Crysis 2 Review

[duchaked]

10 hours huh? Not worth it.

How long did it take you to go through Black Ops? 5 hours at most? Yet I bet you'll be buying the next one no matter what.

If you have a 360 and like FPS shooters, Crysis 2 is a must play title. Biggest complaint, no dedicated servers for multiplayer. Cmon EA has always been good at providing dedicated servers for their games, why is this one using a P2P system?

dude when I heard Crysis 2's campaign was 10-11 hours long I was lke "whoa this might be worth more than a rental"

=.= man...these short FPS campaigns really have become a staple of the genre. sighhh

 

[Sindre1]

New York is not overdone?
Ok then

 

[pubesz]

Great review Steve! Yeah I would also have a problem at the stomach area

 

[Dice Warwick]

I might grab this after I finish Portal 2, this is really the year of the squeal games.

 

[Impertinent]

Could we get a control option where the grenades are mapped to the face buttons . This game is awesome ,but throwing a grenade is a bit of a chore especially in a frantic round of MP . the rocket launcher is mapped to the d-pad how about a d-pad option for grenades ?

 

[Continuity]

Crysis 2 is very mediocre, 5/10 at most. The thing that bugs me most is that the FOV is like 45 or something, it's like the nanosuit blocks out 80% of your vision.

Sadly, game reviews can never be taken seriously because 8/10 is a "decent" score for AAA games.

Or people just don't have the same opinion as you regarding the game...

This is true, but I'm referring to the industry as a whole. When a movie or book is average it gets a 5/10. When a game is average it gets a 7/10 or a 8/10.

meh, we all know how it works so it doesn't really matter.

10/10 = They paid me

9/10 = Fantastic game

8/10 = Great game

7/10 = Good but with some shortcomings

6/10 = Game breaking flaws or incredibly bland

anything less = I will spoon my eyes out rather than play this.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

They were in Brazil to track down someone linked to Makarov and his weapon supplies. That led them to the gulag because the guy confessed that Makarov wanted someone, namely Price, dead, most likely for his involvement with the death of Zakhaev in Modern Warfare 1, whom Makarov viewed an an idol and martyr.

Why the hell does everyone has such an issue understanding the story of Modern Warfare 2? I don't get it... It's a simple story, if a little convoluted. Am I playing a different game? Gah...

Anyways, I think I may get this when I get a better PC. I saw it in 3D at PAX East and it looked awesome, and I actually kind of enjoyed the demo, so I don't see why not. Better get the first one first, though...

That makes no sense. It isn't convoluted, it isn't even connected. So, someone in Brazil supplied Makarov with weapons. On the verge of war, the best special forces unit in the world goes to South America to track this guy who might not know anything, and certainly doesn't know where Makarov is now. He inexplicably knows about someone whom Makarov wants dead. That someone is in a russian gulag, he could have been killed by Makarov at any time, knows nothing, means nothing, and is just a hook to get Price back. How they justified this expense of military assets is never explained. Oh, and this aimless little sidequest takes up most of Act 1 and 2.

I'm not surprised that they can hire Morgan, a published sci-fi bestseller writer, and still botch the story. Crysis 2 has a bad story because it's a shooter. Shooters inherently lack the capacity to carry a dramatic arc because they require that your character does not interact with anything other than his guns, that he doesn't speak (because a voiced first-person role is confusing and distracting), that the tension doesn't drop, and that you never face insurmountable odds because that would break the difficulty. They represent a tiny facet of potential events in a story (namely, gunfights) and build a 5-10-hour experience on that. If the story ends up being good, it is mostly divorced from the actual gameplay, or at least isn't reinforced by it.

However, setting, environment, tone, pacing, atmosphere - this is where a shooter can shine just like any other game. And many do, especially those often-mentioned gems like Bioshock and Deus Ex, but that doesn't make their story any better. They just make their worlds more fleshed-out and plausible. It's always the same goal-oriented filler, with an epic background event if the writers are any good. Crysis 1 lacked any focus in this area, and was mostly what you made it be and how you chose to play it. The sequel seems to aim at more consistency, but it again gets bogged down in stupid plots and exposition that never did shooters any good.

you dont think bioshocks story is any good?

 

[Reveras]

Well this would be some pc version action


Edit: 1080p if ya watch on youtube.

 

[Woodsey]

Crysis 2 is very mediocre, 5/10 at most. The thing that bugs me most is that the FOV is like 45 or something, it's like the nanosuit blocks out 80% of your vision.

Sadly, game reviews can never be taken seriously because 8/10 is a "decent" score for AAA games.

Yeah, the FOV is weird, although like the other guy said, different people have different opinions to you. The most you can hope for is that the more people like it, the more chance you have of liking it.

 

[Duffeknol]

I've got a question, just cause I'm curious. Why do you guys (usually) review the console version of a game and not the PC one? It's not criticism, I just really want to know

 

[mechanixis]

Thank you, Crytek. In a market saturated with gritty, brown, one-dimensional shooters, Crysis 2 is a refreshing alternative.

