Crysis - Shooter Game
Earth, 2019: A colossal asteroid crashes down to Earth. The North Korean
Government quickly seals off the island chain, claiming the mysteries
of the asteroid for themselves. The United States responds by
dispatching an elite team of Delta Force Operators to recon the
situation and report back to the Pentagon. Amid rising tensions between
the US and North Koreans, the asteroid suddenly bursts open, revealing a
massive, 2km high alien ship. The ship generates an immense force
sphere, freezing a vast portion of the island and drastically altering
the global weather system. The invasion of Earth has begun. The two
rival nations unite to stop the aliens and save mankind. The newly
formed alliance fights epic battles against the marauding Aliens. With
hope rapidly fading, the player must lead a crack squad through lush
tropical jungle, harsh frozen landscapes, and finally into the heart of
the alien ship itself for the ultimate Zero G encounter with the aliens.
Crysis offers players a highly immersive FPS experience in which they
will have to adapt their tactics, weaponry, armour and gameplay style to
survive and defeat the alien invasion.
Simply put, these are the best graphics that gaming has to offer. The
level of detail put into these jawdroppingly beautiful worlds is just
mindblowing. The trees, weapons, vehicles, and characters are near
perfect in every way. Some of the buildings have a few wall textures
that are a little lacking in resolution, but it's a minor flaw that you
may notice once or twice throughout gameplay, but then quickly go back
to drooling over the lush forests and sandy beaches this game has to
offer.
The game is capable of both DX10 and DX9. There are some
minor visual differences between the two, but for the most part they
look the same. However, performancewise, DX10 is way WAY better than DX9
as always, and you won't be able to get the high settings with DX9.
This
game's graphics push the limits of what consumer technology can do. I
run the game on High with an 8800GTX, and I can only get about 20 FPS
average. I doubt there's a machine built (That costs less than 8
grand...) that can run this with everything maxed out. If you're waiting
for that game that's calling to you to get an 8800 card, this is it.
Music - 8/10
Crysis
has a pretty diverse soundtrack behind it, with music for every mood
the game portrays. The music has a cinematic style to it, and it usually
comes in at just the right time. It's good music, but it's nothing to
call home about.
If I had to make one complaint about the
soundtrack, it'd be that many times thoughout the game, an enemy will be
somewhere near me, and without either of us seeing each other, the
"Enemy is looking for you" music starts playing. This of course tells me
there's an enemy nearby. It's not a huge deal, but I don't like to
cheat.
Sound - 9/10
There's not too much to say here. The
bullets sound realistic, the voice overs are good, and there's nothing
particularly annoying in the sounds. The footsteps are a tad loud when
you're crouching, though.
Gameplay - 10/10
This is where
the game really shines. This game offers a style of gameplay that I love
and that's hard to find in games. A crappy game will drop you in a
level, you'll have one path to go down, and 5 minutes later, the level's
over. A good game will have levels that blend together, with 3 or 4
paths to choose from. Crysis is above that.
This game will put
you in some of the largest levels I've ever seen. Although there's
distinct objectives to accomplish, how you get there is completely up to
you. There are no paths. You've got an island, a gun, and a butt load
of koreans spread about it. There's very few restrictions on where you
go, who you fight, and how you go about it. If you want, you can even
just hijack a boat, go out to sea, and bypass as many fights as you can.
It
doesn't stop there, however. When you play through the game, you
basically have a choice of how you do it. You could run in with your
guns blazing, and hope you can kill them before they call for
reinforcements. You could put a silencer on your gun, sneak in, and pick
them off one by one. Or you could use your cloak and sneak through
without firing a single bullet.
The cloak is one of 4 "powers"
that you have. You are equipped with a special nanofiber suit that
pretty much keeps you alive. The suit has a power meter. It regenerates
at a pretty decent speed as long as you aren't using any. Your powers
are armor, speed, strength, and cloak. Armor basically turns your power
meter into an armor meter like most games have. Strength increases your
damage, makes you jump higher, and lets you do cool things like snap a
korean's neck. Speed... Makes you go fast. And the cloak makes you
invisible for a short time. These powers are what form a great deal of
the gameplay.
