A few weeks ago, I told cfgt:
Chewxy says:
I’ll play [Crysis], and give it a trashy review, because I’m very sure the only thing it trumps HL2 is the graphics, not the gameplay, definitely not story.
cfgt says:
well, 98% from PC Gamer is nothing to sneeze at…
Having bought and played Crysis (I bought the Collector’s Edition at Play-Asia, for a very good price), I’d say I was only half right. I take back my words. The gameplay wasn’t as bad as I imagined it, but I don’t think it beats Half-Life 2 in terms of gameplay. Righto, then, let’s get into the review. It’s going to be long, but it’s going to be worth the read.
Benchmark
Throughout this review of Crysis, you’ll notice I use Half-Life 2 as a benchmark. There is a reason for this. Half-Life 2 has a very good learning curve, and though linear in nature, is very good in level design. Granted, it is more difficult to make a good open-ended game, but the guys at Rockstar did it with GTA III and its spawns. So, GTA and its spawns will also be used as a benchmark. I won’t compare the open gameplay to Morrowind or Oblivion because they are of different styles. The GTA series is closest to an FPS, with an open gameplay.
First Impressions
I got my first impressions of Crysis watching the videos back then, and I remember my jaw dropping. And so I got the game. My first impression was ‘WOW! BEAUTIFUL GRAPHICS!!!!!!’; and, ‘oh dear, what a silly turtle’. I shot it. It died.
When I say it’s beautiful, I mean it’s just breathtakingly beautiful
However, this first impression didn’t last. One hour into the game, and I was thoroughly bored, being still stuck in the first mission. Within the first hour of the game, I found most of the game design flaws that would drag on for the rest of the game.
Story
Wait. What story? Crysis has a story of course, just not very epic. You play Nomad (his name is Jack Dunn), a Delta Force-like agent sent to Lingshan Island in the Phillipines Sea to rescue an archelogical team that was stranded there when the North Koreans sealed off the island (what’s North Korea doing in the Phillippines Sea beats me, since it’s two seas away from the Korean peninsula).
In the expected twist, aliens appear, and you, the hero has to fight them off. Yawn. Then again, most first person shooters have this sort of generic storyline. This story can be compared to the first Half Life, which wasn’t spectacular.
For exactly half of the game (6 and a half missions), you’re fighting the North Koreans, and the other half involves you fighting the aliens, occasionally with the North Koreans at your side. But I shoot them both anyways.
While Crysis strives hard to immerse the player into the story, I felt detached when playing the game - meaning the creators didn’t succeed in making me immersed. Compare this with Half-Life and Half-Life 2, where the minimum usage of loading screens adds to the cinematic feel of the game.
Features
This game is full of features. Which is awesome. The most touted features are the nanosuit features - you can change your suit to enhance strength, speed and armor, as well as a special cloak mode, where you will be rendered invisible. These nanosuit features are essential in combat, and mastery of them is vital.
I died to bring you this screenshot
Maximum strength looks cool in the video, where you can punch through walls, and kill enemies with a grab, but it’s mostly useless in combat. So often you are surrounded by enemies that going around punching people would just result in death, because everyone else is equiped with guns with unlimited ammo, and they just corner you and kill you. However, Maximum Strength is good when you’re sniping, as it steadies your shots, and passive mode stuff, like jumping on high ledges.
Maximum speed is a far better option, especially with the shotgun. Since the shotgun is an instant kill weapon (provided you aim well, and nanosuit enemies excepted), what I’d do is I’d Max Speed sprint over to the enemy, shoot them in the face, and sprint back to cover
Maximum armor is the default setting for the nanosuit. It is useful when in cover, your suit energy recharges, and so does your health. It allows you to take a lot of damage before dying. Strangely though, the normal KPA soldiers do not have nanosuits, but can take almost an entire clip of ammo of a rifle before dying. And that was in easy mode.
Cloak is perhaps one of the most vital features of Crysis. Because of the crazily tough opponent, it is better at times, to scout around and sneak about unseen. But the cloak drains the suit’s energy like me drinking Powerade (yes, another not so subtle product placement) when I’m thirsty. Also, if you fire a weapon when in cloak, it automatically depletes the energy of the suit, switching off the cloak.
