On a personal level, I lack very much experience with the games Crytek has developed. Whether it be Far Cry or the original Crysis, I have never been in a situation to actually play them before now. Coming into Crysis 2 without much history of the company may have been beneficial however, as Crysis 2 surprised even myself—someone that enjoys most, if not all, first-person shooters on the market. The surplus of varying ways you could approach each and every combat situation was incredibly refreshing, especially with the overabundance of generic, one-way FPS’s flooding the industry for the past five years. Mixed with a powerful game engine and fun multiplayer, Crysis 2’s overall package is one you may want to check out.
The first characteristic of Crysis you’ll notice is how absolutely gorgeous the game is. From the outdoor areas featuring lush, green grass and vegetation to the inside corridors, Crysis 2’s scenery will leave your jaw dropped on the floor. While I never played the original Crysis, some people have cited that Crytek may have took too much time perfecting the graphics and not enough time making the game fun to play. While Crysis 2’s single player campaign unfortunately begins sluggishly the rest of the game is built so well that even the beautiful visuals become somewhat of an afterthought.
What really makes Crysis 2 so special is how you can approach any specific situation the game throws your way. Sure, Crysis 2 is a first-person shooter no doubt, but it feels like much more than a linear twitch shooter we’ve come accustom to playing. You’ll mostly come in contact with a group of enemies scattered throughout a large area. From here you can use your scanning visor to help you assess the situation. If you’d rather go in silently and take everyone out one-by-one, you can. But if you’d rather jump in and start blasting a dudes with you shotgun (which is definitely fun, too), you can go right ahead. There isn’t one specific way to play Crysis 2—you can simply play whichever style fits you.
All of this is made possible by Crysis 2’s protagonist, Profit, and his incredibly nifty suit he wears. This “Nanosuit” has a lot of really cool abilities. You can use it sprint long distances, turn yourself invisible, and cover yourself in a impenetrable armor. Basically each mode has an effect on how you approach each combat situation. So say you wanted to jump and blast everyone to death, the armor ability will let you take a myriad of bullets before they even touch your overall health. But the cloak ability is better for stealth assassinations and getting away from harm without attracting unwanted attention.
Every ability you use with the nanosuit drains your energy which is just a small bar on the bottom right side of your HUD. This means you’ll have to be careful when picking and choosing your enemy contacts. Your gunfire will automatically take you out of cloak and killing enemies hand-to-hand will drain your energy to zero. I found the stealth mode to be the most satisfying, especially when you kill and entire group of enemies without anyone knowing your there. Still, even when I had to fight the armor ability let me feel like a complete badass, running through enemy fire and blasting foes with my shotgun.
Crysis 2’s campaign goes on for a while, too. I was around half-way through the campaign when I noticed that I was nearing the end, only to play the game for another 4 to 5 hours. New and more powerful enemies never stopped showing their face. The single player campaign took my around 10 hours of actual gameplay to get through, including deaths and save reloads. This was a good length as the general gameplay mechanics could potentially get tiring after a lengthy 20 to 30 hour game. This is especially refreshing after completing, say, Call of Duty: Black Ops that can be completed in just over 4 hours.
Crytek included a pretty robust multiplayer offering, too. It comes complete with your typical persistent level progression, weapon unlocks, kill-streaks, and kill-cams—I couldn’t help but notice the similarities to Call of Duty, for better or worse. Still, I appreciated some of the features Crytek included. Kill-streaks, for example, are map-specific and cannot be chosen. They too are much more difficult to acquire as you need to collect dog tags from players by running up to their dead body and picking it up. Basically, it prevents camping.
The suit abilities make an appearance in the multiplayer, too, making for some very interesting encounters. You can cloak around enemies and kill them from behind while you can turn on your armor and kill 3 dudes at once. It may not be this easy as this but it’s possible. You still possess an energy bar and for balance purposes the energy runs out more quickly than it does in the single player campaign. The shooting all feels really good and the unlock system seemed to work well. Some of the abilities mixed together could frustrate, tough. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times a cloaked sniper killed me.
One of the more disappointing aspects of the game is its perplexing narrative, which I personally thought was way too difficult to follow. This was especially bothersome considering I never touched the original game. Still, by the end of the campaign I felt as if the game explained most of the plot holes I was trying to piece together in my head, and the voice acting and modeling of the in-engine cutscenes worked well, too. Though, it's definitely one of the weakest points of the game.
But like I mentioned earlier, most of the weaker aspects of Crysis 2 are easy to look past. The presentation, for example, is absolutely top-notch. People like to judge someone’s PC by asking, “can it run Crysis?” But considering how well the Xbox 360 can run Crysis 2, I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest a console version of the game. The lighting shines down from the sky, through buildings and debris on the street. The shadows are realistic, too. There’s specific instances of slowdown, though. I didn’t notice it much but the intense battles exaggerated it. Crysis 2’s audio is great, too. The orchestral score is a mix of heart-pounding, intense tunes while the more subtle tracks suit the mood well, too.
Crysis 2 is a first-person shooter that doesn’t shy away from being a bit different. This is why I like it. It’s not completely linear, the different suit abilities offer great variety, and the production values are through the roof. There are a surplus of FPS’s on the market, and the over-saturation of the genre has made purchasing the next game harder and harder. One of those purchases should be Crysis 2, though. It offers so much unique gameplay and awesome mechanics that I cannot begin to tell you how refreshing it all felt. This is the next big game you should consider.