You can also change your weapons outfitting on the
fly. By that I mean your scope, silencer, attachments, etc. Just press
one button any time, and you can change anything that isn't bolted to
your gun. You'll be picking up new attachments as you go throughout the
game. Some of the modifications are simply for your playstyle or the
situation (i.e. type of scope, or things like grenade launchers) where
some of them will seriously impact the game. For example, you can put a
laser sight on any gun to replace your crosshair with a red dot on
things. However, enemies will get a nice red line pointing directly to
you. Your choice.
This doesn't mean you are free to use any
attachment on everything, though. I know what you're thinking. No. You
can't silence a shotgun. You can put a sniper scope on it, though!
And
you can use that sniper scoped shotgun to chop down trees! Everything
in this game is destructable. Shoot a line through a tree and it will
fall down. Through a grenade into a hobble and the roof will fall! Fire
an RPG at a sniper roost and laugh at the poor SoBs. And watch out.
Falling trees kill. And you can play through almost the entire game
using only trees you shoot down as your weapon. Doesn't work too well,
though. I've tried.
I could go on and on forever about the
different aspects of the gameplay, but I'll be nice and finish with one
other feature that really stands out. In most games, when you switch to a
higher difficulty, your enemies will start taking more bullets to kill,
get stronger weapons, and in a lot of games, they gain psychic vision
and always know where you are. Not in Crysis! In fact, the super hard
(called "Delta" in game) mode is actually the normal mode. By this I
mean that as you go easier in difficulty, you gain more crutches. As you
go harder, you lose crutches. Crutches like... A crosshair! (Laser
sight looks a lot less useless when you don't have a crosshair.) My
personal favorite is; In easy, medium, and hard, the enemies speak
english. You'll hear them say "I think I hear something" or "GRENADE!".
In Delta mode, the Koreans speak... Korean. This is something that I
personally think more games need to do.
Storyline - 6/10
It's
enough to not be stupid or agonizing. There's not going to be some epic
story that will be told for generations. This game doesn't try to do
that. It doesn't need it. As a result, you don't have much of a story.
Multiplayer - 8/10
This
game has 2 multiplayer modes. Deathmatch (obviously) and "Power
Struggle." Power Struggle is basically Battlefield 2 meets not sucking.
Each team has a base. You need to destroy the other teams base. To do
that you need to capture the alien prototype factory. But wait, the
prototype factory needs to get power, so you need to capture the power
plants. But you keep spawning all the way back at your main base, so you
need to capture the bunkers.
The game also has a little bit of
counter-strike style weapon purchasing. You start out spawning with a
minimum of 100 prestige. If you die, and you have less than 100
prestige, you will spawn with exactly 100 prestige. This is enough to
get a second pistol, a SMG, or a shotgun. As you get kills and capture
points, you'll go up in rank (This is on a game by game basis. If the
game ends, or you leave the server, you're back to private.) Each rank
increases your minimum prestige by 100. You can also get prestige
through... doing stuff. Most obvious of which is killing people and
capturing points.
All this is a little mind blowing at first, and
your first 2 or 3 games will likely involve a total of 2 kills and 36
deaths, but it makes for an interesting and refreshing gameplay style.
There's no team deathmatch mode, but honesly, who cares. Power Struggle is more fun.
Replayability - 10/10
Everything
in this game is dynamic. No two play-throughs will be the same. This
leaves us with a game that's still amazingly fun the 20th time through
(And not in a "Sheik's a guy... Big shocker" kind of way, either.).
Innovativeness (ITS A REAL WORD) - 10/10
This
game does a lot of things that have been done before. But it also does a
lot of things that haven't, or haven't been done *right*. The gameplay
style as a whole is something that's never been seen before, and I hope
to see again. And finally, FINALLY, there's a good zero-gravity level
out there. I've always wanted to be able to move my mouse up and not hit
that "You can't look up anymore without breaking your back" barrier.
