The title being reviewed today, Crysis, is set in a different time and place, but of course you still end up having to kill foreigners. The prelude to the game is as follows. There is an unexplained communications loss with a team of US archaeologists operating on an islan in the Philippines Sea, with the final transmission indicating that the Korean People's Army (KPA) have invaded and taken control. At this time, it's unknown as to why they have done this, and you have been sent in with some other 'beefed up' marines to investigate.
The similarities between Farcry and Crysis are few and far between. You can control the vehicles you find littered about the areas, and the areas themselves are expansive. Now, the vistas are stunning, I won't deny that, but there's that underlying feeling that it was wasted. Very rarely do you come up to an area, and find that it is entirely visitable. Yes you can go through each checkpoint as you please, either guns blazing or stealthily, but it still comes down to the fact that you are constantly being pointed in one direction no matter what, and if you don't take out checkpoints, just bypass them, it'll make your job that much harder when you get to an unavoidable conflict as the previous checkpoint enemies all congregate on your current location at the first sign of a gunfight breaking out. If you try to enter a massive gunfight without being at all stealthy, chances are you will die. Of course, if you can enter a gunfight, take a couple enemies out, and then find cover for a few seconds, your good old friend regenerating healthbar will sort you out, but that is all to common with modern first person shooters. One of the few that haven't done that recently is Bioshock, but that allows you to respawn with no issues in the closest tube, but let's not get started on that.
The graphics cannot be stated as anything other than awe inspiring. Most PCs will have issues running it on anything above low settings, apart from those of us with custom built gaming machines, but even then running on Very High is difficult to achieve. However, even on the low graphics setting, it is still easy to see the graphical awesomeness. When you first enter each chapter in the game, the screen goes into a widescreen panoramic view which allows you to get the full glory of the area. The first time this happens properly is when you first come up over the top of a cliff, and are greeted by the view over the beach and KPA outpost. On low, it's pretty, on High it's stunning, with the mountains and the sun reflecting off the water and the trees swaying gently in the breeze.
The graphics would have been better if the graphics engine were optimised for lower end PCs. This was done in Crysis: Warhead, but I would have happily waited a couple more weeks for Crysis to come out had it been optimised and run alot smoother than it does now. This is just being picky, as the target market for those that play Crysis is the general collection of people that own custom gaming PCs with Crysis being the benchmark to test them.
The AI is ok, but there are massive moments of 'pantsonhead' retardedness. Several times did I get into a gunfight to cloak right in front of some of the NPCs to find them have no clue as to what just happen and immediately stop firing. The enemy is not so stupid as to not realise when they're right on top of you, but the lack of intelligence is disturbing. The ally AI is worse than the Korean AI, with the standard walking in front of you during a firefight then wondering why you shot them, along with the typical escort idiocy of being shredded apart by gunfire and not having the sense to take cover. With these mistakes being done in countless games before this, it should have been fixed by now.
The unavoidable vehicle sections are dire. One with you having to be the gunner while your mate drives the truck down a hill that snakes around worse than a friggin swiss mountainside road, while you have to shoot alien flying machines which can take enough lead to shred a building apart before finally crashing and exploding. The worst part of the exploding is that when they finally do go down, it's almost always in front of your damn driving line, and as mentioned earlier, the AI is so damn retarded that it can't figure out how to avoid the obstacle, and so you get caught in the explosion, truck explodes, you die, restart entire friggin section, slit wrists. Slight overstatement, but it will have to be attempted several times until luck allows you to get a clear path down the hill. The second being you taking control of a VTOL, which is basically a gunship.....that has the maneuverability of a brick, along with the aerodynamics of one. The worst part being that one of the engines goes, and you're expected to enter dogfights in this thing. Whoever thought that section up deserves to at least be tortured by having certain parts of him poked with a searing hot poker.
On the whole this game was designed to be pretty. Yes it's playable, but the graphics don't outweigh the many flaws this game has. Although, the part inside the alien spaceship is indeed amazing. The lack of gravity turns the control scheme as you know it into a 'how many ways can I die' system, while also being very cleverly done. Firing your weapon in this section of the game, sends you hurtling backwards due to simple conservation of momentum and adds a very welcome bit of physical realism to an otherwise lacking game.
Pros-
1) Stunning visuals
2) Zero gravity section
3) Usage of each suit mode
Cons-
1) AI is poor
2) Vehicle sections can cause self harm
3) Expansive landscapes could have been made more useful
A very pretty game, designed to be exceptionally pretty, and playable, but only just getting both ticked. Not at all a bad game, and well worth a look, even if to justify the cost of your PC setup, and put it through its paces.
7/10
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