If there is anything that pretty much everyone already knows about
Crysis it's that the game is freaking beautiful. There is no doubt in
my mind that Crysis is easily one of the best looking games ever
created. This creates a bit of a problem though. Is Crysis simply a
pretty tech demo or is there a hidden gem of a game behind all of that
eye candy? The answer to this question is an astounding yes; Crysis is
an outstanding first-person shooter experience that almost feels like a
high profile Hollywood summer blockbuster mega-hit turned into a video
game.
The main thing that needs to be stated when it comes to Crysis is that
the game is intense. From the first moment you take control of your
character you find yourself sky diving out of an airplane over the
beautiful pacific ocean, just off the coast of an eastern Philippines
island. This is where you begin your mission as Nomad, a member of the
United States elite Delta Force, a group of soldiers wearing special
nano-augmented suits. The nano suits play a huge role in Crysis and
will be essential to your survival. This offers you a variety of
special abilities such as super strength, super speed, cloak, and power
armour. You can only use one of these abilities at a time however, and
thus must choose wisely based on the current situation. These powers
greatly enhance the gameplay of Crysis because you will have to think
quickly about which augmentation is best to resolve your current
struggle. Do you want to opt for the extra armour and tough your way
out? Maybe you want to increase your suit to maximum speed and run for
a higher vantage point to gain an advantage over your enemies? Or maybe
you want to engage cloak and silently take the enemy soldiers out one
by one as an unseen menace? Crysis gives you these options in a
sandbox-like environment where the game world presents you with a
variety of options on how to tackle each area. No two players will ever
have the same experience while playing.
So Crysis gives you a bunch of fancy abilities, but what about
weaponry? Crysis has got you covered there too. While there is not an
overabundance of weaponry, there are numerous customizable options for
each weapon so you can fight the way of your choosing. You'll have
access to a variety of scopes, sights, lasers, and so on, and the great
thing is that you can modify your weapons effortlessly on the fly to
change things up when needed. The weaponry consists of your basic
assortment of rifles, shotguns, and SMGs, but also contains some
experimental fictional weaponry, as well as my personal favourite: the
minigun.
The first half or so of Crysis takes place in the lush island jungles
where you will square off against an armada of KPA soldiers (Korean
People's Army) and you'll need to use the terrain in combination with
your abilities to survive. Fortunately things ramp up and Crysis vastly
shifts gears just before this type of gameplay starts to wear thin.
From there on, there's no looking back. Once Crysis shifts gears it
throws unexpected thing after unexpected thing your way that it's truly
mind-blowing and epically memorable. There is a brief sci-fi interlude
in zero-gravity just before the island turns into a frozen paradise,
and after that you'll soon find yourself fighting off crazy alien
machines with a plasma-energy weapon in the middle of a winter storm.
Crysis doesn't end here though, as you find yourself frantically on the
run trying to escape from the island in the midst of an all-out alien
invasion. Eventually you will make your way to an American aircraft
carrier after a memorable dog fight over the island with you battling
it out against an armada of alien gunships. The aircraft carrier
section is where some of Crysis' true brilliance really shines through.
There is a rare sequence of notable character interaction and no
fighting whatsoever on-board this level akin to that of Half-Life 2,
which was incredibly unexpected, but definitely appreciated. The
aircraft carrier is also home to my favourite moment of the entire game
which has you running in and out of a room full of a pool of radiation
trying to fix the reactor core of the ship by pushing the radioactive
control rods back into place. All of this might sound a little crazy,
but Crysis truly is a complete thrill ride, the second half of the game
almost feels like a roller coaster in video game form.
Part of what makes Crysis so amazing isn't just the fact that it just
looks amazing, it's that it looks amazing and plays fantastic too. If
you've ever seen a screenshot of Crysis then there is no denying that
the game is downright gorgeous, but you'll truly need a decent PC to
enjoy it because Crysis is, unfortunately, a system hog. If you don't
have the latest in PC hardware but a relatively recent PC you should be
able to get Crysis playable but you will be missing out on a lot of the
eye candy. It doesn't matter though, because even without Crysis on the
maximum settings it's still an absolute blast to play. There are so
many aspects of Crysis that come together so well though, and the
attention to detail in Crysis is absolutely unmatched. When a grenade
explodes near your character mud sprays across your goggles and your
vision temporarily blacks out with a deft ringing coming through your
speakers. When you stand still too long in the frozen paradise your
goggles freeze up and ice hardens on your goggles. When you stand too
close to a wall Nomad will lift his weapon up near his shoulder to make
room for himself. When you are booking it to the hill trying to escape
from a torrent of bullets you will see Nomads arms swaying back and
forth at his sides and he breathes heavily to reach his destination.
It's stuff like this and the feeling of full-body presence that makes
Crysis feel truly immersive and makes the whole thing feel amazing.
Really when you're running around in a pool of water on an aircraft
carrier with flickering lights and alien machines blasting at you from
the corners with your feet splashing around and your arms swaying back
and forth it's a truly immersive and epic experience, something that
definitely needs to be experienced for youself. On top of all that the
sound design of Crysis is appropriately intense with the music
ratcheting it up several notches when the action heats up, and the
themes are epic and anthemic after you've just shot down a bunch of
warships as you're flying across the pacific ocean in a fighter jet.
It's actually goosebump inducing just thinking about it.
At this point there's a good chance you may have already made up your
mind about Crysis, maybe you've written it off as a fancy tech demo
with nothing to offer on the gameplay side of things, or maybe you
simply just don't have a computer good enough to run the game.
Regardless of your reason for not playing Crysis one thing cannot be
understated, this game is truly amazing, and is without a doubt one of
the best first person shooters ever created. Crytek really has come a
long way since their campy first outing with Far Cry and have created a
truly memorable game akin to a high profile Hollywood blockbuster
summer action movie. A disappointing cliff-hanger ending, not enough
story and character development, and poor optimization of the game
engine are the only things holding this game back from being propelled
to even further greatness in my books. That being said, as it stands,
Crysis is without a doubt one of the best first person shooters ever
created. It might not offer the absurdly competitive multiplayer you're
looking for, but it will provide you with one of the most cinematic
campaigns you will ever play, that just makes you feel absolutely
amazing while playing it. Whether it's in a few months, or a few years,
put Crysis on your list of games to play, because you need to play this
game.
