back to article Crysis 2

Where Crysis shifted the paradigm of photorealism for a lucky monster-rig owning few – while power slamming the nail into the coffin of my creaking 9800 Pro – Crysis 2 is a far more forgiving beast. Crysis 2 Rocket salad The near-identical performance of the PC and console versions might not please PC gamers, but the shift …

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  1. snafu
    Thumb Up

    "Crysis: Legion" Crysis 2 novelization out

    Just to point out that the novelization of the game is out, by Peter Watts, a hard sci-fi writer with an attitude. It has an edge over the usual adaptation jobs. You can check a fifty page excerpt here: http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2011/03/del-rey-spectra-50-page-fridays-peter-watts.html

    Watts is real hardcore: he had a chance meeting with a flesh-eating bacteria a few weeks ago, and the guy can be seen in his blog minding his leg's innards without tranquilizers. Check his web: lots of Creative Commons-licensed short stories and long form novels, really thought-provoking. http://www.rifters.com/index.htm

    1. Viktor Ivanov

      Story?

      Crysis 2's story was written by Richard K. Morgan, his first attempt at video game storytelling. The review did not go in detail regarding the story though, was it that unoriginal? I was hoping something really special.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    This weeks EPIC review fail

    Killzone3 gets 75% and this gets 85% But clearly Killzone3 is a FAR better game both online and single player....

    Don't tell me even el-reg are still downrating PS3 console exclusives because they are not available on Xbox? I thought that fad died out in 2007....

    1. Les Claypool
      FAIL

      blatant sony staff

      Are Sony still paying people to come on forums and slate everything that isnt Sony related? I thought THAT fad died out in 2007...

  3. hokum
    FAIL

    This week's epic comment fail

    CLEARLY Killzone 3 is better.

    Obviously.

    In your own mind.

    Some people still struggling with the concept of opinions, apparently. Still, I'm sure that massive company Sony are glad you're sticking up for them and their mass produced products against those mean reviewers.

    Try to understand that while you like Killzone 3, someone else may not be as enamoured. Or, like a simpleton, you could continue to argue with anyone who doesn't give [latest AAA game] a score you think it deserves, as though that somehow impacts upon your enjoyment.

  4. Horridbloke
    Unhappy

    A huge let-down

    The joy of Far-Cry (and to a lesser degree Crysis) was the large-scale maps and relative freedom in tackling them - you really could play some levels several times and have a very different experience each time. I pre-bought Crysis 2 because I was hoping for, nay expecting, a similar level of freedom only this time in an urban setting. It's 2011 after all, it seemed reasonable to expect to be able to smash into any building, go onto roof-tops when I felt like it and generally make my own path to the required point on the map - you ARE playing a bloke in a powered armour suit after all.

    What I got was a remake of the City17 bits of Half-life 2 with nicer textures, inferior story-telling and the oh-for-pity's-sake-this-isn't-a-game-it's-a-barely-interactive-movie quality of COD4. I've also encountered an apparent scripting issue in the game where, after defending a location against a horde of nasties, nothing else happened and the friendly NPCs wandered around the battlezone for several minutes until I gave up and quit.

    Oh well. Serves me right for pre-ordering, I won't do that again.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Nah!

      Get into Fallout 3/Fallout NewVegas. Free roaming RPGs with some serious bloodletting if you fancy it!

    2. Jason "Foxdie" Gaunt
      Thumb Down

      Seconded!

      I just completed the game about 10 minutes before the timestamp of this post, and I have to say Horridbloke nailed it on the head, the game is visually stunning but lacks the gameplay elements that should come with being a total bad-ass super soldier. You feel boxed into linear gameplay and the story fails to hook you in. Nuff said.

  5. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Made for consoles and PC ?

    So that most probably means limited AI, limited storyline and limited liberty of action. Oh, and enemies popping up as soon as you cross an invisible threshold, like in Unreal 3, which was a great disappointment.

    Consoles are great for some kinds of games - racing or sports especially. Anything FPS or RTS has to be dumbed down horribly to fit the technical constraints.

    And besides those considerations, ever since I played Half-Life (the original one), I never fail to be amazed and dismayed at any new game that comes out without the dynamic AI that characterized that game so well.

    Half-Life came out in 1998. Since then, nobody has been able to even simply equal that title in AI depth and cunning, let alone better it. Half-Life 2 only did about as well, but that can be considered a compliment since no other title in existence has approached either title in AI efficiency.

    AI history has been at a standstill since then, and no title that plays on a console is going to change that.

    1. Parkaboy

      AI

      The AI is pretty good on pc they take cover and can pop out of no where. I've not seen any FEAR like flanking going on but its not bad at all.

      The game does seem somewhat easier than the 1st title and most of what Horridbloke said is true, but it looks so god darn hot on 50fps ultra settings! Its a wonderful game for that alone.

      As for consoles who cares about FPS on consoles, well I guess I know quite a few who do sorry lads and lasses, but playing this game on a console is like driving an F1 car around a car park.

    2. Allicorn
      Go

      Title schmitle

      I disagree. I think the FEAR series had some useful bad guys.