Here I am, in cloak, where the two goons were closing in on me to the top left (in the river). And luckily, because I am in cloak, one of the North Koreans who came up behind me actually walked past me without noticing me (he got shot in the head)
Also, a very cool part of this game is it’s very customizable (hence the open gameplay). You can customize your guns with scopes, sights, and silencers (on the most part, laser sights and flashlights are useless). Very cool. The game, however, has a 2 gun limit (which I circumvented anyways, because I wanted to keep the gauss gun and minigun; and the submachine gun; and the precision rifle; and the shotgun. The SCAR gun was useless.)
Keeping up with the open play concept, the island is really huge, and you can spend hours in it getting lost. There are n number of ways to get to the objective points (at one point I sped too fast and missed a bridge, falling into a river and found a new way into the base without getting killed by 3 machine gun nests)
The AI is fantastic. I’d say, amongst all the first person shooters I’ve played, Crysis trumped Far Cry as one of the more challenging AIs ever made. I loved the challenge posed by the AIs. I died many times, but it was worth it. They use cover intelligently, and they flank you. That’s why it’s rather silly to use Maximum Strength, because the AI will surround and kill you.
Oh, the Gamespot guide is wrong. The nanosuited enemies DO turn on their cloak. Have a look:
Again, I died to bring you this picture
Gunplay is very realistic and authentic. It isn’t like Half-Life 2, where the weapons systems are dumbed down for the player. This is quite a job to master, actually, especially with the sniping. Nomad does breathe, and when he breathes, his sights sways. Also, the way bullets interact with objects is interesting, especially with trees. As some of you may already have seen, trees fall realistically when shot at, and they can kill people (except the nanosuited enemies).
On the whole, this game feels realistic, and I’d say its thanks to the graphics and ambient feelings of openness. However, this game isn’t without its flaws. In fact, I think I can fill a book with its flaws.
Flaws
The problem with Crysis is that most of its features are its biggest flaws as well.
Open Gameplay
The openness of the game is both a great feature and a flaw as well. In the first hour of the game, the openness overwhelmed me. I felt bored. Even though vehicles were open to the player within the first 40 minutes or so, it still felt boring. The thing about open games is that there should be a variety of things to do - like in Grand Theft Auto.
In the first few missions, I found myself very creative in killing enemies, using different styles (I quickly found out that Maximum Strength isn’t useful). But soon, I settled into my preferred style - use Maximum Speed and speed up behind the enemy and shoot him (there are no female enemies) in the head.
It soon becomes routine, after settling in a prefered style, to explore empty lands, stumble upon enemies, kill enemies, and move on. Rinse and repeat. There isn’t any variety in actions - no puzzle solving of any kind. You just make your way to the objective point in a variety of ways, but the challenges remain the same - kill enemies, move on. This makes me appreciate the repetitive see-saw puzzles in the Half-Life 2 series.
In the end, I took more time admiring the scenery than actually planning my way to the objective points, lol.
No, seriously, this is not a photo. It’s in-game
Controls
Controls are confusing on the first look. There are 3 ways to access and change your suit’s features (Mouse 3, ‘v’ and ‘4′). Also, there are 3 ways to customize your gun (default controls: Mouse 3, ‘c’, and ‘v’). Why there are so many ways to access the customization menu, I have no idea, but I suppose it’s a good thing. After a while, though, you get used to it, and have your own preffered keys to customize your suit and your gun.
There’s also a separate button to throw grenades (which makes the game awesomely realistic), but in the height of battle, it’s easy to press the wrong buttons, so instead of grabbing the enemy, you drop a grenade on yourself.
I think a better control system needs to be created. Eliminate the unnecessary controls (like leaning left and right, which aids battles in the least of ways). Sure, I can opt not to use them, but being in the controls list compels players to use them (and often not too well when I use them)
I feel that this game may be better played on an Xbox 360 controller, but then again, having played FPSes on consoles (and sucking at them), maybe not.
Humongous Maps/Level Design
The maps are huge. And while the jungles are lush and really beautiful, huge maps are generally a bane. Yes, the player gets to roam about everywhere, but the player also gets lost for hours. This was especially true in the zero-gravity level (’Core’). I spent hours looking for an exit. It was really frustrating (especially with a lack of an objective point in the map). I gave up looking after some 3 hours stuck in the chambers. Fortunately at the next sitting, I managed to find my way out to the frozen lands.
