Crysis

I finally got around to playing Crysis and finished it in two evenings. A bit later than most of you guys, but I still thought I might post my personal review of it.

For those who are interested, I played it on a first generation iMac Core Duo 2GHz with 2GB RAM and 256 MB video memory, running on Win XP Pro at 1024x768, low details. I didn't bother with trying different settings, but it ran very smoothly and I was more interested in that than in fancy looking graphics.

The only problem: In two cutscenes, audio and video were out of sync. I had the same problem with FarCry and No-one lives forever (on different machines), by the way. Strange. I wonder how something like that does not get caught by QA.

I really enjoyed the game until I reached the "alien ship" and later the air craft carrier. The alien ship looks nice and interesting and very alien, but besides the nice visuals there's nothing interesting there that either helps the game or its storyline. I did not like the air craft carrier part of the game - it was too linear and basically boring and full of almost annoying cliches, like the idiotically stubborn admiral and the stupid and too quick "leave me behind, safe yourselves" of our hero. (He actually said that before I could even look at what was coming out of the water. But that happened to me on at least three occasions in the game.)

But the story in general is not much to talk about. A hero who does not leave any cheap cliche untouched meets aliens and shoots at everything that moves without even trying to communicate first. That --really-- meets the definition of a killer game, doesn't it? I mean, is it a wonder that the aliens are pissed off? First, the Koreans find them and open fire. Then the americans come and also open fire. Nobody even tried to say hello to them. Sure, Sergio Leone did the same thing in "Once Upon A Time In The West": If the people would spend one minute talking to each other, the movie would not have a purpose, because they would find out that they do not need to kill each other. So Leone just does not let them talk. It's the same in Crysis. Don't talk, just shoot.

Anyway, it's a shooter, so I can live with that. But I was disappointed with the showdown. When Nomad entered the vulture and said "we know now how to defeat them, let's go back and keep on fighting", I was like: "Ok, the night's been long enough, let's save and do that tomorrow." And then I saw the endtitles. "Are these guys nuts?!?!?!" Now when it just became interesting again, the GAME IS OVER?????

So that's my biggest disappointment with Crysis: The game is too short. I think FarCry was at least twice as big as Crysis, or maybe this is just how it feels for me. I also think that FarCry's game play had more "tension" or "suspense" in it. The enemies were smarter and harder to take out, and FarCry in general had a better enemy AI. You had to be more careful. It just was more thrilling to fight your way through. Maybe I should try it at a higher difficuly level.

Still, in the end, Crysis is a great shooter that's fun to play. There's not much you can't do (drive cars, tanks, boats and even fly a vulture), and the nanosuit is an awesome idea. No stupid med packs, just the suit. I really liked that.

If you like the genre and have a machine that can run it, I recommend buying it. The game has a few forgivable shortcomings, but is real fun to play.

Should probably have had ***SPOILER ALERT*** int he title of this for people like me who haven't got to the alien ship yet.

Nevermind, I'm finding it a pretty average shooter anyway. No where near as enjoyable as COD4.

Oops, Puki already wrote about the alien vessel in one of the other threads, so I thought it was no secret anymore.

I haven't played COD4, yet. I liked COD2, although I am usually not a fan of "real war" first person shooters; I prefer games that are obviously some kind of fiction. World War games are too close to real traumas for my taste, but that's just me.

I played Crysis with an 8800GTX and the cutscenes still would pause briefly and then play out of sync.

The game was pretty solid up to the point where you head into the alien's cave. Went progressively downhill from there, and the worst part was when you got to fly that thing around, it wasn't fun at all. Basically at that point the game just stinks, it's all on rails from there (in contrast to the feeling of freedom in the rest of the game), and the set up for the sequel was annoying.

Way too short, and the last third of the game feels like it was phoned in. I'd hold out buying it until they drop the price a bit, at full retail you may feel a bit ripped off.

I've enjoyed it so far but I just entered the cave myself. My favorite sequence thus far was blowing up that battle ship in the harbor, that was totally sweet. The sound sync problem I found could be fixed by setting the audio quality to high, anything else didn't work.