  6. Citizen Kaned

    kz3 is fun though...

    especially with a psmove and sharpshooter rifle. best fps on a console ive played (which i have mainly avoided due to them being so much worse than pc fps games)

  7. Parkaboy

    "The near-identical performance of the PC and console versions might not please PC gamers"

    "The near-identical performance of the PC and console versions might not please PC gamers" LMAO what a pile of rubbish! I'd like to see this magic console that runs games as well as a gaming rig. Bad reviewer making up fibs or copying and pasting misinformation. I've played it on both PC and 360 and its like comparing a fine candle light dinner to eating a packet of crisps while waiting for a bus in the rain.

    Great game

  8. ph0b0s

    Console port not interested....

    Crytek now make console ports for the PC, so I'm not interested. But good for you console owners who get the a great game in comparison to what you are used to....

  9. StooMonster
    Unhappy

    PC version a bit glitchy

    In the PC version the game can't remember its multiplayer keys, and the game doesn't work with multi-GPU setups (i.e. SLI and Crossfire).

    It's been patched to 1.1 so far, and 1.2 might fix these issues soon.

  10. Dani Eder

    SDK coming this summer

    Crytek, the makers of Crysis 2, are planning to release a software developer kit for the Cryengine 3 this summer. So any of you that think you can make a better game will be able to try.

  11. Terje
    Thumb Up

    Enjoyable but nothing great

    A few points that didn't get mentioned since I don't care for consoles this ofcourse reffer to the real platform to enjoy fps games on.

    Graphics: While the graphics are ok, they don't impress like farcry or crysis did. The environments while ok are not anything special, and some of the nature parts seems to be a bit low on the polygon count. There is also a strang omittment in that the game has no builtin advanced settings but only resolution and a high mid low kindof setting though a bit of googling turned up a application that allows you to change the settings as you please .

    Controls: The controls work decently well and are not useless as many console ports are.

    AI: Pretty useless.

    Now onto the important stuff

    Gear: There are two kinds of hardware in the game, weapons and the suit, let's start with the suit.

    As in Crysis stealth is the name of the game most of the time, once in a while armor is also helpful, but stealth is what will see you through most of the game. The suit can be upgraded with enhanced abilities in four categories with three different options availible in each, unfortunately they have very different usefulness for the singleplayer campaign (the multiplayer upgrades are a bit different) it's also somewhat annoying that the cost for the different upgrades vary so much that you in reality have very limited choice on what upgrades to use until very late in the game. Overall though the suit feels a bit more pollished then it did in it's first incarnation.

    Weapons: The weapons in the game are a decent collection, but somehow I miss some decent firepower upgrades it seems like I prefered to use the same weapons all the way through the game with a upgrade from assaultrifle to machinegun as soon as I get my hands on one. There are two hightech experimental weapons in the game that you can pick up at a couple of places, while good they suffer from not having amunition availible to replenish the initial loadout which limits the usefulness.

    Gameplay: While you usualy can do things a couple of different ways it feels like you are mostly firmly atatched to the railroad tracks and are not allowed to deviate. While taking place in new york you realy have no way to move around like farcry or even crysis allowed you to do. The aliens come in three varities standard cannonfodder annoying cannonfodder and annoying amunition sinks. One strange thing is that while storywise the same aliens as in crysis they have apparently changed equipment since they bear no resemblance to the flying squids etc in Crysis.

    From a leveldessign standpoint it's a clear move back from it's predecessors andshow little if any innovation.

    Is it fun: The game is decently entertaining and the story is not bad, though I can't shake the feeling that I spend to much time falling from high places or drowning. or a combination of the two.

  12. Tom 38
    Thumb Down

    No mention of how this baby runs or what kind of hardware will run it

    Given that my PC still doesn't run Crysis at a reasonable frame rate, what chance of an review that tells me whether I will be able to play this game should I buy it,

    1. ph0b0s

      You probably will be fine.

      As a side effect of the game being a console port with only Directx 9 it is less intensive than the first game. So even if the first game was a problem the second may not. But I am sure you know how to search the internet for the official min and recommended requirements of a game....

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    But what really lets it down is the Multiplayer game

    Crysis 2 Multiplayer demo was released in advance of the final build and this has given the pirate and cheat community ample opportunity to recode the game to their own designs. Now the MP version is overrun with cheats that neither EA nor MyCrysis support sites seem to be able to combat or even acknowledge. Combine this with multiple CDkeys that can only be entered outside of the game and lack of game server side authentication means that not only is the game already more full of cheats than MW2 but even the paying customers haven't got what they paid for.

    EA seem to have concentrated their efforts on the console versions and this is the reason for the lack of technical progress in crysys 2 over the original. This also mean that many are unable to get a response from EA or MyCrysis support sites and have simply given up on having what they paid for.

    Given EA's history of not supporting nor maintaining their brands it can hardly be seen as a surpise

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Easy now

    Er, @Spotfist, I care how easy a game is. And if a reviewer bothers to recommend I crank up the difficulty to improve the game, seems like a worthwhile tip to me. Maybe you should play the game before you flame someone's opinion of it.

    Paris - 'cos it seems some people are in desperate need of a blow job.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Console Port

    Death of PC gaming, indicating Death of the big rig... lets all go buy a ps3 and an iPad.

    Who were microsoft anyway?

    WTF are the people with a vested interest in proper gaming actually doing?

  16. E 2
    Happy

    Oooh errr!

    That looks very nice!

    I love urban computer warfare!

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