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Crysis review

Game: Crysis
Platform: PC
Genre: First-Person Shooter (Sci-Fi)
Developer: Crytek

Reader review by cheezisgoooood

June 23, 2008

Exclusive PC shooters are hard to find these days. Ever since the inception of the Halo series, it’s become more and more rare to see a PC shooter stay on PC. There was once a time when a game like Half-Life or Bioshock going to a console system would be completely unheard of. Well times have obviously changed and with the dearth of exclusive PC shooters out there, at least one remains to stand tall and show off its mighty graphics and precise controls. Crysis is a stand-out title both for the genre and the platform, with a memorable and engaging campaign that never ceases to amaze.

Since its inception Crysis has had a lot to show off. The gameplay mechanics have a very sandbox feel to them as you can go about killing your enemies any way you see fit, with no limits and quite a handful of tools at your disposal. Your character from the start of the game comes already equipped with the nanosuit, a set of armor that lets you change your speed, become invisible, increase your strength, and boost your stamina. You can change between these settings at any time, and it’s impossible to resist. Crysis can be difficult at times on the normal and hard settings, and your survival depends on the tactile use of your nanosuit. The nanosuit can accommodate both stealth and action junkies in a very satisfying way since the way the levels are laid out always gives you a number of entry points and sniping positions whether you decide to use them or not. The change in gameplay based on your nanosuit setting is the entire appeal of the game, and makes the experience more than just eye candy.

Make no mistake though, this game is really sweet eye candy. Gorgeous foliage and beach environments mixed with sci fi weirdness, and not a single weak texture or special effect to be found. Crysis is the most visually stunning game released so far, at times pushing its video game look to almost photo-realism. I’ve played many newer games since this one was released and no game so far has been able to top any aspect of Crysis’ graphics, from the water, explosions and weapons, to characters and buildings they’re all still the best there is and a great user interface pulls it all together to make an absolutely perfect presentation for today’s standards. Crysis is miles ahead of anything else you’ll see for a long time in terms of graphics.

As perfect as Crysis sounds by now it does have issues. Everything I talked about above with the sandbox gameplay and such, essentially disappears about half-way through the game and it all devolves into endless alien blasting. Aliens are not affected by your nanosuit like the Koreans are, and they essentially take over the game once the twist in the story is revealed, so with the nanosuit out of the picture, while the graphics get even cooler and the action more intense, a lot of the magic in the core gameplay is erased and the game becomes more similar to every other game in the shooter genre. Another issue is the multiplayer. The multiplayer is, quite frankly, boring. I played a few games and tried to get into it, but the online just never did it for me. The game feels like it’s primarily a single player experience which is by no means a bad thing nowadays where online is used as an excuse for a mediocre single player experience. Another issue that is probably the most worrying is the game’s high technical requirements. When I tried to run the game on two year old hardware, even on low the game stuttered and lagged like there was no tomorrow. If you have two year old hardware, it’s best to upgrade if you want to play this game the way it was meant to be played.

Crysis has a main campaign that lasts roughly 10-14 hours depending on how you play it, but repeat run-throughs are pretty much guaranteed with the variety of ways you can play the game, multiple challenging difficulties, a thriving mod community and beautiful graphics that you’ll want to come back to just to look at again. There is also that boring online mode if you care.

Crysis is a stellar package with a few issues, but not enough to take away from the sheer novelty of its technical prowess. Crysis is a more evolved shooter than any other that’s out there and is worth the price of upgrading your computer if only just to get a glimpse of what games will look and play like a few years from now.

Rating: 9/10

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