In Half-Life 2, no matter how you stumble around, you will always be guided by visual and logical cues to the resolution point, but in Crysis, you can stumble around for hours. This may or may not be the intent of the creators, as stumbling around for many hours causes frustration. Admittedly, I’m not exactly a good gamer, but that’s what good level design is all about - being able to cater for all types of gamers.
I must admit, though, I really did enjoy the scenery of the anti gravity scenes. This one below reminds me of Aquanox and Bioshock:
I was actually hiding from the butt ugly aliens whom I really pissed off with a shotgun
Learning Curve
For a game this complex, I must say, the learning curve can be quite steep - as in it isn’t as well planned as it is in Half-Life 2 or Portal.
For instance, I had to figure out by myself that one tap on ‘4′ brings me to Maximum Armor, two taps changes the suit to Maximum Speed, three taps for Maximum Strength, and four taps for cloak. On the manual, it just says press ‘4′ to change suit features. It was through trial and error that I got that right.
That isn’t how the game should be. Call me n00b if you want, but I think a game should guide you through its features, step by step, and not throw you right in the thick. The first few encounters with the enemy was okay when Prophet (your boss) tells you to change your suit mode, because the enemies were far and few in between. But later on, pressing Mouse 3 to change your suit features is simply too slow.
Also, another point I stumbled a little was the first airstrike painting mission. The player was supposed to paint a target so the VTOLs can deliver their airstrike on a North Korean battle cruiser (how did they even afford one??!). The instructions was to use the Binoculars to paint the target, and so I did. I spent 10 minutes proned and repeatedly cloaked, watching the target through the Binoculars, waiting for the VTOLs to fire their missiles.
After waiting that long, only did I realize that I was standing too close to the ship (I was actually right at the edge of the rooftop), and the airstrike won’t begin. But no one told me that. I had to get up, walk around a bit, and re-paint the target.
Story
As I mentioned above, the story isn’t engaging. The only time I really felt immersed in the story was in the anti-gravity level. I was creeped out and wanted to get out of there real bad. Other than that, I just played the game for the sake of the hype.
Also, I feel that the end ‘boss’ fight was a bit silly. It was acceptable in 1999 to fight the Nihilanth, but in 2007, that sort of silly game story line is outmoded by the likes of Half Life 2 - an epic story without the silly proportions of enemies. The story in Crysis is just short of being epic. Jack Dunn is a special forces military man. It is just plain ol’ American gung-ho to go against an enemy that is 10 stories tall. Gordon Freeman on the other hand, is a meek scientist with a fetish for crowbars. Jack Dunn is expected to go up against the enemy, while Gordon Freeman is supposed to cower in fear.
The aliens are really butt ugly
Look at all the epic stories - Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Illiad, Odyssey, Beowulf, and the like. They all fit into what literary experts call the Epic Hero Cycle. The heroes all start off as something normal, and become something extraordinary. But Jack Dunn on the other hand, IS already extraordinary, with his nanosuit. He’s a hardened military man. This doesn’t make the story epic, it makes the story mundane, because he’s expected to do extraordinary things.
Even if the story developers need to make Jack Dunn extraordinary to begin with, they can still make it an epic story. Case to point - Richard Donner’s Superman. I think the story developers didn’t do a good job in developing the story. For such a scale, Crysis should be an epic story, not another ‘meh, me too’ shooter.
Also, I think the writers should spend more time engaging the players in the characters. I didn’t feel a thing when Jester got killed. On the other hand, I did feel sorry when Eli Vance got killed in Half-Life 2 Episode 2. The difference is in the writing. Sure, the ending of Crysis is big, but it isn’t epic. Anyone can make a big budget movie (as long as they’ve got the money), but not everyone can write an epic.
Other General Gameplay Flaws
One thing I felt when playing Crysis, was that I felt old school. I felt like I was playing Quake II. And that isn’t a good thing. Despite the spanking new graphics engine, and realistic gameplay, it still feels dated.
There are actually spawn points for enemies, so enemies are virtually infinite in number. I think there was a bug with the triggers in my version, because in a few missions (like the school and the mine missions), the enemy just kept on respawning. I had at one point, just stood outside the spawning point (under the stairs in the school) and shotgunned every enemy that spawned, until I realized that I was supposed to move elsewhere in order for the spawning to stop.
