Spiritual Successor is a term that seems ubiquitous these days, and all too often it seems to mean ?We wanted to make a sequel, but we lost the license?. This is all too true of Crysis, the latest offering from German developer Crytek, who liked Far Cry so much that they decided to make it again.
The plot of Crysis is something of a chimera, blending as it does the plot of Far Cry and the plot of Predator into a gloriously derivative whole. In brief, you play as ?Nomad?, part of a US Special Forces squad named Raptor Team. Raptor Team are apparently so top-secret that they don?t have proper names, just a cavalcade of call signs that bear no relation to the persons? personality. After all, if Prophet lived up to his name, he wouldn?t get abducted by a space octopus would he?
Raptor Team is sent to a tropical island in the South Pacific to rescue a team of archaeologists who have been taken hostage by the Korean People?s Army. After the team are separated by a strange electrical disturbance, Nomad has to traipse through the jungle in his high-tech, near-future nano-suit to rejoin the rest of his team, encountering resistance from the KPA along the way. After the squad?s redshirts are killed in rather grisly fashions, they begin to realise that there is more happening on the island than their superiors have told them. Now, while none of this is particularly original, it is a least not as stupid as the drivel that gets tacked on to most shooters these days. It?s actually quite a sensible plot, if a little fantastical.
Similarly, the characters get a pretty good deal. Crytek have taken a leaf out of Valve?s book and made their characters likeable and believable, a seemingly insane gambit that has fortunately paid off. Nomad is a fairly typical protagonist but he does distinguish himself by actually having a voice and by reacting to the stranger things he encounters with genuine surprise and wonder rather than some gung-ho nonsense and bullets. The other major characters are similarly well treated. The female scientist you rescue isn?t some top-heavy bimbo, but a sensibly-dressed, intelligent young woman who is pivotal to defeating the aliens, and the other members of your squad aren?t waddling slabs of steroid infused jingoism, but have distinct personalities that can be enjoyed without irony. In fact, the only time the voices get annoying is when they are yelling at you for not completing an objective within the handful of picoseconds they deem long enough to do it.
Unfortunately, for all the praise I have for the plot and characterisation, the game play gets little more than scorn. It would help if Crysis could decide what kind of game it wanted to be. When you start playing it feels like a stealth game, but later on it feels like an action game and this lack of focus means that while it is competent in most areas, it doesn?t excel at any one thing. The best example of this is the nano-suit. It has a variety of modes that you can swap between in real time, but most of the time you?ll stick with the armour setting or the cloak. Having the nano-suit is like being Superman, if Superman could only use his powers one at a time. If you decide to wade in using the Strength setting to bust some heads you quickly find yourself gunned down as you are without armour. If you try to flee using the Speed setting you find yourself unable to activate your cloak until your suit energy regenerates, a process which takes such a short amount of time, it makes you wonder why they didn?t just make the suit energy last longer.
Level design is another area where Crysis falls down. Despite Crytek?s claims that it is a free-roaming game, the only choice you really get is which bush to hide behind on your way to your next objective. Once you do get there you?re usually faced with the next in a series of identical outposts made of corrugated iron and cardboard. The aforementioned nature hike is often a long slog punctuated only by falling foul of one of the numerous patrols that seem to appear out of nowhere, and unless shrubs really get you going you?re going to get bored very quickly. The shanty town outposts are manned by guards so stupid that they?ll trip over the big pile of bodies that is stacked up by a door and still think it?s a good idea to go have a look by themselves. This sequence is repeated so many times it?s like listening to a particularly dim parrot. A special mention has to go to the alien spaceship level, which aside from looking like the ship from Alien mixed with Tron, has some of the most unintuitive and confusing design I?ve seen in a long time.
There are three levels in the game where you are supposed to hop into a vehicle and fight pitched battles against hordes of enemies utilising the powerful weaponry onboard. The only problem with this is the vehicles in Crysis are apparently made of tissue paper and they handle like they have attention deficit disorder. Fortunately in two of the three levels you can get out and perform the tasks on foot, but that doesn?t excuse the fact that getting into vehicle in Crysis is the equivalent of taking a long time pressing the quick load button.
A review of Crysis wouldn?t be complete without mentioning the graphics. A rather significant amount of wood pulp has been devoted to extolling Crysis? beauty and while it is an attractive game, the quality of the aesthetics comes at the detriment of the engine, or to put it another way; Crysis is like a girl with a truly beautiful face and body but who is crazier than a sock filled with bees. The CryEngine is a monster, riddled with bugs and errors at every turn. In the time I was playing it, it crashed at least six or seven times, most of these prompting a reboot. This is after I had downloaded a very large patch that apparently fixed a number of stability issues. One level resolutely refused to render until I updated my graphics card drivers, despite all the previous levels working fine. The ridiculously high system specs have very little to do with the game?s level of prettiness, after all it?s not that much better looking than Call of Duty 4 or Bioshock, but has quite a lot to do with the fact that the seems to have been coded by chimps.
In conclusion it?s hard for me to recommend Crysis, at least at the moment. The best time to enjoy the game will be in a year or so when the system requirements are more in line with what people actual possess rather than what appears in the latest sci-fi blockbuster. I did have fun playing it and perhaps with a bit more work from Crytek it could be a more stable and less infuriating experience.
