Crysis, the "spiritual successor" to Far Cry, is a rather ambitious game. It attempts to significantly raise the bar in virtually every technical aspect: graphics, environments, physics, AI, animation, everything. It also attempts to let players have their cake and eat it by blending stealth with action and sandbox(ish) gameplay with a linear storyline. It can be an action game, or a sniper game, or a stealth game. It can be carefully planned or played by the seat of your pants. Or it can be a mixture. It tries, very hard, to be whatever kind of shooter you want it be. It just wants to make everyone happy, or at least everyone with a $10,000 PC.
The game is set in 2020 and you play as an elite US Special Forces soldier called 'Nomad' (your real name is never mentioned). You're sent tothe island from Far Cry a tropical island because some Archaeologists stationed there have sent out some sort of distress signal. I won't spoil anything, but there isn't much to be spoiled. The story is neither very original nor particularly well written, but it is well paced and well voiced (especially when compared to Far Cry) and it does it's job: it keeps things moving and provides the player with a sense of purpose, not to mention a few jaw-dropping action-packed cut scenes and scripted sequences. Some of the "dramatic" moments might have had a little more impact on me if I'd had the opportunity to form attachments to any of the characters, but those moments are few and far between so it's a minor quibble. Be warned, though, that the ending doesn't offer any closure at all.
So anyway, you're a soldier, and you're presumably a pretty good one because you're wearing a Nanosuit that must have cost the US government about a trillion dollars. This impressive exoskeleton can be switched between four modes which allow you to soak up damage, run really fast, become super strong so you can grab bad guys and hurl them at other bad guys, or turn invisible and sneak around Predator style. When you combine those options with open and destructible environments, intelligent and adaptive opponents, and objectives that can be tackled any way you want, then you have a game with the potential to make any shooter fan laugh with glee as they play. Unfortunately that potential isn't fully realised by the game, at least not right out of the box.
Anyone who played Far Cry will be pleased to hear that the enemy soldiers in Crysis don't have x-ray infra-red ultravision, nor do they have supersonic hearing or a spider sense. Furthermore you can't shoot bad guys while "cloaked" (invisible) because that'd be too easy. I was very happy with the stealth mechanics until I discovered, early in the game, that there is nothing to stop you from immediately re-cloaking after you shoot something, and when you do that your AI opponents are none the wiser to your whereabouts despite the fact that you were briefly visible and you made a loud noise. I cranked the game up to the highest difficulty setting and I was still able to walk (cloaked) into the centre of any group of enemies and then pick them off one by one. I'd line up a headshot, de-cloak, shoot, and re-cloak. Everyone would go 'HUH?' and look suitably confused. I'd then rinse and repeat. At first this was amusing but I quickly became bored by the game as it no longer offered any challenge at all. I kept playing in the hope that some smarter opponents would show up, but none did. What I eventually got instead was a helicopter equipped with x-ray infra-red ultravision, supersonic hearing, and a spider sense. It could see me while I was cloaked, even through walls and rooftops and trees and bushes. I tried again and again to hide from it but wherever I went my stealth meter stayed at full/red and rockets and bullets rained all over me. There are several helicopters in the game and they all have the same uncanny ability, not to mention a lot of firepower. So of course every time a helicopter showed up the difficulty went from zero to infinity in a heartbeat and then, after I finally killed the damned thing, back to zero again.
These problems really ruined things for me, so I put the difficulty back to normal and stopped using the cloak. I found that in general Crysis played very well that way. Battles were varied and highly dynamic and often quite unpredictable, forcing me to think and act fast and make the most of the (many) options available at any given time. The set pieces were varied and nicely paced and what they lacked in originality they usually made up for in presentation and excitement or, failing that, brevity. I was finally having fun again but, alas, it was again short lived. I began to notice that Crysis uses player aids which can't be switched off in the game options. For example the game uses a mechanic which causes enemy bullets to miss the player for a couple of seconds when their health gets too low, thereby giving them a moment to dive for cover. It works a little too well and it happened to me so regularly that I noticed it. I did a web search and and discovered that this is called Mercy Time (I also found out that Crysis uses Aim Assistance but I hadn't noticed that one).
Player assistance mechanics are a fine line in gaming. If they're not noticable then they can really enhance a game, but when they're noticable they can ruin it. Some players like to make their own headshots and save their own lives, and if a game is very obviously doing it for them with 'Auto Aim' and 'Mercy Time' then the sense of achievement is removed, as was the case for me with Crysis. Fortunately it's a PC game, and that means there are mods and tweaks.
It turns out that all of the problems I've mentioned so far, including the Uber Cloak, can be fixed with a few simple file edits, or by using one of the difficulty tweaks/mods available on the web. Once I'd implemented my chosen tweaks I was, at least from a gameplay perspective, playing a completely different game, and an excellent game at that. I was finally able to use any and all of my Nanosuit's abilities as and when I saw fit, and it was glorious. Why on earth Crytek couldn't just include these options somewhere in the game menus is beyond me.
None of the individual gameplay components that make up Crysis are new in themselves, but AFAIK they have never been combined into a single game like this, and many of them have rarely - if ever - been executed as well as in Crysis. The game looks and sounds amazing, and there are so many ways to have fun and so many unscripted moments of brilliance that it's impossible not to fall in love with it, at least in the first three quarters of the game. No two battles ever play out the same, and the hide-and-seek Predator-esque jungle warfare is endlessly entertaining. However the last act is rather weak, giving up the the open-ended sandbox gameplay in exchange for heavily scripted action sequences which culminate in a visually impressive but depressingly uninspired boss fight. The scripted sequences do offer excitement and a visual feast, but it was during this shift from player-driven gameplay to cinematic gameplay that I felt the predictable story and lack of character development took their toll on the game. What little suspension of disbelief I had left by the end was easily broken by the contrived climax, which contrasted too sharply with the dozen or so hours of open-ended gameplay that had preceded it. When the final cut scene played I didn't even care about the lack of closure... but I was very much looking forward to playing the game all over again.