What? What grittier and browner games than Crysis 2 are saturating the market, exactly?

I'm sorry, but this strawman of the Horrible Brown Video Game is really starting to get under my skin. Crysis 2 is a first-person shooter about a man in a robot suit who fights aliens and PMCs to protect America. In what way is that not the blandest, most overdone thing possible? Why is it forgiven for being the illegitimate child of Halo and Modern Warfare because it includes the color green?

 

[Digikid]

Crysis 2 is a decent game.....but it is NOWHERE as good as the first game IMHO

 

[Seneschal]

you dont think bioshocks story is any good?

The plot itself, not really. What exactly is the meaning and value behind spending a few hours saving the trees in Arcadia or assembling a Big Daddy suit? There isn't any, it's just entertainment. Filler, if you're feeling bitter. Toying with the issue of player agency is the only thing for which Bioshock needs an interactive medium, otherwise the plot would just as well fit a book. And that book would probably be labelled "young-adult pulp-adventure" like thousands of other books.

But pretty much all games are like this. Classical narrative theory falls apart disastrously when forced into an interactive environment. JRPGs are a good example - their stories are often long and complex (actual depth... varies wildly), but they usually have zero interactivity. Playing through them is an entirely separated addition, like a novel with an exploration and stat micromanagement meta-game. And then you compare them to HL2, which is similarly linear but less abstract and with a few more freedoms (seamless transition, no interruptions, no cutscenes, first-person only), and a complex dramatic story becomes completely impossible through conventional exposition. Players gain palpable interactivity, and won't be held down before walls of exposition - they jump around the room and click on stuff while NPCs chat in the background and give the bare-minimum of story, most of which ends up being told through optional interactions with the environment.

Shooters will always have these problems when trying to force the player to care for their story, whether it's a typical juvenile power-fantasy or a masterpiece of literature. Traditional storytelling largely doesn't work, cannot support the drama, and isn't at the centre of attention. Games have other ways of shining.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

Why do you guys put the same video twice in your reviews? Im always like....oooh yay 2 video review EPIC...and then it turns out its the same

 

[NinjaTigerXIII]

I love how you say "Most enjoyable fps I've played in Months."

 

[Akisa]

Seriously why can't people just focus on the good aspects of the game instead of the negative ones, like the great graphics, weapons and interface and all.... :/

Well one of the weak point is the graphics... So yeah....

Note this is comparison to Crysis 1

 

[ninjajoeman]

Crysis 2 is very mediocre, 5/10 at most. The thing that bugs me most is that the FOV is like 45 or something, it's like the nanosuit blocks out 80% of your vision.

Sadly, game reviews can never be taken seriously because 8/10 is a "decent" score for AAA games.

Or people just don't have the same opinion as you regarding the game...

This is true, but I'm referring to the industry as a whole. When a movie or book is average it gets a 5/10. When a game is average it gets a 7/10 or a 8/10.

because getting a C is better then getting an F?

 

[Popido]

Crysis 2 is very mediocre, 5/10 at most. The thing that bugs me most is that the FOV is like 45 or something, it's like the nanosuit blocks out 80% of your vision.

Sadly, game reviews can never be taken seriously because 8/10 is a "decent" score for AAA games.

Or people just don't have the same opinion as you regarding the game...

This is true, but I'm referring to the industry as a whole. When a movie or book is average it gets a 5/10. When a game is average it gets a 7/10 or a 8/10.

because getting a C is better then getting an F?

The reviews are less detailed and less thoughtful.

Hey the game was great! I personally enjoyed it, but some [del]haters[/del] people didnt like it so imma gonna gief it 9/10!!! Thats gotta place it right next to ... you get the idea.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

hmm i think i will get this when the price drops, maybe by a third at least

Like a race mode, players race through a City, Mirror's Edge style, and have to use all of the suits powers to navigate it.

Or a predator-type game, where one player has all the suits powers activated(cloak, strength), and "hunts" the other players.

Or Time Attack challenges, to see how fast you can clear an area. Would require expert use of the suit.

goddamit man why arent u designing games urself!!! those ideas sound awesome.

 

[s_h_a_d_o]

Anyway:
Here are the settings I had placed into my launch options for crysis 2 demo
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis 2 Demo\bin32\Crysis2Demo.exe" +cl_fov=90 +r_DrawNearFoV = 90 +pl_movement.power_sprint_targetFov = 90 +g_skipIntro=1

Skip intro and constant FoV of 90, I think all the console commands are still functional, there just isn't an easy, in-game way to do the more basic things (bloom/HDR, AA etc.), because I've heard of people altering the bloom and stuff in Crysis 2.

One can create an autoexec.cfg file to define graphics settings for the game - a chap called Wasdie [http://www.wasdie.blogspot.com/] has created a little app to do just that ...
[http://www.gamespot.com/users/Wasdie/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25916748]



The image links to further info if anyone's interested.