The plot of Crysis is something of a chimera, blending as it does the plot of Far Cry and the plot of Predator into a gloriously derivative whole. In brief, you play as ?Nomad?, part of a US Special Forces squad named Raptor Team. Raptor Team are apparently so top-secret that they don?t have proper names, just a cavalcade of call signs that bear no relation to the persons? personality. After all, if Prophet lived up to his name, he wouldn?t get abducted by a space octopus would he?
Raptor Team is sent to a tropical island in the South Pacific to rescue a team of archaeologists who have been taken hostage by the Korean People?s Army. After the team are separated by a strange electrical disturbance, Nomad has to traipse through the jungle in his high-tech, near-future nano-suit to rejoin the rest of his team, encountering resistance from the KPA along the way. After the squad?s redshirts are killed in rather grisly fashions, they begin to realise that there is more happening on the island than their superiors have told them. Now, while none of this is particularly original, it is a least not as stupid as the drivel that gets tacked on to most shooters these days. It?s actually quite a sensible plot, if a little fantastical.
Similarly, the characters get a pretty good deal. Crytek have taken a leaf out of Valve?s book and made their characters likeable and believable, a seemingly insane gambit that has fortunately paid off. Nomad is a fairly typical protagonist but he does distinguish himself by actually having a voice and by reacting to the stranger things he encounters with genuine surprise and wonder rather than some gung-ho nonsense and bullets. The other major characters are similarly well treated. The female scientist you rescue isn?t some top-heavy bimbo, but a sensibly-dressed, intelligent young woman who is pivotal to defeating the aliens, and the other members of your squad aren?t waddling slabs of steroid infused jingoism, but have distinct personalities that can be enjoyed without irony. In fact, the only time the voices get annoying is when they are yelling at you for not completing an objective within the handful of picoseconds they deem long enough to do it.
Unfortunately, for all the praise I have for the plot and characterisation, the game play gets little more than scorn. It would help if Crysis could decide what kind of game it wanted to be. When you start playing it feels like a stealth game, but later on it feels like an action game and this lack of focus means that while it is competent in most areas, it doesn?t excel at any one thing. The best example of this is the nano-suit. It has a variety of modes that you can swap between in real time, but most of the time you?ll stick with the armour setting or the cloak. Having the nano-suit is like being Superman, if Superman could only use his powers one at a time. If you decide to wade in using the Strength setting to bust some heads you quickly find yourself gunned down as you are without armour. If you try to flee using the Speed setting you find yourself unable to activate your cloak until your suit energy regenerates, a process which takes such a short amount of time, it makes you wonder why they didn?t just make the suit energy last longer.
Level design is another area where Crysis falls down. Despite Crytek?s claims that it is a free-roaming game, the only choice you really get is which bush to hide behind on your way to your next objective. Once you do get there you?re usually faced with the next in a series of identical outposts made of corrugated iron and cardboard. The aforementioned nature hike is often a long slog punctuated only by falling foul of one of the numerous patrols that seem to appear out of nowhere, and unless shrubs really get you going you?re going to get bored very quickly. The shanty town outposts are manned by guards so stupid that they?ll trip over the big pile of bodies that is stacked up by a door and still think it?s a good idea to go have a look by themselves. This sequence is repeated so many times it?s like listening to a particularly dim parrot. A special mention has to go to the alien spaceship level, which aside from looking like the ship from Alien mixed with Tron, has some of the most unintuitive and confusing design I?ve seen in a long time.
There are three levels in the game where you are supposed to hop into a vehicle and fight pitched battles against hordes of enemies utilising the powerful weaponry onboard. The only problem with this is the vehicles in Crysis are apparently made of tissue paper and they handle like they have attention deficit disorder. Fortunately in two of the three levels you can get out and perform the tasks on foot, but that doesn?t excuse the fact that getting into vehicle in Crysis is the equivalent of taking a long time pressing the quick load button.
A review of Crysis wouldn?t be complete without mentioning the graphics. A rather significant amount of wood pulp has been devoted to extolling Crysis? beauty and while it is an attractive game, the quality of the aesthetics comes at the detriment of the engine, or to put it another way; Crysis is like a girl with a truly beautiful face and body but who is crazier than a sock filled with bees. The CryEngine is a monster, riddled with bugs and errors at every turn. In the time I was playing it, it crashed at least six or seven times, most of these prompting a reboot. This is after I had downloaded a very large patch that apparently fixed a number of stability issues. One level resolutely refused to render until I updated my graphics card drivers, despite all the previous levels working fine. The ridiculously high system specs have very little to do with the game?s level of prettiness, after all it?s not that much better looking than Call of Duty 4 or Bioshock, but has quite a lot to do with the fact that the seems to have been coded by chimps.
In conclusion it?s hard for me to recommend Crysis, at least at the moment. The best time to enjoy the game will be in a year or so when the system requirements are more in line with what people actual possess rather than what appears in the latest sci-fi blockbuster. I did have fun playing it and perhaps with a bit more work from Crytek it could be a more stable and less infuriating experience.
Unplayable, but pretty.
