Not very long ago I picked up a copy of a game I had wanted since I watched the Zero Punctuation review of it. More specifically I picked up Crysis Maximum Edition which also includes Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars. When I first started playing it I was first blown away by the graphics because it defaulted to the best setting for my comp (surprising maxed out). It looked beautiful though it was a rainy night and we were dropping out of a plane onto an island full of hostile North Koreans with attitude problems.
At first I was unsure what to do given that I had this suit with various powers and a large map to explore. So I played with my suit, having four settings (armor, speed, strength, and stealth) all of which drain the suits power at an almost unfair rate (except armor which only drains power when you're in the process of being shot). Next I pull up my map and locate my objective, seems simple enough, a meeting with a squadmate. I am again exposed to more graphical glory. Let me skip along to the bits of any review having given a sufficiant introduction.
The gunfights playout like Halo (yes it's the world's oldest cliche) when in armor mode, being able to absorb the enemy's gunfire without much worry and then diving behind cover when my suit had holes in it. Here is where things became less like Halo. I activate strength mode and jump onto the roof of a nearby building and once there activate stealth mode and wait for the Koreans to lose interest. Here is where stealth mode fails. I fire ONE SHOT into a north koreans skull and suddenly my stealth mode fails. Here is where stealth mode redeems itself. Once I had a bit of power in my suit I turned it on and legged it into the jungle.
What I'm getting at is that I played the game as if I were the predator from the movie by that name. It's a real fresh idea in a world full of so many conventional wargames. Now onto where I break it down by category.
Graphics: It's Crysis so of course the graphics are top notch. I went swimming and saw a shark that looked so real I nearly browned my pants. The jungle is alive and when you do get to the later parts of the game (without giving away much it's in a cave and then a frozen island) it looks completely plausible. The facial animations are great, especially when you appear out of stealth mode in front of a north korean and grab him by the throat.
Gameplay: Yes Yahtzee was right when he said the vehicles suck. Driving them is just like in Far Cry (which is to say a load of failure). The gunplay on the other hand feels fresh and inspired. It breaks away from most other shooting games with the modes of your suit. The one thing I do wish is that the North Koreans weren't so bullet resistant.
Sound: I have onboard sound but aside from that shortcoming it sounded great. It felt alive and vibrant.
Conclusion: Assuming you can build a comp (or buy one if you feel like paying extra) that can handle it it's well worth the money ($40). you don't even have to drive many of the vehicles in the game if you don't want to which would eliminate my major complaint but there are some forced vehicle sections.
At first I was unsure what to do given that I had this suit with various powers and a large map to explore. So I played with my suit, having four settings (armor, speed, strength, and stealth) all of which drain the suits power at an almost unfair rate (except armor which only drains power when you're in the process of being shot). Next I pull up my map and locate my objective, seems simple enough, a meeting with a squadmate. I am again exposed to more graphical glory. Let me skip along to the bits of any review having given a sufficiant introduction.
The gunfights playout like Halo (yes it's the world's oldest cliche) when in armor mode, being able to absorb the enemy's gunfire without much worry and then diving behind cover when my suit had holes in it. Here is where things became less like Halo. I activate strength mode and jump onto the roof of a nearby building and once there activate stealth mode and wait for the Koreans to lose interest. Here is where stealth mode fails. I fire ONE SHOT into a north koreans skull and suddenly my stealth mode fails. Here is where stealth mode redeems itself. Once I had a bit of power in my suit I turned it on and legged it into the jungle.
What I'm getting at is that I played the game as if I were the predator from the movie by that name. It's a real fresh idea in a world full of so many conventional wargames. Now onto where I break it down by category.
Graphics: It's Crysis so of course the graphics are top notch. I went swimming and saw a shark that looked so real I nearly browned my pants. The jungle is alive and when you do get to the later parts of the game (without giving away much it's in a cave and then a frozen island) it looks completely plausible. The facial animations are great, especially when you appear out of stealth mode in front of a north korean and grab him by the throat.
Gameplay: Yes Yahtzee was right when he said the vehicles suck. Driving them is just like in Far Cry (which is to say a load of failure). The gunplay on the other hand feels fresh and inspired. It breaks away from most other shooting games with the modes of your suit. The one thing I do wish is that the North Koreans weren't so bullet resistant.
Sound: I have onboard sound but aside from that shortcoming it sounded great. It felt alive and vibrant.
Conclusion: Assuming you can build a comp (or buy one if you feel like paying extra) that can handle it it's well worth the money ($40). you don't even have to drive many of the vehicles in the game if you don't want to which would eliminate my major complaint but there are some forced vehicle sections.