And because of this ridiculous spawning system, there are no persistent bodies. Bodies disappear like nobody’s business. This makes the game feel dated, even when there were objects that persist (like blown up tanks, and choppers).
Taken just before dying. Which explains the lack of the life and energy bars.
Also, this game is supposed to be a first person shooter. But most of the time, I play it like I would play Splinter Cell, because rushing into enemies is just plain dumb. I never knew the typical North Korean soldiers could take nearly a full clip of rifle ammo before dying. Even on Easy, the enemies had way too much life. And I thought this game was supposed to be realistic!
You could empty an entire clip of SMG bullets into the enemy, and the enemy still lives. And can still run (and punch you)! In these modern times, where ragdoll physics and targetable body parts come into play, having an enemy that can absorb so many bullets and still act normal is plain ridiculous. It feels almost arcade-like.
For an open game like Crysis, which promises a lot, it certainly would be fun to try a multitude of ways to attack your enemies, but in reality, your choices are few. Going gung-ho will most certainly get you killed, and if you’re going to play strategically, you might as well play it like you play Splinter Cell.
But you’re Special Forces! It’s like Delta Forces! Have you seen the way Chuck Norris handled the terrorists in Delta Force? You can’t do that in Crysis, because that would get you killed. Interestingly, the extremely hard mode is called Delta, and the internal name for this mode is Bauer (as in Jack Bauer).
Again, on the topic of AI - while the AI is challenging, sometimes it does stuff up. There are times that I speed around so much that I can’t even tell what I was doing, but the AI can predict my movements. And yet, sometimes I could go right up to them, kill them, without them giving me much of a shot. I think this is more of a performance issue though, because the AI only acts inconsistently when there are many of them engaging me (one memorable scene I can think of is at the mine - I engaged roughly 16-20 enemies at once, so some froze)
Also, this game was supposed to be interactive, and it was. For the trees. You could shoot trees down, but you can’t shotgun a toilet bowl or a sink off the wall. So much for object interactivity. I suppose Crytek should have had something like Red Faction’s deformable walls too. But oh well.
Cinematic Gameplay
In this section, I think words matter less than pictures. But Crysis is so cinematic in gameplay, it’s a bit sad that they didn’t strive for a more engaging and coherent storytelling. Only at the cutscenes, you truly feel like Jack Dunn, but other than that, it’s just like watching a movie.
Helena Rosenthal. According to Tomonobu Itagaki, her name is pronounced ‘Elena’
I know someone who looks just like this guy. Then again, all Asians look alike
Smoke and mirrors, man, it’s all smoke and mirrors (and this is not the end. This is the end of the KPA arc)
Other Crysis Grumbles
I have other grumbles with Crysis too. One of them is the copy protection of the Crysis disc. When you first put in the Crysis DVD into the drive, it makes a loud clicking noise. Do not be alarmed. That’s just the lens moving (I didn’t know that my DVD drive lens could move until Crysis). Then again, this copy protection is significantly better than that $*&%^%&^%!!!ing Steam from Valve.
Another rather hilarious grouse I have with Crysis -
Apparently I was missing some swapfile update. And Microsoft being Microsoft, they required me to install a Genuine Windows verifier before I can proceed with installing my Windows update. LOL.
Other than that, I’m fine with Crysis.
Final Words
In finality, here’s what I like about Crysis:
- Cinematic experience. It’s just so beautiful
- Realistic atmosphere
- Realistic gunplay
- Challenging AI
- Some marginally innovative features, like the nanosuit and weapons customization
- Open gameplay offers more options to do things
And here’s what I don’t like about Crysis:
- Story. It should have been epic, not another ‘meh, me too’ story. Big != epic.
- Dated gameplay. It feels like an arcade in general. An arcade with beautiful graphics and realistic gunplay.
- Poorly designed open gameplay - I got lost and bored easily. They should refer to Rockstar for making good open gameplay, and Valve for level design tips
- Repetitive and tedious - especially after you settled on a routine of attacking enemies
- Horrendous learning curve. Not steep, just bad.
- Boss fights are silly (especially me vs Kyong)
- Ridiculous amounts of damage the enemy can take.
- It’s requirements are crazy. In the snow levels, I had to switch my settings from High to Low because Prohphet kept dying as it was too laggy to actually shoot those flying thingies
I wouldn’t give it a score, because now I’ve come to believe that scores are economically inefficient (like what PWS Andrews thought of Post-Marshallian economics), but due to conventions, I’d give it a score - 5/10.
