Crysis

Crytek only had one title under their belt before releasing this beauty. It was a little known game called Farcry. Of course little known is a complete joke as Farcry itself was a very well done game, with it's expansive outer areas and that underlying theme of menace later on in the game when the mutants appeared.


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

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

For the first review, I thought I'd make an expansion of a previously reviewed game on my personal blog. The game this preludes is one very close to my heart, and one that most definately had an influence on my current gaming status, as well as my love for RPGs. It's Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, which is (as mentioned before) a prequel to possibly one of the most loved games in existence.


Crisis Core is set a bit before VII, and shows what happened between Cloud, Zack, Sephiroth and Genesis. It also shows (from what I can ascertain) the link between Zack and Aeris (written Aerith in this, but it's fair enough as either are acceptable translations for アエリス,　which is her Japanese name). The game is very enjoyable, and as well as the main story, there is the 'distraction' of side missions. These missions, although not integral to the story, are a collection of short missions required of SOLDIER. They rank from easy, to very hard and each give a different reward, varying from a simple potion or crappy equip item, to valuable equip items and summon/rare materia. The recurring theme, is that you've been told to go somewhere, you have to fight a 'main enemy' (which is actually visible so as not to confuse you how to complete the mission I assume), and when you win, you get some kind of reward. I would like to say there's more to it, like having to parry hits in some sort of minigame, or maybe doing something other than just beating into enemies, but there isn't. I hate to say it, but the missions get repetitive quickly, and the only reason you end up going through the missions, is to get the rewards like summon materia.

A new feature to the VII universe, is the materia fusing. This is explained a short time into the game, and is upgraded to allow items to be thrown into the mix a bit later. I must say, it's a brilliant addition. A basic change is, combine one of the basic three elemental attacks, with another of the basic elemental attacks, say Blizzard and Fire, and you get the third of the basic elementals out, Thunder in this case. However, it goes into more depth, not only do the materia types need to be thought about, as do the bonus stats. It seems random, but as you go through you will figure out what gives what out. Combining a melee materia with a spell materia gives a pretty awesome spell/melee combo move, like a Firaga combined with a powerful melee hit. The sheer volume of combinations here cannot be overestimated, and I am yet to find what happens when combining an Ultima or Holy materia with something gets, although this is due to not having found either of those yet.

The other new addition is a device called the DMW, but sadly the main niggle I have with Crisis Core is that the DMW is a bit of an issue at times, and like some reviews said, it can make boss battles vary from stupidly hard, to flukily easy all due to the DMW rolling a powerful limit break/summon. Levelling doesn't work in the traditional way either. Most of you out there who play RPG's would be wondering how, 'you gain XP, it takes you to the next level, you gain stats'....WRONG. What actually happens is, it's linked to the DMW again. If the DMW enters the Limit Verge (which is when 2 images are the same, and it's waiting to see what the third one is to initiate limit breaks or summons) and after the images finish (they don't have to be the same for this, or have to initiate a powerful ability), the numbers that have been rolling land on 777, then Zack levels up. Leveling materia is similar and also depends on the DMW. If the DMW goes into the Limit Verge, and the 3 numbers read as 111, 222, 333, 444, or 555, then the materia in that materia equip slot gets levelled up, which can be to a maximum of 5 (otherwise known as master for those that don't remember VII's materia system). The downside of this, is I've never actually had a 444, so the fourth materia equip has never leveled.

I do admit, it's refreshing to see Square Enix trying something new again, but it's just a shame to not give the player ANY chance to dictate what level they are before attempting a certain point in the game. At one point, I actually found it almost impossible to continue with the story as my DMW had just been unforgiving with my levelling, only to have the DMW be recklessly kind in levelling me 3 times in one fight later in the game. I would also like some input as to when I use a limit break, and when I cast a summon, but again, a nice try to bring something new into the mix, although I still much prefer either the classic RPG format of gain experience > level up/gain stats, or the Final Fantasy X Sphere Grid system, which was one of the best ideas Square Enix ever came up with in my opinion.

Visuals I must say are stunning. I forgot I was playing the game on a handheld at times, and the cinematics...amazing. I keep going back to a cutscene depicting what it was like when Sephiroth, Angeal and Genesis trained together as friends, all due to the sheer beauty of it. Not quite Advent Children quality, but you'd be hardpressed to find a PS2 game that can outmatch it. I don't know whether I have sensitive eyes though (not as far as I am aware), as certain cutscenes just hurt to watch. The Ifrit summon is a prime example of this. It's an amazing scene, but it's difficult to watch due to the sheer brightness. It's a minor issue though, and no reason to at all avoid this game.

Pros-
1) Final Fantasy!
2) Stunning visuals
3) Gripping storyline

Cons-
1) DMW is schizophrenic
2) Bonus missions don't add much
3) No imput into powerful abilities

Verdict - 8/10
A solid game, and well worth picking up. Debatable as to whether you should a PSP for this, but definately one of the many reasons to get one.

Welcome

This is the new blog for all of my reviews. More professional than my normal blog and hopefully something that'll help me out in the foreseeable future with a job reviewing games. Although I'm a physics student, games are a massive part of my life and I would not be exagerating to say that a job with games far outweighs my desire to be a physicist (although I do enjoy both).

This is under my actual online name, Killaguy. Whereas my other blog is under my secondary online name, Dark-kai 3. Both representing a slightly different part of me. Killaguy is the gaming side, while Dark-kai3 is the side with represents my life as a whole.

Anyway, enough about my backstory of games and reviewing. I'll now allow you access to the inner recesses of my thoughts on the countless games I have played, and will play in my life.

Jonny (Killaguy)