Crysis: Don't you just hate the ice levels?

One of the factors which makes Crysis such a great game is obviously its graphics. It's the Graphics King; there's no doubt about that. However, I think we'd all agree that it's the greenery and vegetation which really makes the visuals so impressive. So, when I played the game and reached the part in the story where everything becomes covered in ice, I was really disappointed. For the first few chapters of the game, you're in these lush and highly detailed tropical environments. There are trees, grass, bushes, sand, and wonderful lighting which brings it all to life. Then, everything is suddenly covered in this bland, white snow which doesn't compare to the gorgeous scenery of the earlier chapters. The same goes for Warhead. Doesn't anyone else feel this way? Don't you wish the entire game took place in the tropical environments? I surely do.

2 Screen Captures I made of Crysis Warhead:

No not really. I liked the Ice levels and even the ending ship levels. Adds variety.

i see wat u mean and although i liked the ice levels, i wish there was some more jungle ones too. But if u ever played far cry, u know they just had to throw in something like aliens

I enjoyed seeing a frozen paradise.

hmmm.. I hate the zero gravity level more.

hmmm.. I hate the zero gravity level more.

Installing

Yea, I hated that level as well. Finding my way out of that ship was a pain.

Basically you're playing a really fun game and then aliens come and ruin it.

No, I like them. I thought this topic was going to be about how the game becomes very linear and loses a lot of its sandbox gameplay at that point. I like all the levels in Crysis equally in terms of visuals. Though the tropical environments have the most flavor, the ice levels are generally more of a grand spectacle and are the best-looking tundra environments I've seen in any game to date (and though that goes without saying, tundra environments aren't typically something you see displayed in such grandeur in games).

Basically you're playing a really fun game and then aliens come and ruin it.

the_mitch28

Like Far Cry (except with monsters.)

Whoa. Is that how Warhead looks? I think I'm on the last level of Crysis now, so after I finish it, I'll move on to Warhead.

How does it run?

What settings do you set it at, including res.? I think you said something lower than 1680x1050 on another post, but I can't remember.

In warhead I didn't like the chase hover thing but besides that the ice levels where my favorite in crysis.

I agree with most of you here. Ice, aliens and linearity kind of ruined the experience. It's still a good game but it would have been so much better without those final levels.

The texture on the ice level looked kind of pixelated for me :(

I liked the smaller aliens that scuttled on the ground they were fun. It was the flying aliens that are a pain.

The ice levels added a good chunk of something different to Crysis which is nice. This is one way I think Crysis 2 will trump the original, Its looking like there will be alot of varity in the maps.

Im not impressed that they changed the SCAR gun model though, the SCAR rocked.

Im not impressed that they changed the SCAR gun model though, the SCAR rocked.

D1zzyCriminal

The ice levels looked good (zero G was far more annoying). In the context of the game, the ice nicely set up the premise that you're fighting a losing battle and ratchets up the tension. I suspect too many jungle levels would have got a little samey...good games kick a player out of the comfort zone.

Finnaly somone who agrees with my opinion!Yes i hate the ice level very much.First of all there are not much stuff to interact with and no koreans with great AI instead there are some aliens who fly and are very dumb.On top of that the frame rate drops very much on the ice part.

No, I thought they looked equally impressive. Even the Core level, although it was a bit tedious, looks absolutely stunning.

I liked the smaller aliens that scuttled on the ground they were fun. It was the flying aliens that are a pain.

The ice levels added a good chunk of something different to Crysis which is nice. This is one way I think Crysis 2 will trump the original, Its looking like there will be alot of varity in the maps.

Im not impressed that they changed the SCAR gun model though, the SCAR rocked.

D1zzyCriminal

The flying aliens aren't too bad. 4 shots from a Gauss rifle and down they go. The smaller aliens can be taken down easily with the SCAR or FY-71 so long as they're not silenced. The FY-71 gets even better with incendiary rounds. Or, if you have very good aim and don't miss often, the Gauss rifle will dispatch the small aliens with 1 shot.

The small and flying aliens are pansies when I have the Gauss rifle.