I’d say, buy it if you have the hardware, because the graphics is worth it. Gameplay is generally old, and irredeemable by means of its innovative features, so don’t bother upgrading if you don’t have the hardware, you’re not missing out.
Even though I didn’t really like it, Crysis will still remain in my list of games to benchmark up to in the future. :D. That’s technological innovation for you.
Cool?
DiggDel.icio.usTechnoratiFeedsterFurl
RSS feed for comments on this post | TrackBack URI for this post
Since I mentioned Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer, it’s only fair I should also mention Vin Diesel. Vin Diesel.
There.
And also, this post was called Mid-Life Crysis because I wanted to brag in the middle of playing Crysis. But decided not to. So, it turned into a review of Crysis instead
This sort of reminds me of GRAW where i shot some Mexican soldier in the torso 3 times, saw him fall… turned around, eliminated another target only to turn back and see the little fuck get up and shoot me.
Hated GRAW.
Anyway, reason why i didn’t pick this game up was because my laptop wouldn’t be able to play this game. Some other users of the S41 in the S41 fan thread reported very bad framerates even on the 8600GS + 2GB RAM + C2D @ 800×600.
But hey… nice graphics!
GRAW?
Heh. I could play mine, high on a tricked out graphics driver.
Wish I could take more screenshots of battles though. Because pressing print screen when in battle = death.
Nowadays, if a game isn’t playtested enough, or the developers don’t rectify results from playtesting - it shows.
Actually, I think we’ve been spoilt by three companies - Valve, Blizzard and Bungie
“However, this first impression didn’t last. One hour into the game, and I was thoroughly bored, being still stuck in the first mission. Within the first hour of the game, I found most of the game design flaws that would drag on for the rest of the game.”
This sentens shows your level of common sense and level of “gamer” which made me stop immidiatly reading the rest of your story.
If your still stuck in the first mission which takes about 10-20 minutes MAX your seriously BAD and i can only imagine how you must have been frustrated throughout the whole game which makes your whole report useless sinds your just another frustrated gamer.
I couldn’t disagree more with this review, but then I am an experienced/good gamer, so I played through it in Delta mode, not Easy.
Personally I loved the, epic, story. The beautiful open world with clear and obvious directions, which was actually less confusing than the shooter-on-rails Call of Shitty 4. The difficulty which wasn’t horrendously cheating-AI-extreme (CoD4), but genuinely manageable and (mostly) realistic while remaining challenging. The awesome boss fights, which make for crazy fun gameplay. And of course the amazing graphics with everything turned up to Very High detail (DX9 though, so missing out on parts).
Using your constant comparison with Half Life 2, I’d rate Crysis quite a bit higher in terms of storytelling and difficulty. Half Life 2 was extremely easy with no real challenge anywhere and an absolutely horrendous ending, combined with a decent, but hardly ‘awesomely super-immersive’ story. Now Episode 2, or Half Life 1: Opposing Force, those games were a lot better in these parts - although I can’t seriously consider either of them as equals to Crysis.
This being said Crysis does have it’s fair share of flaws, although you never mentioned most of them:
- The Core level was dull, and very much shooter-on-rails, just too obvious and not very free-form.
- As you said, gameplay felt a bit dated… as in Counter Strike/Far Cry/STALKER style dated, absolutely nothing like Quake 2. Talking about Quake 2, I’d more easily point to Half Life 2’s playstyle, which does feature ‘boss-like’ encounters just as well as Crysis does, as having a Quake 2-singleplayer-ish feel. Crysis feels more sneaky, more free-roaming, and generally deviates too much from the “non-roaming, race-through-corridors” shooter style of olde.
- Multiplayer isn’t very interesting, this really just isn’t a multiplayer shooter. Then again, we have UT3 for that nowadays.
Lastly: Innovation is not important for a game, fun factor is. You indicate this yourself, albeit indirectly, through your mention of Valve, Blizzard and Bungie as ‘companies that spoiled us’. These companies merely steal other people’s ideas and combine them in their games, their games are never innovative, just great fun. And that’s what it’s all about. Who cares if gameplay doesn’t seem innovative, as long as it’s awesome? And that’s exactly what Crysis does.
