Zero Punctuation: Crysis 3

[Sheo_Dagana]

So... Prophet ate Alcatraz? That's pretty shitty. I never got into Crysis, because for all of it's pretty graphics and alien-invasion stories, I've seen at least five games that do it better.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

I've honestly never understood what Yahtzee means when he calls something "overwritten." I tend to like stories, so that is kinda like a chocolate cake being over-chocolatey, or a basket of puppies being over-puppiety.

I assume it means there's too much story for the level of story & gameplay segregation in place. Hard segregation works in small bursts, but if you have a tall story you should try to weave it into the gameplay instead of switching back and forth in a dissonance that makes you feel disonnected during gameplay - which (hopefully) will still be most of your playtime.

I've never played a Crysis game before, but the series has always intrigued me. This game looks a lot more appealing to me than the last one though.

Do yourself a favor and start with the first one. 2 and 3 are forgettable with pretty much the same graphics as the original game. Crysis 1 was actually really good with somewhat of an open world, vehicles, etc (even though Crysis 3 has vehicles again... barely). People always talk about the graphics, but they're meaningless unless you do something with it. Crysis 1 actually pulled it off wonderfully with you exploring a jungle with industrial area. When you almost start to get bored, out come the aliens that start to freeze everything with their pewpew ice rays. It looked good because it was good art design coupled with great graphics. Crysis 2 and 3 are short linear romps through the same areas all the time with the same graphics as the original game.

C1 had the same basic Arena level design as C2. It just appeared more open because of the island backdrop. De facto there's huge empty spaces if you don't go air route from A to B or rocks or too many trees or something similar. It's the same illusion as "woah an island, I can just keep swimming until I reach another shore!" - no, won't happen. It's neither an open world nor does it encourage exploring. There's (mostly) just more trees.
In fact, C2's city theme added some much needed verticality to the level design, rooftops and sewage pipes. We only had that in spades in C1's Arenas that were enemy fortifications (with a few patrols between mission objectives, which also happen in C2).

Otherwise C1 was two acts of padding killing brown people nobody cares about or remembers and then shooting a few annoyingly sequel hook aliens before more vehicle sections cut you out of the core gameplay and the end is brought by two very cheesy generals and a huge boss monster killed by a single dude.
Sprinting was more fun in C1 tho.

 

[mjc0961]

Queue the line of people saying Crysis 3 sucks because Yahtzee said so, even though they didn't play it.

Don't be silly. We were already saying it sucks before Yahtzee because it's fucking Crysis, a franchise who's only worthwhile quality has been as a benchmark for how powerful your PC is. Not once in the entirety of Crysis existing have I ever heard anyone say it's a good game or a fun game or an enjoyable game or anything like that. It's just people bragging if their new PCs can run Crysis, to which standard reply is usually "Yeah, but why would you want to?".

 

[Roman Monaghan]

Que people wondering why he hasn't reviewed Tomb Raider yet within the day it fucking released.

It wont be next week either, so don't get your hopes up.

 

[shrekfan246]

Queue the line of people saying Crysis 3 sucks because Yahtzee said so, even though they didn't play it.

Don't be silly. We were already saying it sucks before Yahtzee because it's fucking Crysis, a franchise who's only worthwhile quality has been as a benchmark for how powerful your PC is. Not once in the entirety of Crysis existing have I ever heard anyone say it's a good game or a fun game or an enjoyable game or anything like that. It's just people bragging if their new PCs can run Crysis, to which standard reply is usually "Yeah, but why would you want to?".

Well then, prepare to have your socks knocked off, because I loved Crysis 2 and I'm really enjoying Crysis 3 as well.

The first Crysis had the illusion of an open world, with absolutely nothing to do in it, and the gunplay was limp and unsatisfying because every enemy took half a clip or an entire clip from an assault rifle to actually kill.

