Crysis, Crysis 2 and Crysis 3

[NokkonWud]

Crysis 2 Theme:


Crysis:
Year: 2007 & 2011
Format: PC, Xbox 360 & PS3

Crysis Warhead:
Year: 2008
Format: PC

Crysis 2:
Year: 2011
Format: PC, Xbox 360 & PS3

Crysis 3:
Year: 2013
Format: PC, Xbox 360 & PS3

Crysis is a science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts. It was initially released in November 2007 exclusively for Microsoft Windows, but was released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation four years later. A separate game entitled Crysis Warhead was released on September 12, 2008, and follows similar events as Crysis but from a different narrative perspective. Crysis, Crysis Warhead and a multiplayer expansion called Crysis Wars were re-released as a compilation pack titled Crysis Maximum Edition on 5 May 2009. At the time Crysis was released, and years thereafter, it has been praised for its milestones in graphical design (commensurate with high hardware requirements).

As some of you know we're recording a show on both Crysis and Crysis 2 within the next couple of weeks and Crysis 3 is also due.
Please leave your thoughts on the franchise to be read out on the show.

[ratsoalbion]

I need to play Crysis. £10 on Steam is hardly unreasonable but I'm still holding out for a deal

[DomsBeard]

Wouldn't surprise me if the Xbox version went cheap around the release of 3. I've not played Crysis either. Finished the 2nd though and thought it was brilliant.

[ratsoalbion]

Yeah but I'm a PC snob now - got to play the original version at MAXIMUM GWAFYX

[DomsBeard]

Oh no, you're one of ''those'' people!.

[NokkonWud]

I need to play Crysis. £10 on Steam is hardly unreasonable but I'm still holding out for a deal

I paid less than that and got two add-ons with it (which I haven't played.)

[Alex79]

WARNING - POST CONTAINS ONE VAGUE SPOILER ABOUT THE CRYSIS FINAL BOSS


When I first heard about Crysis, I was pretty excited. It looked, to me at least, like a true successor to the original Far Cry game. Far more so than the actual Far Cry sequel we got. When Crysis was released I was pretty sure my computer wouldn't run it, so I borrowed it from a friend. I was glad I did. It ran like a tortoise swimming in treacle. It wasn't until years later that I finally purchased it from the Playstation Network store for about a tenner. At first I found I wasn't enjoying it at all. I loved the graphics, the island setting and the ambient audio, but the game itself I found frustrating. Then someone on a forum suggested I stopped trying to play it like Call Of Duty, and it finally clicked. Crawling through the undergrowth, cloaked, then aim at an enemies head, pop out from under my cloak, BANG one shot kill, recloak... I felt like an invisible killing machine, and it felt good. I really enjoyed the game, right up to the final boss on the aircraft carrier, which is where my save game remains to this day. I'd played the game through on a hard difficulty setting, and I didn't want to drop it just because I couldn't beat the last boss, which I still haven't!

Despite enjoying the game, I wasn't particularly fussed about getting the second game, but when it came out for free on PS+ I obviously snapped it up. I know a lot of people weren't so keen on the sequel, but I much preferred it. It seemed like everything just worked better in this second game. I couldn't describe to you why, or how I enjoyed it more, I just did. The combat just seemed more fun. I couldn't tell you anything about the nonsensical storyline in either games, but they were a fun packed ride from start to finish. The trailer for the third game looks awesome, and I'm definitely looking forward to it this time.

Three word review : Uncloak. BANG! Recloak.

[Alex79]

I need to play Crysis. £10 on Steam is hardly unreasonable but I'm still holding out for a deal

I paid less than that and got two add-ons with it (which I haven't played.)

You ought to, from what I've heard Warhead it pretty amazing.

[NokkonWud]

I need to play Crysis. £10 on Steam is hardly unreasonable but I'm still holding out for a deal

I paid less than that and got two add-ons with it (which I haven't played.)

You ought to, from what I've heard Warhead it pretty amazing.

My PC is knackered, it can't actually play anything like this now. That's why I had to do my completion on the Xbox 360 version.

[delb2k]

This prose is purely for the first title as I have not played the second yet. Having picked it up cheap for the pc I may do a Leon and go for MAXIMUM PAWWWAARRR but will see.