In order to enjoy the game properly you definitely have to tweak the settings for different parts of the game. For example, if you're at a tough spot and need cover, turn the physics to low so no one can blow the housese apart. Conversely, if you're driving turn the physics to high so if you drive into stuff it moves out of your way. The same sort of things apply to the graphics, you probably want to crank the detail down in the close quarters firefights but move it up when you need to spot enemies from a distance and reflexes aren't so critical.

It's a solid game in my opinion, and it makes it tough to go back to less detailed games. Even if I couldn't enjoy the settings all the way on high the sheer amount of stuff in every scene even on low is crazy.

I like crysis a lot, the enemy are a lot better in Delta difficulty mode and the game seems a lot less cheesy when they don't speak english and are harder to kill.

I just rescued that hostage from the school building and went through the cave, then that black guy got nabbed by the machine from the Matrix.

I am getting pretty bored with this game. Each time I come to a new town, I know it just means a lot of running in to get the enemy to follow me, find some high ground, and snipe them off with the scope.

I tried playing in Delta mode because it makes it more realistic, but the enemies can already take a full clip to the head before going down. I don't understand how those cloth hats can stop bullets.

I tried the multiplayer, but it seemed like just another run & gun. I like combat like Red Orchestra and STALKER better.

These graphics are better than STALKER, but I think STALKER is a better game. Red Orchestra is still the only online game I'll play.

Leadwerks, what you are doing there reminds me a bit of typical zombie tactics. Have you read Z. A. Recht's novel "The Morning Star Strain: Plague Of The Dead"? They also use a "runner" in there to lure the zombies into a trap. Cool book, by the way.

Anyway, here's what I do: Switch the nanosuit to cloaking, run to the enemy, kill him, hide until the energy is recharged, switch to invisibility and do the same thing again. I still need to try this "maximum strength" thing on enemies, though.

STALKER... I'm still waiting for the "female NPC pack" for this game. I'm still surprised that I seem to be the only person around who found it very strange that there are absolutely no women in the STALKER universe. Especially in Eastern Europe, where they had women in the army long before anybody in Western Europe even thought about it (I even have a russian lady colleague at work who is an ex-Red Army officer).

STALKER has its moments, but I think Crysis is more fun.

eh, it only takes one well placed shot to the head to take them out here, The body takes a lot of hits though.

I guess it just depends on the kind of gameplay you like. I don't like run and gun shooters and thought HL2 was rubbish, and Bioshock was only fun whilst the interesting stylised graphics felt fresh. Gears of war was the most boring shooting game I played in years.

Still like Crysis and Chronicles of Riddick best, didn't mind MOH Airborne, that was quite fun and did the gears of war cover thing more to my liking.

The cloak mode only lasts a few seconds, and it drains your armor, so I always end up turning visible right when I step in the middle of a bunch of Koreans. :D

heh you know, its a lot harder to kill them by shooting them in the head at close range than from a distance. I'm not sure it its just my system not really being up to close quarters shooting. I only have a a64 3000+ and it doesn't like close up stuff much.

To be honest I preferred the gameplay of FaryCry over Crysis.

However, Crysis' graphics are lush.

Good new - FarCry 2 is on its way - using the new engine.

The alien levels in Crysis are boring as hell - the aliens are boring as hell - basically, flying jelly fish. I'd prefer them to be humunoid that fire some kind of weapon - like the mutagens in FarCry - not a flying jellyfish.

Delta mode rocks, the enemies seem smarter but the armor isn't stronger AFAIK.

I hated the fact that Koreans survive 20 shots to the torso, and IM the one who's supposed to have the special suit.
Tried the demo, didn't make me want to buy the full game.

I'm about where Josh is, and I'd agree with his analysis. Rather disappointing. I get so bored of games where a character can take nine bullets and still sprint and shoot, and then just one more bullet kills him. I swear I emptied about two clips into some enemies - it just becomes a chore. And as for their hyped AI - if you go into any building or hut, the enemies gather outside and shoot at the wall, and get stuck on doors, the sort of thing that was Goldeneye-era which should have been ironed out years ago.

Sounds like the typical hollywood blockbuster then - fantastic visuals, staggering amounts of production money spent, script and characters paper thin.