It's a good feeling.
Conclusion - 9/10
Need I say more?
If you haven't bought this game yet then you are a horrible horrible
person who should go out right now and buy it. There's some minor flaws,
but this is an amazing game that pushes technology's limits, changes
the way we think about shooters, and causes drool stains on shirts
everywhere. Have fun.Simply put, these are the best graphics that gaming has to offer. The
level of detail put into these jawdroppingly beautiful worlds is just
mindblowing. The trees, weapons, vehicles, and characters are near
perfect in every way. Some of the buildings have a few wall textures
that are a little lacking in resolution, but it's a minor flaw that you
may notice once or twice throughout gameplay, but then quickly go back
to drooling over the lush forests and sandy beaches this game has to
offer.
The game is capable of both DX10 and DX9. There are some
minor visual differences between the two, but for the most part they
look the same. However, performancewise, DX10 is way WAY better than DX9
as always, and you won't be able to get the high settings with DX9.
This
game's graphics push the limits of what consumer technology can do. I
run the game on High with an 8800GTX, and I can only get about 20 FPS
average. I doubt there's a machine built (That costs less than 8
grand...) that can run this with everything maxed out. If you're waiting
for that game that's calling to you to get an 8800 card, this is it.
Music - 8/10
Crysis
has a pretty diverse soundtrack behind it, with music for every mood
the game portrays. The music has a cinematic style to it, and it usually
comes in at just the right time. It's good music, but it's nothing to
call home about.
If I had to make one complaint about the
soundtrack, it'd be that many times thoughout the game, an enemy will be
somewhere near me, and without either of us seeing each other, the
"Enemy is looking for you" music starts playing. This of course tells me
there's an enemy nearby. It's not a huge deal, but I don't like to
cheat.
Sound - 9/10
There's not too much to say here. The
bullets sound realistic, the voice overs are good, and there's nothing
particularly annoying in the sounds. The footsteps are a tad loud when
you're crouching, though.
Gameplay - 10/10
This is where
the game really shines. This game offers a style of gameplay that I love
and that's hard to find in games. A crappy game will drop you in a
level, you'll have one path to go down, and 5 minutes later, the level's
over. A good game will have levels that blend together, with 3 or 4
paths to choose from. Crysis is above that.
This game will put
you in some of the largest levels I've ever seen. Although there's
distinct objectives to accomplish, how you get there is completely up to
you. There are no paths. You've got an island, a gun, and a butt load
of koreans spread about it. There's very few restrictions on where you
go, who you fight, and how you go about it. If you want, you can even
just hijack a boat, go out to sea, and bypass as many fights as you can.
It
doesn't stop there, however. When you play through the game, you
basically have a choice of how you do it. You could run in with your
guns blazing, and hope you can kill them before they call for
reinforcements. You could put a silencer on your gun, sneak in, and pick
them off one by one. Or you could use your cloak and sneak through
without firing a single bullet.
The cloak is one of 4 "powers"
that you have. You are equipped with a special nanofiber suit that
pretty much keeps you alive. The suit has a power meter. It regenerates
at a pretty decent speed as long as you aren't using any. Your powers
are armor, speed, strength, and cloak. Armor basically turns your power
meter into an armor meter like most games have. Strength increases your
damage, makes you jump higher, and lets you do cool things like snap a
korean's neck. Speed... Makes you go fast. And the cloak makes you
invisible for a short time. These powers are what form a great deal of
the gameplay.
You can also change your weapons outfitting on the
fly. By that I mean your scope, silencer, attachments, etc. Just press
one button any time, and you can change anything that isn't bolted to
your gun. You'll be picking up new attachments as you go throughout the
game. Some of the modifications are simply for your playstyle or the
situation (i.e. type of scope, or things like grenade launchers) where
some of them will seriously impact the game. For example, you can put a
laser sight on any gun to replace your crosshair with a red dot on
things. However, enemies will get a nice red line pointing directly to
you. Your choice.