Crysis 2 removed the illusion of an open world, added in a city-scape that increased your actual number of options for proceeding outside of "What direction should I enter the camp from?", and gave the guns a serious feel of weight and kick, while also heavily improving the nanosuit cloak and providing you with enemies who could actually be sniped out or melee killed silently while stealthing, making either stealth or run&gun viable strategies for proceeding. It simplified the alien enemies, but also made them easier to kill, meaning they weren't frustrating to fight like in the first game.

Crysis 3 has taken all of the lush greenery from the tropical island of the first game and mixed it with the ruined city of the second game, creating an excellent balance between a structured narrative and an explorable in-game world that is still smaller than the first game, but grants much more openness than the second. It introduced the predator bow, boosting up stealth even further while, on the lower difficulties at least, still keeping run&gun as a viable option with a slightly powered-up armor mode. The normal guns still have roughly the same kick from 2, which isn't a bad thing, and they've also introduced the ability to use guns that the aliens drop if you kill them without making them explode. In fact, it feels better in every way than Crysis 2 did.

Sure, the story sucks. Who is actually surprised by that turn of events? But the games themselves are a lot of fun. At least, for me.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Yahtzee should start a side business selling bows and arrows. His product speech was pure class.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

The first Crysis had the illusion of an open world, with absolutely nothing to do in it, and the gunplay was limp and unsatisfying because every enemy took half a clip or an entire clip from an assault rifle to actually kill.

Hmm.

I suppose you never realized that every human enemy takes exactly ONE bullet to kill, just make sure you hit them in the head. So all you needed to do was attach a high-power scope to any assault rifle (or submachine gun) like Scar/FY71/etc, set the gun to single-shot, hide in the foliage (or any cover) and mow down Koreans like they were ants. Of course they'll take half a clip to kill on the chest, they're wearing bulletproof vests -_-

 

[Beryl77]

I never was a big Crysis fan. Crysis 1 was one of the few games that I started and stopped playing half-way through, it just seemed so bland to me and I simply didn't feel like continuing to play it. Maybe I never used it right but the suit always felt really gimmicky to me. I tried then Crysis 2 at a friend's place but that felt even worse. I won't even bother with Crysis 3.

 

[shrekfan246]

The first Crysis had the illusion of an open world, with absolutely nothing to do in it, and the gunplay was limp and unsatisfying because every enemy took half a clip or an entire clip from an assault rifle to actually kill.

Hmm.

I suppose you never realized that every human enemy takes exactly ONE bullet to kill, all you need to do is make sure that bullet hits them in the head. All you needed to do is attach a high-power scope to any assault rifle (or submachine gun) like Scar/FY71/etc, set the gun to single-shot, hide in the foliage (or any cover) and mow down Koreans like they were ants.

Generally I don't like using an assault rifle like a sniper rifle in games. Hiding in the foliage was pointless because it had the same problem Far Cry did where foliage didn't actually hide you from the enemies, and the cloak would wear off after one or two shots, meaning everyone would suddenly know exactly where you were, and five more enemies would magically spawn in out of nowhere and start trying to flush you out.

Pulling off headshots was an exercise in frustration and trying to lose them once you were spotted was even worse. Stealth was utterly broken, and the "armor" mode was pathetic and barely protected you any more than the sheer force of will protagonists in most other FPS' have.

I guess I should also state that I don't have a lot of twitch skill when it comes to shooters.

 

[geldonyetich]

Overall, I'm not too surprised Crysis 3 turned out to be forgettable considering it's about as spunk gargle weewee [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6492-Medal-of-Honor-Warfighter-Doom-3-BFG-Edition] as spunk gargle weewee games get... well, except for the inclusion of a nanosuit and aliens and a bow and arrow, but that's just changing the wallpaper, isn't it?

But at least Yahtzee came clean about why he made his choice of game: if there's one thing you can count on to be over and done with in a weekend, it's a spunk gargle weewee game. Now he'll have all the time he needs to cope with the crazy despondence that passes for plot in a Hideo Kojima game and still hit his weekly quota.