I spent now some time in Delta mode with some details set to high. I use the cloaking mode now more often than before, but it works well: I run cloaked to an enemy, finish him off with a few rounds and then quickly look for cover and stay in hiding until the nanosuit is recharged.

I also used the maximum strength mode to kill some enemies. Works, but is a bit too difficult to handle.

MadJack, yes, it -is- a typical hollywood blockbuster. Something like Predator meets Independence Day meets Matrix meets Abyss. Maybe even a bit of Starship Troopers. ;-)

Puki, it looks as if Far Cry 2 uses -a- new engine, but not the Crysis engine. Crytek are not behind Far Cry 2, it's just Ubisoft using the FarCry franchise.

I'd love it except for the fact that a serious bug keeps me from killing the final boss. I'd really like a patch sooner than later to fix this gaping bug, but Crytek seem intent to cramming the most they can into one patch.

I got through the river level with the graveyard at the end. I think it's just a game you have to pretend you are there to get into. The music and setting are very immersive, and it is easy to get lost in the world (especially in Delta mode). But I can only play so much, or I get battle-fatigue.

The machine-gun nests and the way you have to attack is really neat. If you drive a truck up to machine gun nest, you are done for. I was walking across some rice paddies, and came upon three guns hidden in the jungle, and I was down so fast, never knew where they were until I went around later.

I wonder if today's emphasis on graphics realism means games are becoming more taxing in that your brain's having to process more visual information than, for example, a game like FarCry from a few years ago.

po, I didn't have any problems killing the end "boss". You need that special cannon from the air craft carrier's lab to do it, and Helena marks the target for you. You won't get that thing down otherwise. It wasn't too difficult, and not much fun either, I must say.

I --hate-- that end boss shit in games. Why doesn't anyone put in complex puzzles that lead to a nice explosion instead or that completely shutdown the enemy's whatever-it-is-industrial-complex?

Everyone bitches about the enemies taking too many shots to kill, but has anyone thought about the fact that this just isn't that type of game? First of all it doesn't take that many shots. Roll up with a sub-machine gun and you can pretty much mow people down in Crysis like any other game. If you have a weak gun then you should be cautiously firing off single burst head shots while hidden and cloaked. I spent most of the game playing like that until near the end when the action heats up and the better guns come around.

The sad thing about the game is that it gives players freedom and for that people are whining. In real life if something's not working ... you don't do it until you die. If the enemies are taking too many bullets maybe you shouldn't be trying to take them down that way?

As Leadwerks said if you allow yourself to become immersed in the game take it all as if you were there and you have to get through and survive then it really becomes interesting.

As with anything else in life it all boils down self-control. Are you going to enjoy the game or hate it ... you control that.

BTW, I thought the graveyard battle was great. In someways initially frustrating but very rewarding.

Winni: I know but the bug is that the TAC gun won't target anything. I've googled it and it is a real bug with the only solution being restart the level and hope it works. Which I can't be bothered to do.

po: Ok, didn't know that. Then I probably was lucky that it worked on my installation.

I think I died once on the graveyard, because I ran away and cautiosly picked off the enemies one at a time. It was pretty scary when I realized what that high-pitched whining sound was.

I finally gave this game some proper attention (as in, 3 hours... will get to that later :/) after I learned it runs well on my computer in DX9 mode. Thankfully, I forgot what the "good graphics" look like and made a point of not looking at that large screenshot in this thread. Ignorance is bliss :)

I have most settings on Medium, but turned physics detail up to high (since my processor is fairly decent). Interestingly, Medium physics detail seems to cause buildings to collapse whenever I look at them. I, for one, am glad that the Crysis developers do not design houses.

On that topic, even with the low settings and lack of DirectX 10 exclusive shaders (on that topic, anyone else find it oddly telling that these guys are great at writing shaders for DX 10 mode but seem to do a mediocre job for the shaders in DX 9 mode?), the game looks stunning. It isn't "surface detail" stunning, but it is "environment detail" stunning.

