Crysis Review
When Crysis launched on PC back in 2007, the game became an instant legend thanks to its breathtaking technologically feats and gorgeous vistas that strained even the most beefier of gaming rigs back then. There was a spoof that went around claiming NASA supercomputers could only run the game at max settings for no more than 10 minutes before crashing.
Of course that isn’t true, but it does contribute to the sheer power of the game that still rivals the graphical fidelity of games today. But the best thing about the game was the wide-open approach to combat. Players got to approach every combat system the way they wanted to. And four years later, console gamers finally have the chance to see what all the hype has been about with Crysis over the past few years.
Players will take on the role of Nomad, one of the members on a Delta Force squad who are sent to a mysterious island off the coast of North Korea to investigate a strange distress signal that had recently been sent out by a team of archaeologists. Your mission: extract the survivors and get the hell out.
It isn’t all that easy though when members of your team begin to get ripped apart by a mysterious alien life form and the Koreans are trying everything they can to keep you from finding out what the thing is and prevent you from finding it. But you have an advantage that few of the KPA troops know about, a nanosuit. Thanks to the enhanced speed, cloaking abilities, amour, and super strength the suit provides, taking out Korean troops is a breeze.
But the dumb AI isn’t always the best and I’d suggest turning up the difficulty level if you want more of a challenge. At times, all it took to hide from my enemies when my nanosuit’s power levels were low was to find a nearby bush, crouch down, and poof, your now invisible from the KPA troops!
But the main gimmick of Crysis is the freedom to approach every combat situation how you want. Crytek gives the ability to experiment with all the different approaches that could be anything from going in guns blazing to sneaking in under the cover of your cloak.
And as was Crysis on the PC, the gorgeous, sweeping, wide-open vistas of the island were not lost in the transition from your monitor to the big screen. The port looks good in comparison, but keep in mind that the aging PS3 and Xbox 360 aren’t genies anymore when it comes to blurring the lines between the PC and console in terms of graphics.
The draw distance for sure took a pretty big hit and the lack of anti-aliasing were the two biggest features I noticed firsthand when I compared the two versions side by side. The constant textures popping in and out get annoying early on as well. But if you’ve never seen the PC game in action before though, then it shouldn’t be very hard to brag about how pretty the game looks to your friends.
The game isn’t without its bugs either. Numerous audio issues plague the game from start to finish which was a huge drag in the experience. It was especially annoying to heard the sound of a helicopter right above you when none were there or the sounds of gunfire getting stuck on repeat after a firefight. But other than these two issues, I never found anything else that would happen that really dampened the core of the experience for me.
Closing Comments
The five-year old, ported edition of Crysis to the consoles is still just as fun as any other shooter out there on the market, but the noticeable hit on the graphics and the audio bugs were definitely a big mood killer for me. But the chance to jump back into one of my favorite shooters made to date was a blast and I’d recommend the port to any fan of the Crysis franchise, despite the game’s few annoyances.