Killer 397:
Did it occur to you that I roamed about in the island? I mean, any Tom Dick and Harry can walk a straight line to the objective point, which is where you get your 10-20 min missions. And perhaps I phrased it wrong, I was stuck in the Contact level for the first hour. Utterly boring.
Droniac:
I gave my reasons why I think that Crysis isn’t epic. It’s just big. Epic heroes follow the Hero Cycle. Jack Dunn doesn’t. Gordon Freeman does.
While I agree that the AI was challenging, I cannot agree with your statement that the boss fight was awesome fun. It was a visually awesome treat (with some slight lags), but it was far from fun. I know it’s supposed to give a sense of macho from a man being able to take down a whole ship, but sorry, those days of childishness have passed me (me vs Nihilanth was one of the boss fights that I enjoyed, after that I outgrew it)
I also still disagree with Crysis being better at storytelling. IMO Crysis doesn’t get the job done well. While in Half-Life 2, you’ve got endearing characters like Alyx and Dog, in Crysis, you don’t. Maybe it’s the military machoness that makes me feel detached.
I do agree though, that Episode 2 is more immersive than Half Life 2, but still Crysis sucks at storytelling.
As for the Core level, I was kinda creeped out - play it in a totally dark room at 3 am. I’m a wuss, heh. And I don’t remember any boss fights in Half Life 2. Striders are not boss fights.
When I mentioned that Crysis plays dated, I don’t mean the ability to carry many weapons. The ability to carry few weapons makes the game realistic, but it doesn’t make the gameplay realistic. When I compared it to Quake II, I was comparing how the gameplay felt. Having no object persistence, and virtually infinite spawning units (until you trigger something) makes it dated.
And I absolutely agree with you. Fun factor is important. Crysis takes itself too seriously, and I didn’t feel the fun while playing Crysis. Then again, I never really felt fun playing Half Life 2 as well (I did with Portal!!). I place a lot of importance on stories. Stories are the one factor that makes me want to play a game, not necessarily over and over, but just continue playing.
I’m sorry if I seem to have placed a lot of importance on innovation.
Actually i did but still……..did you look to a tree for an hour or so ?
You need to PLAY THE GAME…….not just play THE SIMS way.
Ive been reading the rest of your stuff but all i can see is a frustrated gamer that just sucks at this game and having alot of trouble with the way you need to play this. I think you are more suittable for RPG games and are just no FPS gamer.
Tell me which FPS is better in your opinion ?
To date: Half Life 2 (and its spawns - Episodes 1, 2 and Portal)
Yes, I admit I’m not a great gamer, but I know the very basics of game design. Crysis is not very good at game design. It was actually buggy (like shooting down enemy flyers before getting a trigger for mission objectives crashes the game). And I didn’t have a lot of trouble with the game actually. I finished it in two nights (my days are for working)
And I’m no RPG gamer either. The only RPG I actually completed was Star Wars KOTOR. I have a short attention span, so an engaging story is needed.
If all ‘epic heroes’ followed the classic hero cycle, stories would be boring indeed. The truth is there are exceptions to (just about) any rule, and there is a particular shitload of exceptions to this one. Let’s browse through a few different examples of epic heroes who didn’t quite follow the classic hero cycle: Kurau - Kurau Phantom Memory (anime), Geralt of Rivia - The Witcher (books/PC Game), Cutter Slade - Outcast (PC game, one of the best ever made in fact), Battle Realms (PC game), Serenity captain - Firefly/Serenity (TV-Show/Movie), the two main Fafner pilots - Fafner in the Azure: Left of Right (amazing anime OVA, too bad the show sucked).
This is of course presuming that you’re referring to ‘epic story’ as the sole variant of ‘non-generic/engaging/immersive story’, as you do in your review. Because let’s face it: In Half Life 2, what you, the protagonist/the hero, do is hardly ‘epic’… it’s very much a ‘personal’ story of a small conflict on a tiny portion (a single hardly-known city in fact) of the planet. In contrast, the whole “saving the planet” routine of Crysis certainly feels a lot ‘bigger’; or ‘more epic’ if you will.