For example, I thought I was being clever by jumping on top of a (somewhat important looking) concrete building to shoot the enemies from above in a large scene. A few seconds later, the place exploded under my feet. At one point in the game, I kept dieing and repeating with various methods an attempt to push through a bunch of enemies over a hill. They were managing to sneak behind me, they called for reinforcements which actually came, all sorts of scary stuff... then, I realized I could skip the entire thing by going around! The game is designed well enough that I can safely skip that without losing anything by sneaking along a river, which is excellent. (I think the patrol that kept attacking me did eventually reach me, but it took a while).

I also really love how dynamic everything is. I started a fight (at a small village) by driving a huge / explosive (I did not know this) truck into a gas station, both of which exploded, toppling every building (and tree) in the area. It was swell :)
That, of course, started everything completely differently than had I snuck in from the other side, or gone at them from a distance (or just without the truck). There was a ton of ammo in that gas station, which of course was unavailable after I blew it up.

Ooh, and sand bags are actually individual objects that can be moved! (Not just the whole barrier, but each individual sand bag). Strangely, hand rails are invincible.

Now that it runs, I can't find a reason to fault it! It isn't brilliant at everything, but Crysis is good at what it sets out to do.
Well, I suppose I can complain about whatever they did for the ice effect. Even with DirectX 9 (where the ice looks like the texture has been applied wrong, coupled with a white tint over everything; nothing more), that effect slows my computer to a crawl. I noticed that in the first encounter with icy objects, which is the one big boat in the middle of nowhere.
Really irritating given that the ice will not show up again for some time, so I will be bracing myself for enormous slowdowns, no idea whether the game will actually remain playable. That there is a really ugly detail; frame rates should be consistent!

ice is often one of the most "impacting" effects and shader only made it seriously worse.

Reason is, its about the only material that is: translucent, reflecting, of complex geometry (unlike water) and has refraction as well as multi-planar + it is often impacted by physics which makes it GPU + CPU intense (on DX10 / CG2 the physics are just moved to GPU so ugly gpu intense instead ^^)

I havent played it, but my friend said what really killed the game was the too smart AI. He said they could spot him from very far away and start shooting at him, which is obviously unrealistic.

Thats what the cloak is for.

Worst moment:

Feminist Asian chick arguing with the stereotype of the dumb aggressive male Admiral about whether they should nuke the island. Would a real military commander stand there arguing with a civillian when he was just given orders to do something? Such bad propaganda.

The game should have ended after the last outdoor level.

I got Crysis for free from my brother which works at EA... Played it for like 2-3 hours... other than graphics and the nanosuit idea it's lame.
Works pretty well on my machine tough.

I really enjoyed the game but the ending is a pain because it is so bugged, I fell through the deck so many times and had lots of other issues. Otherwise a lot of fun, I don't expect an FPS to come up to the standards of a great movie for dialogue, plot etc.

Darkheart

I hated the ending - totally bent.

The aliens sucked - totally sucked - total rubbish.

I loved most of the game though - I liked hiding in bushes and stuff and watching the wildlife and stuff.

I think the basic message is that everybody loves the "FarCry: Reloaded" parts of the game but nobody likes the rest. Anyway, I'd rather play FarCry one more time than play Crysis again. The "FarCry: Reloaded" part is too short and the rest is no real fun and badly done. Or let's call it "unmotivated", for it does not look like anybody at CryTek was enjoying making the non-jungle levels.

Why they gave him the name 'Leone'? Isnt it the second name of John Rambo, or some other character of a Sylvester Stallone movie?

I had hoped you could've gone back to the island to finish off the aliens.

I thought Crysis was as close to perfect at what it does in the early levels as I have seen so far. I like slower paced more stealthy games that let you experiment and use the environment to your advantage.

I usualy spend some time doing reconisance sneaking around finding exit routs and a plan of attack before sneaking in and trying to take out the enemy covertly.


Crysis makes for a really nice sandbox that lets you control the action, if you play it the way I do, its trying to keep the action toned down by being clever and you know when you screwed up because thats when all hell breaks loose and you need to take some drastic action.

The game runs well on pretty old hardware, I really love the way bullets hit the foilage, overall Crysis reminds me a lot of paintball on MOD land, which is the closest I've been to a fps situation in real life lol.

i had to search this thread for any other meantion of Sergio Lenoe

he's on about the film director