and Crysis, it leads me to wonder whether their intentions are truly to make games for the love of games, or if they are only out to make games to tout the technical wizardry of their company, and Cry-brand graphical engine developments…
Regardless, Crysis should likely at least by tried by every PC FPS fan around, but in the end, it is both hard and easy to recommend depending on the audience respectively. To that end, it receives an 8/10 on gamespot from me, but a 7.8 on IGN.
Give it a spin if you like, but if you're already sceptical, you're not missing a whole lot.
8/10, Also
True score: Unrounded- 7.8/10
-Desalbert, dated May 4th 2008