As for the snow levels.... The only beef I have with it is the snow doesn't have that powdery feel or look. The feel I get is more like white paint.

I've always had problems with the way the SCAR sounded. It sounded "rubbery". At least the FY-71 sounded like an M4 at a firing range several hundred feet away.

As an addition now that I think about it.... I liked Exodus (especially the latter part with the evacuations). It was back to green scenery with lots of dust and smoke effects.

I thought this topic was going to be about how the game becomes very linear and loses a lot of its sandbox gameplay at that point.

JP_Russell

me too. in terms of visuals the ice levels are pretty spectacular, especially in warhead. they were a nightmare to run at 1080p in crysis when it first came out, brought my old 8800gtx to its knees..

I don't hate them. I still found them quite fun.

But it's just a shame that it goes from being an amazing and innovative FPS with open ended strategy and a massive non-linear environment, to being a standard linear shooter. I can't think of one part in the closing levels where I had to use the nanosuit, except to move stuff out of the way on the aircraft carrier.

Graphically, they're still impressive. You shouldn't really compare a screenshot of a lush green jungle with volumetric lighting shining through the trees, to one of an ice plain with a mountain in the distance. There are plenty of stunning parts in the ice levels.

I wish the Ice levels were actually open sandbox ones. That played to the games strengths. It really is a massive shame really, worst part of the game.skrat_01

Actually, the worst part of the game (Crysis or Warhead) for me is Ascension. For a guy who loves flight sims, I coudn't stand that level. :lol:

That's what user-created levels are for. Truly, the mod community tried their darndest to one-up the Crysisdevelopers.

Whoa. Is that how Warhead looks? I think I'm on the last level of Crysis now, so after I finish it, I'll move on to Warhead.

How does it run?

What settings do you set it at, including res.? I think you said something lower than 1680x1050 on another post, but I can't remember.

ATLReppa770

Yep, that's how Warhead looks. It runs pretty well for me. I'm using my HDTV as my display until I purchase a monitor. I play the game at my HDTV's native resolution of 1366x768 with 4xAA in DX10 mode with everything maxed out. I get about 30 to 60 FPS. It plays pretty smoothly. Though I will admit that there are times when it plays worse than that by occasionally dropping into the low 20s, but I think this only happens when I have a lot of applications running on my computer. When I played it last night with only Chrome running in the background, the performance was excellent. Even with all sorts of effects (smoke grenades and explosions, ect) being rendered, it ran really smoothly. The game looks absolutely amazing. I occasionally increase the resolution to 1920x1080 with 2xAA just to see how it will play. At those settings, the performance isn't as strong, but it's still pretty good; it stays in the 30's for the most part. However, this makes me wonder if I should get a monitor with a resolution of 1680x1050, instead. That way I can still get performance comparable to what I'm getting now.

[QUOTE="the_mitch28"]

Basically you're playing a really fun game and then aliens come and ruin it.

Installing

Like Far Cry (except with monsters.)

In warhead I didn't like the chase hover thing but besides that the ice levels where my favorite in crysis.

Empirefrtw

[QUOTE="skrat_01"]I wish the Ice levels were actually open sandbox ones. That played to the games strengths. It really is a massive shame really, worst part of the game.jun_aka_pekto

Actually, the worst part of the game (Crysis or Warhead) for me is Ascension. For a guy who loves flight sims, I coudn't stand that level. :lol:

Let's see. The ice levels in Crysis consisted mostly of escorting Prophet and making a stand at the house with a squad of marines. It then transitioned back to tropical forests fairly quickly.

The ice levels in Warhead lasted much much longer from the time Psycho boarded the submarine to the time he got sealed inside the Pacific Shores mine. The hovercraft portion didn't take long (unless you missed the turn to the village and ended up circling around with the flying aliens taking potshots at you). The run through the village, retreat with Eagle Squad, dealing with a Boss, the aircraft carrier, the ravine, and finally the mine entrance plus another Boss, made the Warhead ice levels much more fun than the one in the original.

