When Crytek
released their second debut title, Crysis, late last year amongst some
of the biggest titles such as Call of Duty 4, Bioshock and Halo 3, it
is difficult to measure the worth of this shooter within a genre that is
already very crowded. Despite the steep hardware requirements keeping
the masses absent from the beast that is a Crysis, those who have been
enjoying this amazing title under the best circumstances can attest to
it easily being best-in-breed PC gaming with the amazing graphics,
unique gameplay mechanics and a well-rounded single player campaign.
Basic Run-Down
Some
of the essentials that you would need to know about Crysis, like story,
are pretty basic as far as shooters go. You play as a Lieutenant for
the US Special Forces, code-named 'NOMAD', infiltrating a tiny island
off the coast of North Korea to investigate the kidnapping of a
research team captured by the NK Army who had taken over the island.
While skydiving to the landing zone with your 5 man team, an
unidentified object hits you in mid-air scattering you and your team
throughout the island. As everyone tries to find each other, you hear
strange noises on the island telling you that something 'other-worldly'
does not want to be disturbed. Your mission is to rescue the research
team and find out what's happening on the island. Everything else is
just video game magic.
Your Nano-vantage
One
of the best aspects of the game, which really sets this apart from most
shooters out there is your uber-cool Nanosuit which has a variety of
enhancements to your abilities such as speed, strength, cloak and
amour. These options are available to you via a slick menu which allows
you to access the suit's features on the fly. Also within the menu is
the ability to customize your in-use weapon with a variety of add-ons
such as flashlight, silencer and various sights that allows you to
customize every gun in your arsenal (More on this later). The suit has
its own energy meter, alongside your health, which limits the length of
whichever feature you're using. The default setting is Armour Mode
where you can take a little more damage than what you're accustomed to
taking and it can also help you heal faster. Speed is great for
conquering long distances quickly either by short bursts of speed or by
walking at the speed of running normally. Strength is an interesting
feature as it allows you to punch harder, jump higher and launch large
and heavy objects with the greatest of ease. Cloak, a likely favorite
amongst fans, is the ability to make yourself invisible, a la Predator,
and sneak around undetected. Each of the suit's functions have their
strengths and weaknesses with the right amount of balance. The use of
the Nanosuit really puts a unique edge on the game as you can
mix-and-match various abilities, though one at a time. For example, the
cloak feature is great for going into a place undetected but it is
limited in that when you fire a shot, throw a punch or toss an object,
the suit immediately losses energy and you lose cloak - so you have to
be careful how you use cover when sneaking around during an assualt. An
advantage to the strength feature is the ability to not only exercise
super-human power but also help steady your shot and limit recoil.
Weapons System
While
a lot of shooters do many different things with weapons and HUD-related
elements of gameplay, the fact that you can attach various add-ons on
the fly quickens the action and make you more effective on the
battlefield. In terms of numbers, there are only 4 core weapons - Pistol, SCAR, AK-47 and the Shotgun - that you're going to be mostly
using for the majority of the time. The bigger weapons are just simply
big guns that do lots of damage like the Rocket Launcher, Gauss Rifle
(think of Arnie's Eraser) and
others I won't spoil. Rounding out the last of the weapons are of
course things like grenades that come in a variety of flavours such as
FRAG, Flashbang and Smoke along with Remote Explosives which are great
for taking out large stationary objects or for clearing a building full
of bad guys. The shooting game itself is pretty good considering how
much of a factor the Nanosuit and in-game physics plays. Mastering
combination tactics between the suit's features and your weapons takes
a great deal of finesse and can be quite satistifying. It is nice to be
able to use the enemy's weapons and ammo when you run out of ammo for
your SCAR but I wished I was able to use it more because I feel it's
the best weapon to play the majority of the time. Lastly, melee attacks
are heightened with the strength feature and can even make guys fly
with a well placed punch. It could also break obstacles and destroy
small structures though the trailer did feature NOMAD punching a roof
of a building to make an opening to jump through that, for some reason,
doesn't work at all in the game. But the very fact that you could jump
on the roof in battle is wildly entertaining once you get the hang of
it. And if you want to take the battle beyond guns, you can pick up virtually any object in the envivronment use them on your enemies including the animals.
Visuals
Of
course, you can't talk about Crysis without talking about the visuals.
Crysis scores major points in both technical and artistic visual style
and given that there are very few systems on earth at this point that
could actually play the game maxed out, the results can vary for most
people. For many who are barely playing the game, it is frustrating to
forego some graphical features to enable some decent gameplay. The
creators proclaim that the game will eventually look better over time
as newer hardware will allow a more complete experience for the
visuals. It is nonetheless a practice in finding the graphical sweet
spot which could be disappointing and irritating for some. Regardless,
there is very much a cinematic feel to the game as the combination of
advanced lighting, physics, motion blur and the complexity and density
of the environments definitely give the big players a run for their money.
Even playing in low-resolution with some features cautiously maxed and
others muted, Crysis still manages to look good if you run multi-core
processors, have lots of RAM and at least a 256MB DX10-compatible card.
Cranking the resolution can bring any system to it's knees - as does
applying Anti-Aliasing - but that is meant for those who have larger
monitors or playing on their HDTV. Eventually, people will have systems
powerful enough to enjoy the game in it's full glory and at which time
the game will be rediscovered in many forms for years to come.