Anyway to the game at hand.

For a long time Crysis was that game I could never have. My PC was too weak and with no conversion on the horizon it always felt as mythical as the developers had set it up to be. And then they brought out a 360 version and I took the chance with both control sticks.

First off the inconsequential. The story, for what it is worth, is just another alien invasion with no real attempt to change anything around. As a canvas it is horribly dull. And graphically the 360 definitely suffers due to what seems to be a particularly odd filter or just a lower resolution, not entirely sure which (possibly both). Either way it was definitely compromised, but not in a way that really affected the game too much. Both of these were more blights that problems, and a shame after so much effort was spent on the actual combat experience.

Next, the downright irritating. Which was pretty much just the final boss who was horribly crap, a real let down, and the pacing of the last few levels with the alien involvement really dragged it down.

it is a linear game with an ideological sense of freedom that it never quite manages to fulfil. It wanted the player to be the ultimate expression of power, might and cunning. While it was never open world it took the best parts of that to present scenarios where the powers available to me could be used however I saw fit. Sometimes I fought from a distance, other times I rushed in and it was these early points, this decision making and power shifting on the fly, where the combat really came alive. Nothing felt as good as stealth stalking an enemy only to power up for a melee attack before switching round and head shotting his comrades.

The guns felt good, powerful and dangerous to use. The enemy were accurate and smart but never overwhelming, hitting a good enough balance to retain a reasonable challenge while not feeling unfair. As a first stab at a genre there were so many pieces that fell right into place early on in this adventure I could not help but be impressed. It did feel like it ran out of steam by the end, where the original goals became marginalised and amalgamated into just another shooter but I definitely had a lot of fun playing it. Makes me think I really should get started on the sequel.

[DomsBeard]

I loved sitting and reviewing the tactical options. I'd always pick the stealthiest way through and I'd get a buzz from making it through a section unseen.

[mik]

Aside from Half Life, this is definitely my favorite FPS series. Crysis gave me my first taste of a sort of free-roaming landscape (and a beautiful one at that) which invited me to devise my own tactics and approach encounters in any way I saw fit. My favorite moment from the first game: running from a trio of soldiers, I cam upon a rope bridge and began to cross it, hoping to get to the other side before the baddies reenacted a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I reach the other side, spun, fired my rocket launcher and destroyed the bridge--dropping the three enemies into the ravine below. So great.

Crysis 2 enthralled me the whole way through. It was probably a much better game than the first--but, you know, you never forget your first time. Still the constant cat and mouse game of Crysis 2 was a thrill--when I have energy to cloak, put my armor up, etc, I'm invincible. As soon as my energy is depleted, I'm as vulnerable as a newborn kitten. So much fun managing that dichotomy.

(also, don't overlook Crysis Warhead. Playing as Psycho on the other side of the island--with an improved graphics engine? Brilliant)

[NokkonWud]

Remember guys, this is the topic of discussion for this weeks recording. Leave your thoughts (good or bad) here as well as any Three Word Reviews, alternatively, give us your Three Word Reviews on Twitter by using the hashtag #CRTWR.

Thanks.

[TomFum]

I loved the Crysis games. the first one was alot of fun, hard as you like but alot of fun, and the end boss killed my PC due to its massiveness, still cant run it on max graphics although i haven't tried in a long time.

Crysis 2 was amazing as well, that game looks the absolute tits and its a really good game, loads of fun, with big fights and big guns. I have alot of love for this series as it shows just how amazing a PC game can look. My only issue was it was taylord more to console way of playing which i thinks wrong, its first and foremost a PC game so dont make the interface for console first then PC, should be the other way round

Im interested to see Crysis 3, i haven't seen much on it but im gonna get it, as i know it will be good.

Three word review for

Crysis 1 - Killed My SLI

Crysis 2 - Lovely Partical Effects (PC only)

[Ghost World]

Earlier tonight I completed Crysis 3 and I'm left wondering where the franchise went wrong. I can forgive Crysis for feeling like a glorified tech demo at times because that's essentially what Crytek, in part, was trying to achieve but at its core it was a game of ambition even if the execution, for me at least, was pretty far off the fun mark. Crysis 2 felt like a game which was streamlined to take into account the criticisms levelled against its predecessor. It may have lacked the open world ambition of the first game but the nanosuit mechanics were refined in a way that made them enjoyable and the more confined play arenas were well crafted and visually (at least on the PC) it was a huge step up from the first game. Neither of these games were masterpieces but both had core philosophies that elevated them above the many run and gun shooters out there.