One thing I liked with the ice levels in Warhead was having both the KPA and aliens around at the same time. It was kind of fun watching them duke it out and then have Psycho mop up the survivors.

[QUOTE="jun_aka_pekto"]

[QUOTE="skrat_01"]I wish the Ice levels were actually open sandbox ones. That played to the games strengths. It really is a massive shame really, worst part of the game.skrat_01

Actually, the worst part of the game (Crysis or Warhead) for me is Ascension. For a guy who loves flight sims, I coudn't stand that level. :lol:

[QUOTE="skrat_01"][QUOTE="jun_aka_pekto"]

Actually, the worst part of the game (Crysis or Warhead) for me is Ascension. For a guy who loves flight sims, I coudn't stand that level. :lol:

dakan45

What ticked me off was being able to finish the level without really doing anything. I don't like rail sequences. But, a harrowing boat ride back to the fleet would've been much better than the VTOL.

Anyway, back to the ice levels..... I thought Warhead's was very well done.

I LOVED THE ICE. did not like the zero gravity part much.. besides smacking objects in there like when you pick up weapons

Noone liked the zero G? I thought it was quite interesting to getused to.

Nobody likes zero G it was so gay.And the end of it where you had to wait for 5 minutes for stuff to activate or something else(i can`t remember)

Nobody likes zero G it was so gay.And the end of it where you had to wait for 5 minutes for stuff to activate or something else(i can`t remember)

RaIn285

Been awhile since I played warhead so I don't remember what you mean by waiting for stuff to activate but I thought it was quite fun ;)

[QUOTE="Installing"]

[QUOTE="the_mitch28"]

Basically you're playing a really fun game and then aliens come and ruin it.

rmfd341

Like Far Cry (except with monsters.)

[QUOTE="rmfd341"][QUOTE="Installing"]

Like Far Cry (except with monsters.)

tequilasunriser

Wow. This was very well written. You did a good job of conveying your point.

I think people are forgetting that the aliens were the main point of crysis the Koreans were just their to give us some fodder until the ship was activated.

[QUOTE="tequilasunriser"][QUOTE="rmfd341"] This. Aliens ruined the game.BluRayHiDef

Wow. This was very well written. You did a good job of conveying your point.

[QUOTE="BluRayHiDef"]

[QUOTE="tequilasunriser"] I agree as well. The ice and the aliens ruined it. They built this big beautiful game and when they got to that little part of a game called the story and plot they just said "Screw it, put some aliens and an ice world in there. Gamers like that kinda stuff." AKA the Hollywood treatment. How many times do we need to fight aliens? Then they took what could have been an awesome open sandbox and made it linear. To top it off, they took the beautiful scenery and painted it grey white and blue. We all love winter and ice, shoveling snow, freezing cold, scraping our car off, going 20mph down Illinois expressways, road salt deteriorating our cars, frozen locks, warming vehicles up for 10 to 20 minutes in the morning, increased heating bills. Yeah we love ice and snow. Please remind us more of that when we are playing a game. /sarcasm Crysis is merely and interactive benchmark to test a computers gaming competency. A shoulda', woulda', coulda' of a game. /ranttequilasunriser

Wow. This was very well written. You did a good job of conveying your point.

Well, I admire how good you are at using certain facts and analogies to convey your point. However, I don't necessarily agree with your point. I don't know if what you've said here is true, but whether GameSpot's review of Crysis was insincere or not, it's still a very good game. Perhaps a review score slightly less than 9.5 would have been more appropriate, but that doesn't seem to far off from what it deserves (8.5 or 9.0). My dislike of the ice levels doesn't reflect my overall opinion of the game. Though I hate that particular aspect of Crysis, I think that its a very fun game, overall. I think Crytek did a very good job of using the nano suit to give the player the choice of playing the game stealthily or openly. Not to mention that the game's visuals are absolutely stunning. So, in my opinion, though the story wasn't very good, I think the graphics and gameplay make up for it.

I thought the ice was very fun, the zero gravity stuff was sucky. If I want zero gravity, I'll play Nights DAMNIT.