This doesn't mean you are free to use any
attachment on everything, though. I know what you're thinking. No. You
can't silence a shotgun. You can put a sniper scope on it, though!
And
you can use that sniper scoped shotgun to chop down trees! Everything
in this game is destructable. Shoot a line through a tree and it will
fall down. Through a grenade into a hobble and the roof will fall! Fire
an RPG at a sniper roost and laugh at the poor SoBs. And watch out.
Falling trees kill. And you can play through almost the entire game
using only trees you shoot down as your weapon. Doesn't work too well,
though. I've tried.
I could go on and on forever about the
different aspects of the gameplay, but I'll be nice and finish with one
other feature that really stands out. In most games, when you switch to a
higher difficulty, your enemies will start taking more bullets to kill,
get stronger weapons, and in a lot of games, they gain psychic vision
and always know where you are. Not in Crysis! In fact, the super hard
(called "Delta" in game) mode is actually the normal mode. By this I
mean that as you go easier in difficulty, you gain more crutches. As you
go harder, you lose crutches. Crutches like... A crosshair! (Laser
sight looks a lot less useless when you don't have a crosshair.) My
personal favorite is; In easy, medium, and hard, the enemies speak
english. You'll hear them say "I think I hear something" or "GRENADE!".
In Delta mode, the Koreans speak... Korean. This is something that I
personally think more games need to do.
Storyline - 6/10
It's
enough to not be stupid or agonizing. There's not going to be some epic
story that will be told for generations. This game doesn't try to do
that. It doesn't need it. As a result, you don't have much of a story.
Multiplayer - 8/10
This
game has 2 multiplayer modes. Deathmatch (obviously) and "Power
Struggle." Power Struggle is basically Battlefield 2 meets not sucking.
Each team has a base. You need to destroy the other teams base. To do
that you need to capture the alien prototype factory. But wait, the
prototype factory needs to get power, so you need to capture the power
plants. But you keep spawning all the way back at your main base, so you
need to capture the bunkers.
The game also has a little bit of
counter-strike style weapon purchasing. You start out spawning with a
minimum of 100 prestige. If you die, and you have less than 100
prestige, you will spawn with exactly 100 prestige. This is enough to
get a second pistol, a SMG, or a shotgun. As you get kills and capture
points, you'll go up in rank (This is on a game by game basis. If the
game ends, or you leave the server, you're back to private.) Each rank
increases your minimum prestige by 100. You can also get prestige
through... doing stuff. Most obvious of which is killing people and
capturing points.
All this is a little mind blowing at first, and
your first 2 or 3 games will likely involve a total of 2 kills and 36
deaths, but it makes for an interesting and refreshing gameplay style.
There's no team deathmatch mode, but honesly, who cares. Power Struggle is more fun.
Replayability - 10/10
Everything
in this game is dynamic. No two play-throughs will be the same. This
leaves us with a game that's still amazingly fun the 20th time through
(And not in a "Sheik's a guy... Big shocker" kind of way, either.).
Innovativeness (ITS A REAL WORD) - 10/10
This
game does a lot of things that have been done before. But it also does a
lot of things that haven't, or haven't been done *right*. The gameplay
style as a whole is something that's never been seen before, and I hope
to see again. And finally, FINALLY, there's a good zero-gravity level
out there. I've always wanted to be able to move my mouse up and not hit
that "You can't look up anymore without breaking your back" barrier.
It's a good feeling.
Conclusion - 9/10
Need I say more?
If you haven't bought this game yet then you are a horrible horrible
person who should go out right now and buy it. There's some minor flaws,
but this is an amazing game that pushes technology's limits, changes
the way we think about shooters, and causes drool stains on shirts
everywhere. Have fun.
Screenshoots