I suppose I can't complain about being the victim of time management. The video was amusing and I really did want to get his opinion on Crysis 3. That and I have an minor existential crisis as to whether or not it's a Wednesday if there's not a new Zedro Punctuation [that's such an awesome typo I'm going to keep it] to show for it. So I guess I'm the source of the problem.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

Generally I don't like using an assault rifle like a sniper rifle in games. Hiding in the foliage was pointless because it had the same problem Far Cry did where foliage didn't actually hide you from the enemies, and the cloak would wear off after one or two shots, meaning everyone would suddenly know exactly where you were, and five more enemies would magically spawn in out of nowhere and start trying to flush you out.

That's the thing, Crytek went out of their way to NOT make Crysis have the same enemy-telescopic-vision issue as Far Cry did and hiding in the foliage/forests is 100% functional and viable. Yahtzee even mentioned it in his Crysis review. Enemies will not see you beyond a certain range, you can sneak right up to them as long as you have the foliage covering you.

(actual video starts at 2:10)

In fact on Delta difficulty the only way to play the game is sneaking around forests and using cover as much as possible, picking off enemies and making sure they don't NOTICE you picking them off. It's quite thrilling.

So I don't really know what you're talking about there : /

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I want that sandwich.

 

[O maestre]

meh not a single arrow in the knee joke, i know its used and abused meme but i am kind of disappointed

 

[DarkhoIlow]

This video made my day, thanks Yahtzee yet again for sharing with us your work and wise words.

On the topic at hand however, I enjoyed Crysis 3 better than it's predecessor but only slightly.

 

[GrimHeaper]

I can't wait until someone tells him ReVengence was about 6 hours

And that all of the codecs that are mostly the story add about another 3 hours to it.

 

[Belbe]

Ahh gutted, another week before I get to see the Revengeance video. I think he's there's entirely a good chance of him liking it despite the amount of bashing it calls for xD

 

[Lonewolfm16]

I completely agree with all of the points he made, especially the note about being so damn lazy you can not cover up the poorly done expansion pack for full game price, you do not bother to CHANGE THE DAMN XBOX PICTURE!

Only point... Arrows do more damage. They are larger and often make a hole so big it is easy to bleed out quickly. The real issue is distance, and rate of fire... Something a cloak solves.

On the arrow issue, it depends on alot of things. Rifle rounds can leave big holes, and we have to take into effect hollow-point rounds. Bullets have alot more force, the question is if it is all transferred to the target, or if the round just rips through. Of course in the very early period of guns they replaced bows despite lower accuracy and long reload times mostly since it is much easier to train someone to use a gun than a long-bow.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I want that sandwich.

The more he showed that sandwich with fries (in British: chips) in it, the hungrier I got. As for Crysis 3, dissapointing. Of course it looks pretty, that's more than you can say about most spunkgargleweewee, but the story and gameplay felt empty and from what the Escapist's real review of it, Crysis 3 doesn't look like it involves the player much.
And Prophet's mind taking over what's left of Alcatraz's body?! WHAT THE FUCK???!!!
Say, how long has it been since Half-Life 2 came along?

captcha: ShinglesInfo.com
No thank you, I'd like to sleep worry free tonight.

 

[lancar]

I thought Crysis 2 was really forgettable as well. I can barely even recall what I was doing in it.
.. I think it was something about a tank, some nobody in the nanosuit I didn't particulary care about, linear levels and..

...oh yeah, the aliens were suddenly humanoid squidthings doing human stuff using human soldier AI.

I hated that part.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

But, Yahtzee, look at all those EAMOSHUNS on Prohpet's helmet! There must be millions of them!

And for the record, I would like the point out that I, for one, love to use bows in games.

EDIT: Wow, looking back, I really got ninja'd up the ass on that Jimquisition joke...