Crysis is the latest first-person shooter (FPS) game to be hailed as the end-all-be-all king of graphics technology. It is the spiritual descendent of Far Cry and has been a long time in coming. The game revolves around a team of nano-suit powered special forces operatives, who have to unravel a mystery involving alien technology, the North Korean military, and a whole lot of ice. The engine powering the game is really the star of the show, but the quesiton remains: is the game genuinely entertaining or little more than a technology demo?
Best in show. There really isn't much to say. Crysis has the best modelling, the best textures, the best special effecst, the best lighting, the best particle systems, the best use of shaders, the best facial animation, the best addition of detail through normal maps, and the best of every other buzzword that it's possible to name. Every graphical attribute of Crysis is the best of any video game made to date. There is no game on the market, nor is there any game under development of which I'm aware, that has graphics as good as those in Crysis. The game wins in every category. Period.
The only negative I can muster is pretty much the same negative every other reviewer has mentioned: it's impossible to play Crysis on today's hardware with al the settings cranked up to maximum. I, for example, just built a new gaming system over Christmas, which isn't exactly a slouch in the horsepower department, and I'm pushing it to run with all the settings at medium. Granted, I'm running at 1920 x 1200 on a widescreen monitor, but there's no getting around the fact that the game is a complete system hog. If you have old hardware, Crysis allegedly scales pretty well, but my own experiences on my previous gaming system lead me to believe you'll have to sacrifice quite a bit of fidelity to do so with reasonable performance.
In short, Crysis is a phenomenal visual achievement, but it's going to take the hardware market a few years to do it justice.
The audio isn't as ground-breaking as the visuals, but it's still very good. The voice acting is good enough, the sound effects are solid, the music is entertaining (if forgettable), and all of it is well implemented. I have experienced a bit of audio stuttering when loading multi-player games, but that's the sum total of the issues I have with the audio. I can't imagine anyone having complaints about the game audio, insofar as I'm pretty fussy and haven't any substantive complaint.
The interface is quite similar to that of virtually every other FPS game out there with two interesting exceptions. In most games, pressing 'C' will crouch. In Crysis, it brings up the weapon modification menu. It took me a while to get used to the idea that said menu doesn't freeze the game time, and it took me a while to get accusomted to all the options. Suffice it to say, though, that the ability to customize the weapons you find in the game is worthwhile. Pressing the middle mouse button also requires a bit of thinking, insofar as it lets you choose the mode of your nano-suit rather than perform a melee attack or whip out your pistol, as I'm accustomed to in various other games.
The real interface mechanic for which I must compliment the developers is the menu system. Crysis has a lot of options, but the menu system isn't merely functional; it's got a great look and feel. It really seems like you're playing around with some high-tech futuristic computer. That's probably a stupid thing to get geeked about, but I thought the game's presentation values were top-notch in the interface department.
Just to prove I was paying attention, everything else works. The minimap is helpful, showing objectives and bad guys when intel is available. Weapon and nano-suit customization are made simple. Objectives are clearly understood and easily tracked. Did I mention Crysis supports the Logitech G15 gaming keyboard as well? I found it pretty handy to keep my objects displayed on the LCD on my keyboard, though I did sometimes use the other pages of information. On the whole the interface works as beautifully as it looks.
My lone complaint with the interface is that the "TAC" weapon is screwy. I played through the scene in which the player gets it a couple of times because I thought something was bugged. I couldn't call up that weapon with my interface at all, even though I just watched my avatar collect it. It was only later, when suddenly I could use it during the boss fight for which it was solely intended, that I figured out how to work it. Since the weapon is such a special case, it seems like the game could do a better job of making its status clear to the player, but that's about the worst thing I have to say.
Take the "standard" FPS mechanics and add to them weapon customization, about which more in a moment, and the nano-suit, and you have Crysis. That's not quite fair, but those are the two features that are immediately obvious. The weapon customization is refreshing because so many other games force you to choose. In contrast, Crysis lets you adapt your gun to the situation at hand, configuring it as needed. I can't think of a single in-game situation wherein it's critical to do so, but it's helpful in many spots and thus worthwhile.
The nano-suit, though, is surely the big stand-out. I've played plenty of shooters that have armor, speed, and other power-ups, but Crysis is the first I've seen that lets the player configure on the fly as the situation and taste demand. By giving the player the choice of strength, speed, stealth, or armor, the game provides more freedom than most. And let's face it, it's just plain cool to be able to engage strength and leap over that jeep hurtling torward you, or to engage the cloak and disapper from sight.
The down side of the nano suit, though, is that its energy is so limited.
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