One of
the most astonishing aspects of the visuals is, of course, the setting.
Far Cry was a good indication of how well Jungle settings can be for
shooters but Crysis takes it to the next level. It's more than just
foliage, massive rock-formations and white sandy beaches, it's also the
minute details with rocks, rivers, trees which are react to wind,
reflect sunlight, cast beautiful soft-shadows and can even be shot down
with a few well placed shots. Other times, explosions from FRAG's and
vehicles can also up-root and topple palm trees which could kill anyone
who's unfortunate enough to be under them as they're falling. Environments work off some
nifty lighting tricks such as a consistent sun that both rises and sets
in the distance while distributing the appropriately coloured light
over the environment. And no one has made water look this good as there
is almost a surreal ambience with running onto to the beach and just
swimming out into the depths of the seabed complete with marine life
and coral. As you progress later on in the game, you play in an alien
ship with a rather impressive creative design aspect along with small
parts of the jungle frozen. The great thing is that the environments
aren't just eye candy, there is a vastness to the island itself along with the
minute details of every square foot. With so much attention to detail especially with how convincing the environments are to a real jungle, it's easy to
get caught up runnning aimlessly around the jungle hopping massive
cliffs and swimming through wide rivers. Of course, you're brought back
into the game when you realize that there are enemies that wear
camoflauge surrounding you. Eventually you do get a sense of where you
are and how to spot enemies but there is a little bit of real-world
instincts you have to put in to properly engage people shooting at you
from a distance. And let's not forget, vehicles and helicopters can
uncover you just as easily so you have to adapt your suit's ability to
the cover in the environments.
Vehicles
While
Crysis is not really a game that prominently features all that many
vehicles until closer to the end, they do serve their own purpose. In
the first half of the game, you're pretty much limited to whatever is
around like pick-up trucks, HUMVEE's, and Gunboats. You can also drive
bigger trucks but they are just available to use for just having fun as
enemies can easily detect that one of their own isn't driving them.
Some of the vehicles have turrets which is a nice addition towards
taking out little annoyances easily but you have to become accustomed
to the game's physics and the steering mechanics which takes some practice to get down-pat. Honestly, I felt a
contrast between the control you have with your character compared to
the vehicles. Getting better in the game doesn't necessarily require
you to operate vehicles when taking out encampments, but it is
worthwhile to know how to drive around to get places
faster. They also showcase the game's great physics by making them
destructible via shooting the gas-tank or tires. This is actually quite
good as you don't necessarily need a rocket launcher or half your ammo
trying to bring them down. Enemies can also be quite effective in this
manner as well. Later on in the game you get to ride bigger vehicles
that aren't necessarily worth mentioning here but instead need to be
experienced firsthand. I do regret that players aren't able to fly the helicopter but when one shows up during a battle, they can be quite challenging - and that's always a good thing.
AI
Considering
the work that has been done to the environments and gameplay elements,
I could imagine that it was quite a challenge programming AI in Crysis.
I could understand why the AI was programmed to do half the things in
the game that would otherwise be abnormal in other games. The good thing is
that the enemies are challenging as they provide some intense
firefights and are always actively seeking cover.
Since you encounter enemies in small groups, they also work together by
taking offensive positions. You will find that fighting a lot of enemies at once can be quite challenging seeming that enemies are constantly trying to get the best angle of attack while trying to flank you from any available position. Of course, with so many variables in getting AI to successfully defend their positions, the AI can surprise you with some of the dumb things they do from time to time in an attempt to ramp up the difficulty. For one, enemies
seem to spawn dynamically as you're playing. For instance, if you
disturb a section where two enemies are located, more enemies start
spawn around you when things get heated - sometimes even when you make
some noise.
Also, there are times when you will see multiple enemies spawning in the same area that groups them in such a way that it's too easy to take them all out. In some respects, it's not always easy to take on a ton of enemies at once so you're best bet is to refine your aim and adopt a more efficient way of killing the AI or use explosives and grenades in creative ways. For the most part, the game mostly compliments those who take extra care in infiltrating bases using precise shooting and stealth tactics and therefore the AI will tune itself appropriately depending on how noisily you approach a situation. Otherwise, you might find yourself detracted by some of the AI quirks like enemies maintaining positions even though one of their own was killed right in front of them. You would expect them to investigate but they often times don't if you manage to stay out of sight. Other times you could distrub a whole swarm of enemies and as they're gathering, they seem to happen upon immediate position trying to find you. The worst of all is definitely when enemies look at where your bullets land if you miss trying to shoot them. In other words, if you start shooting at someone in the distance and they see you, if you miss one shot and it hits somewhere behind them, they'll turn around completely and take aim at where you shot. Crytek has changed the AI throughout the two patches so if you're turn out to be a purist with fighting with the original AI, note that the patches will yeild slightly different gameplay.
Playing Crysis since it's release, I haven't been able to unhinge myself from it because it's just that great. Aside from the campaign being of average length and fulfilling in terms of variety, I feel that the meat of it is the first half where you're putting advanced tactics to the test. You can approach any situation any way you like and it really makes for a great-replay value. Over time, I've come to understand some of the finer gameplay elements of Crysis that I feel are part of the true nature of why it's so great. Crysis covers its bases when compared to most shooters if you scale-back far enough but the combat supercedes anything that's out there right now given the player's ability set, use of physics and stunningly photo-realistic visuals.