Crysis Review - 8th Oct

After the run-down with Far Cry 2 on the 27th Sept, which can be found HERE, I continued on to try and finish Crysis, which I did yesterday. And so, here's a small review of the game in my own experience and opinion. It took me about 10 hours plus or take to finish this and it's indeed short.

Well, the game starts with a nice note, a group of elite US Marines trying to save an archeologist who were captured by the North Korean Army. The time line is in the near future. Although its in the near future, not many things actually reminds us of this. You are a part of the elite US Marines and you play as "Nomad" although your real name / how you look like is unknown, and you wear a high-tech nanosuit with various powers such as superhuman strength, speed, cloaking and can also turn your suit into a tough regenerative armor. In the story then you will encounter alien technology which is rather unknown and not reveal a lot in detail even at the end of the game. What's known about them is that they're biological, absorbs energy and they're over thousands of years old.

Graphically, it was pretty impressive. Although my settings is where all were set to medium (on a 8600gt), it still manages to look great with the shadows and glare still breathtaking. I did, a couple of times, just stand and look at the surroundings without doing anything else. The forests themselves look pretty much realistic although you can still tell its computer graphics. Instead, the alien world, doesn't look too convincing to me and it's just bland. The cut-scenes themselves are quite good but I'm annoyed as to why Dr.Rosenthal just doesn't look like realistic, but more like a simply made model. She's one of the main NPC's of the game and essential to the story, why not make her look nicer? Other than that, I do not have much other qualms about the graphics, in short, its really great. Sometimes, people would compare this to Far Cry 2, but I would say that in comparison to Crysis, Far Cry 2 is not much of a looker as there isn't really much to see in Far Cry 2.

In terms of gameplay, it was pretty fun at the start but a couple of things put me off.  One would be the lack of weapons and second would be the lack of the ability to combo the suit powers. I mean, so as long as I'm within the confines of power consumption, combining powers should be fine? Like say, strength and cloaking. In this game, its only either powers activated at certain times. The lack of guns is apparent after a while, but maybe due to its short gameplay, it makes it not too noticeable. Another would be the satisfaction of shooting someone down is just not there. If compared to Far Cry 2, the satisfaction is there, which I'm not sure is caused by which reasons, but I was hoping something similar. Without the satisfaction, it sure would seem bland. Overall, the gameplay it just as expected from an FPS (with exception of COD), with tonnes of shooting action. Combine the nanosuit powers and the shooting action of the game, its not too much of a new experience but its sort of an extension of the current FPS out there at the moment.


Overall, the scores for Crysis are:-
Gameplay:- 7/10
Graphics:- 9/10
Story:- 5/10
Overall:- 8/10

I was thinking to buy Crysis Warhead, but some review says that Crysis and Crysis Warhead is almost similar and do not vary much in terms of gameplay, which puts me off buying Crysis Warhead. Anyone got any first-hand experience on this?