Crysis is not perfect. The stealth is broken and has to be fixed with tweaks, the controls are inflexible, some of the cut scenes and dialogue sequences feel unfinished, a couple of the levels could use some frame rate optimisation, and the ending is not what it could have been. But these are all minor (or fixable) faults, and for the most part Crysis shines so brightly it is blinding.
The game is set in 2020 and you play as an elite US Special Forces soldier called 'Nomad' (your real name is never mentioned). You're sent to
So anyway, you're a soldier, and you're presumably a pretty good one because you're wearing a Nanosuit that must have cost the US government about a trillion dollars. This impressive exoskeleton can be switched between four modes which allow you to soak up damage, run really fast, become super strong so you can grab bad guys and hurl them at other bad guys, or turn invisible and sneak around Predator style. When you combine those options with open and destructible environments, intelligent and adaptive opponents, and objectives that can be tackled any way you want, then you have a game with the potential to make any shooter fan laugh with glee as they play. Unfortunately that potential isn't fully realised by the game, at least not right out of the box.
Anyone who played Far Cry will be pleased to hear that the enemy soldiers in Crysis don't have x-ray infra-red ultravision, nor do they have supersonic hearing or a spider sense. Furthermore you can't shoot bad guys while "cloaked" (invisible) because that'd be too easy. I was very happy with the stealth mechanics until I discovered, early in the game, that there is nothing to stop you from immediately re-cloaking after you shoot something, and when you do that your AI opponents are none the wiser to your whereabouts despite the fact that you were briefly visible and you made a loud noise. I cranked the game up to the highest difficulty setting and I was still able to walk (cloaked) into the centre of any group of enemies and then pick them off one by one. I'd line up a headshot, de-cloak, shoot, and re-cloak. Everyone would go 'HUH?' and look suitably confused. I'd then rinse and repeat. At first this was amusing but I quickly became bored by the game as it no longer offered any challenge at all. I kept playing in the hope that some smarter opponents would show up, but none did. What I eventually got instead was a helicopter equipped with x-ray infra-red ultravision, supersonic hearing, and a spider sense. It could see me while I was cloaked, even through walls and rooftops and trees and bushes. I tried again and again to hide from it but wherever I went my stealth meter stayed at full/red and rockets and bullets rained all over me. There are several helicopters in the game and they all have the same uncanny ability, not to mention a lot of firepower. So of course every time a helicopter showed up the difficulty went from zero to infinity in a heartbeat and then, after I finally killed the damned thing, back to zero again.
These problems really ruined things for me, so I put the difficulty back to normal and stopped using the cloak. I found that in general Crysis played very well that way. Battles were varied and highly dynamic and often quite unpredictable, forcing me to think and act fast and make the most of the (many) options available at any given time. The set pieces were varied and nicely paced and what they lacked in originality they usually made up for in presentation and excitement or, failing that, brevity. I was finally having fun again but, alas, it was again short lived. I began to notice that Crysis uses player aids which can't be switched off in the game options. For example the game uses a mechanic which causes enemy bullets to miss the player for a couple of seconds when their health gets too low, thereby giving them a moment to dive for cover. It works a little too well and it happened to me so regularly that I noticed it. I did a web search and and discovered that this is called Mercy Time (I also found out that Crysis uses Aim Assistance but I hadn't noticed that one).
Player assistance mechanics are a fine line in gaming. If they're not noticable then they can really enhance a game, but when they're noticable they can ruin it. Some players like to make their own headshots and save their own lives, and if a game is very obviously doing it for them with 'Auto Aim' and 'Mercy Time' then the sense of achievement is removed, as was the case for me with Crysis. Fortunately it's a PC game, and that means there are mods and tweaks.
It turns out that all of the problems I've mentioned so far, including the Uber Cloak, can be fixed with a few simple file edits, or by using one of the difficulty tweaks/mods available on the web. Once I'd implemented my chosen tweaks I was, at least from a gameplay perspective, playing a completely different game, and an excellent game at that. I was finally able to use any and all of my Nanosuit's abilities as and when I saw fit, and it was glorious. Why on earth Crytek couldn't just include these options somewhere in the game menus is beyond me.
None of the individual gameplay components that make up Crysis are new in themselves, but AFAIK they have never been combined into a single game like this, and many of them have rarely - if ever - been executed as well as in Crysis. The game looks and sounds amazing, and there are so many ways to have fun and so many unscripted moments of brilliance that it's impossible not to fall in love with it, at least in the first three quarters of the game. No two battles ever play out the same, and the hide-and-seek Predator-esque jungle warfare is endlessly entertaining. However the last act is rather weak, giving up the the open-ended sandbox gameplay in exchange for heavily scripted action sequences which culminate in a visually impressive but depressingly uninspired boss fight. The scripted sequences do offer excitement and a visual feast, but it was during this shift from player-driven gameplay to cinematic gameplay that I felt the predictable story and lack of character development took their toll on the game. What little suspension of disbelief I had left by the end was easily broken by the contrived climax, which contrasted too sharply with the dozen or so hours of open-ended gameplay that had preceded it. When the final cut scene played I didn't even care about the lack of closure... but I was very much looking forward to playing the game all over again.
Crysis is not perfect. The stealth is broken and has to be fixed with tweaks, the controls are inflexible, some of the cut scenes and dialogue sequences feel unfinished, a couple of the levels could use some frame rate optimisation, and the ending is not what it could have been. But these are all minor (or fixable) faults, and for the most part Crysis shines so brightly it is blinding.
