Date: 2007/12/07
Platform: PC (also available for XBOX 360)
Crysis is the new first person shooter from Crytek, makers of the venerable Far Cry game. It features some of the best graphics yet seen in any game, but also sports some of the highest system requirements around. What really had me excited was the expectation of some open-ended first person shooter gameplay like in Far Cry, combined with the new super-suit.
Everything starts off great, you have several ways to approach bad guys, and the new suit is nifty, though mainly for the cloaking powers. There's some neat physics in this game for example you can crash a car into a building and have the building collapse onto your vehicle in a realistic manner. You can even shoot down a tree and have it fall (breaking at the point you shot it, not in a scripted way) on bad guys. Unfortunately once you start fighting the aliens all of this game play (which you are probably just starting to get into) goes away and Crysis devolves into a run of the mill first person shooter with set piece battles.
The weapon selection is limited, though there is a cool customization feature; as you find weapons with scopes or silencers you can put those parts onto other weapons. Combined with the suit's powers and the expansive environment I found there was a lot of enjoyment in tactical options. Once you hit the alien segments however, it becomes a matter of how many bullets you can hit the aliens with which is quite a jarring transition.
In short I feel that Crytek made the same mistake with Crysis, that they made with Far Cry in that they failed to play on the game's potential in choosing your encounters. Except with Crysis they lock you down a lot sooner. Where Crysis should've been able to stand apart from other shooters it almost forces itself into the run of the mill first person shooter mode. And this year there are a lot of traditional first person shooters available.
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Far Cry: Far Cry is still the better game, thought he parallels are striking. The vs. merc gameplay in Far Cry is more fun than the vs. Trigens gameplay, just like Crysis is much better vs. the Korean soldiers than it is vs. the aliens. But at least Far Cry kept going back to open-ended gameplay, Crysis really keeps closing things up throughout culminating in a stupid boss battle where you stuck in a big box with the boss...just light Far Cry's stupid boss battle! Also both games where difficult to keep up with technology wise when they first came out.
Call of Duty 4: Well if you're going to turn yourself into a FPS, then you are going to be compared with traditional FPS. COD4 raised my expectations of a set-piece FPS shooter significantly, and it's tough for Crysis to compete with COD4.
Halo 3: I liked Crysis better than Halo 3 anyways, actually it's quite a bit like Halo in the end.
Half Life 2: Episode Two: See the COD4 comparison, I should've been lauding the free-form shooter gameplay, but instead HL2E2 stands out as a better story driven, set piece shooter. Crysis has better graphics obviously. It is nice moving from HL2 to have some freedom in the way you approach situations though.