It’s almost as if you’re saying “if a game/movie/book/etc doesn’t tell the story in a very specific, small-scale, personalized-drama style - then it’s not good storytelling”. There are different kinds of - good - storytelling, this is just one of many. You might prefer HL2’s, but that doesn’t particularly mean it’s “superior” for everyone. I know a fair few people who’d argue that HL2’s storytelling was absolute shite. In fact I know a fairly popular blogger who absolutely hates the Half Life series for it’s ‘poor storytelling’, which I have to say I don’t exactly agree with, particularly after Episode 2.
It just goes to show that everyone has their own taste. Reviews are inherently subjective, so I understand you deducting points for, in your opinion, poor storytelling. I’ll just disagree with you on that point
As for infinite spawning units and no object persistence… this is hardly dated. I can’t actually recall any game where dead bodies remain on the ground permanently. To call that kind of mechanism dated, is to call all games, including Half Life 2, dated.
As for infinite spawning enemies: I never noticed any of this, but then I didn’t spend an hour on a 35 minute (huge detour & delta-level opponents included) mission. I’m sure it sucks, but as I said earlier: I never noticed it and I doubt many people will. In fact I was amazed that units didn’t keep streaming at me in levels further in, as North Koreans started swarming you… walking past them while killing a few and then heading back 15 minutes later: they were still dead.
Now if you had mentioned infinite streams of enemies as a negative point for CoD4, I’d have wholeheartedly agreed. That is a game where EVERYONE will notice triggerbound infinite spawns, and hate them. Yet you’re the first person I’ve heard mention infinite spawns in Crysis. All I noticed was the persistence: tanks staying down, without new ones replacing them… villages staying empty after you clear them of their occupants… etc.
That being said; I went into this game with the firm belief that I’d hate it. I didn’t like Far Cry one bit, and this game seemed to become just the same kind of beast all over again. So maybe I might have been a bit more easily impressed by a game I thought would suck.
Well you shouldnt play the game on EASY mode, im sure there are alot of infinite spawns there but than the game is designed for kids.
When you play this on normal (which i did) i didnt notice any respawning nme’s at all (and it IS something i look for).
The story is good enough for me, i also love the halflife story and yes its much more complicated than this one but who says it has got to be complicated to be entertaining.
Not me…..
Sure this story could have been in any B movie but still, the way its presented with the music switching tempo on and off at the right moments just dragged me into this game.
This is sharing an 1st place with MAFIA on top of my all-time-single player-favorites list.
So i really believe you had the wrong attitude playing through this game and just missed all the good things of it.
Not bashing you as a person ofcourse just bashing your screwed up opinion..
Also this “Chewxy says:
I’ll play [Crysis], and give it a trashy review, because I’m very sure the only thing it trumps HL2 is the graphics, not the gameplay, definitely not story.”
What kind of fan-boy thing is that to say ?
Just states that you LOVE Halflife and in someway is gonna protect it from being beaten ?!.
Just not my view of an good objective reviewer.
Just one of someone who wants to preotect his beloved game at all costs.
Heh. This is kinda similar to the kind of flak I got when I made it known I thought Final Fantasy XII was among the worse RPGs released in that year - and the worst in the series yet.
I’ll withhold my judgment on Crysis for until I get to play it - which could be a really long time later - since I don’t have a bloody computer that’ll run the damn thing. (and since they claim it won’t run on any of the consoles, so be it - I’ll have to stick to Halo 3, Bioshock and The Orange Box to get my fix of FPSing, until UT3 for PS3 shows up - beyond that, who knows?)
That being said, PC game system requirements are climbing at ridiculous rates - although I’m sure Crytek should’ve done an excellent job of optimising the game.
OK… I’ll take turns to reply.
Droniac:
Nope. The heroes you mentioned are not epic heroes. Mal Reynolds can even be considered an anti-hero of sorts. I suppose there is a confusion with semantics. When I use the word epic, it refers to epic stuff that people will continue to remember for years to come. People will continue to remember the Star Wars saga, or the path of Neo when he took the red pill. People remember Illiad, and Odysseus. People remember Beowulf. I guess, when I mean epic, I mean it in a literature-study sense. The examples you gave me, I would just call it ‘Big’. Not memorable, in most cases. I’ve forgotten the story of GTA III already.
In regards to the infinitely spawning thing, it’s a bug (which again, proves the incompetence of Crytek in game design). If you don’t trigger the stop-spawning trigger (by literally crossing some areas, IINM), the enemies keep spawning. If you ever opened a Quake II map in developer mode, you’d see a lot of pink bars as triggers for monsters and stuff. That’s what I mean by dated - triggers for stop-spawns? That’s so.. old school.
And also, in most of the other modern games I play, bodies just don’t disappear right in front of your eyes. Perhaps it’s the settings I use, but that makes it feel old too.
Killer 397:
Don’t you reckon that infinite spawns might actually be better for the Delta mode? Nah, it’s a bug - one which I managed to replicate. This means Crytek was simply being lazy in optimizing. They should have taken the Blizzard/Valve/Bungie path - fix the bugs before shipping; dammit.
Mafia? I’ve played it, didn’t impress me. And obviously, forgotten the story. Not epic. As I said, I factor in story as a good motivation for me to keep playing and be impressed.
And I don’t love Half-Life. I think Half-Life 2’s level design could take a leaf from Oni (which I think they did, but at some parts they screwed up). And most certainly, I hated the long boring driving and boat scenes. UGH!
And I’m not willing to protect it. Just give me a better game (like say, Portal, with some cool enemies and longer storyline), and I’d dump HL2. Anyone who knows me knows I judge quite objectively.
But curiously, as some casual reader, you’ve managed to spot something most interesting - a signal. I’ll blog on that some time later.
cfgt:
Heh. Fanboys type #2
[...] Yep. It’s finally here (If you are new and don’t know what’s happening, please do check out the vodcasts in my blog). I’m so sorry for the delay. I did make a promise to some people who contacted me on YouTube, that the vodcast will be a weekly affair, but these two weeks, I’ve been swamped. I’ve had dinners, barbeques and I played (and reviewed) Crysis. But here’s today’s vodcast: [...]
Whoa… lots of comments huh?
Lemme throw in a non-offensive one: That North Korean soldier that you took a pic of… he looks like swifty! =P
YOU KILLED SWIFTY! DAMN YOU CHEWXY!
~hashie
Good review, btw. Taking the personal opinions and throwing it aside, i’d say you did a good job of covering the essential points of the game. Makes me want to try it out now just to see what’s the fuss about. Sadly… *sighs at ancient CPU*
~hashie
Hashie:
OH YES! That’s why I said General Kyong looks familiar. He looks like Swifty!!!
LOL. Upgrade time? Nah, you won’t miss much
You fail. You said Half-Life 2 had minimal loading screens. WRONG. There’s a loading screen every 5 minutes in Half-Life 2, it breaks my immersion straight away.
Hey Poop - what I mean by loading screens are those black screens with an image and the big fat word ‘LOADING’.
Valve did theirs so it doesn’t break the sequence. And if you have a fast-enough computer,the loading screen would be something like a flicker.
If it breaks your immersion, then it comes to reason that you must be a statistical anomaly.
chewxy:
could you point out where exactly there are respawning enemies? that stuff sure is a game killer for me (nolf1 good, nolf2 bad), but i played crysis now halfway through (on delta) and didn’t recognize any.
Try the school. I got lost there, and took some time to find CIA contact. Before actually discovering that the CIA contact is in a room in the first floor, I went up and down of the school building, and around the village. Each time I went up and down the school building, the north koreans incessantly spawn at the foot of the staircase on the groundfloor (there is sort-of a hidden closet there).
This is not a bug, because I’ve managed to replicate it twice (because I was frustrated with the infinitely spawning idiots, I kept reloading the level). Then I figured that there must be a trigger to stop the spawning. The trigger is somewhere between the entrance to the stairwell and the room that you find the CIA agent. Once you step past that trigger, the spawns become finite and limited.
Also, if you hang around the school roof (please edit your config files to increase your life before doing it) for too long before finding the CIA contact, you will start noticing that the stream of NKs are infinite. They just kept coming and coming, even after few hours on the roof.
Another level that you might want to watch out is the mine level. If you kill most of the enemies before the mission objective comes out to clear the area so the VTOLs can land, you can never complete the mission objectives.
Same thing goes with the VTOL flying level - if you shoot down all the aliens before the objectives comes out to defend the plateau, you can never complete the mission objectives either.
And yes, No One Lives Forever 1 was good. 2 was not as good. It fell really short
Come on dude! You obviously either tried to break the game or played it incompetently! =P with clear shining green dots on your map and straightforward instructions, how on earth can you get lost in the first place? rofl