So let's talk about Crysis 3 and the utter disappointment it turned out to be for me. Crytek seemed to take onboard the criticisms levelled against Crysis & Crysis 2 and presumably set out to make an amalgamation of both games. The open world and jungle foliage from the first and the fun combat arenas of the second but what it achieved wasn't anywhere close to that. Sure, the larger areas are there but you can't then just take small pockets of soldiers and plonk them in the middle and hope they're going to have the same impact as they did in Crysis 2's well thought out multi levelled arenas. The game starts off fairly promising as you pick off enemy soldiers in a shipyard then work your way through the usual corridors and buildings but by the end when the action has become EPIC and the landscape opens up, the thinking man's part of Crysis i.e. the suit management goes out the window, the run and gun style of gameplay is the name of the day and it all just becomes a tedious mess. This isn't helped by Crytek's belief that they have a story worth telling when it really is as generic and gung ho as they come with awful but beautifully mo-capped performances and a story that spirals into dangerous levels of self involved tripe. It wouldn't be so bad if the player had some sort of interactive control but the cut scenes come and go and you're left wondering why you weren't the one pulling the trigger to blow up the dam or firing that all important killer shot, you're just left disillusioned and in a state of apathy for what's going down on the screen.

Lest we forget the graphics. Sure, they're brilliant. I was playing with everything set to max on the PC but they also seem restrictive. We're at a stage where the worlds that we play in can seem realistic. The problem with that is the jarring shock you receive when things don't interact how you think they would in real life. Ledges you think you can walk off and fall to your death have invisible walls, rocks that you believe you can take an elevated position on also have invisible walls even though you can clearly make the jump and many of the bigger fights are merely AI scripts running in the background, There's a few points later on in the game where you have to walk for 10 mins to get to your next objective where nothing happens apart from Cryteck directing your vision TO LOOK AT THE BEAUTIFUL SKY BOXES ALONG THE WAY when what you're hoping for as the player is a Halo-esque let's-blow-that-big-carrier-up just for shits and giggles moment but of course you can't because it's all scripted. Mind you that's not as funny as the unfortunate side effect of the face tech looking so realistic it makes the delivery of the story even more comical than it would otherwise seem.

I could literally go on for pages and pick apart Crysis 3 but I'll sum it up like this: Crysis 3 may look like a next generation game but its feet are firmly rooted in the here and now, which wouldn't be a problem if it had the ambition of Crysis and the brains of Crysis 2 but instead it feels like Crytek has phoned in the third, taken its pay cheque and headed off for pastures new which may explain why it only took 3 hours and 45 minutes to see the credits roll.

[PlexShaw]

So you didn't like it then?

[mik]

I'm really enjoying it--about two levels from completion--save what I think is the game's biggest flaw: the bow.

Tony's dead right that concerns about suit/energy management (my favorite part of Crysis 2) is right out the window. That's because you're given the compound bow very early on in the story and it essentially breaks the game. You typically have to exercise a fair amount of prudence when you're in stealth and decide when you can afford to shoot--since that breaks your stealth. Not so in Crysis 3 with the bow. You can fire the bow without it affecting your ability to remain in stealth at all. Add to that the fact that shots from the bow are almost always one-hit kills AND the fact that you can retrieve all your arrows, making ammos essentially infinite, and, yeah--it's busted.

But it remains, for me, really fun to play. The combat itself still feels really fun and, even though you don't have to, you can still improvise fun ways of eliminating enemies. And, of course, it looks just fucking stellar. You can deride it for being just a pretty face. But... damn, it's an incredibly mesmerizing pretty face.

[NokkonWud]

I put a few hours into the Multiplayer last night, there are some interesting changes from Crysis 2.

Armour and Stealth are now on separate bars and running doesn't effect either. Not sure I am too keen on that, it certainly changes the balance of battle, especially with 'auto armour' modules for when you're being bit.

Another major change is to the stealth, obviously you stay invisible when you use the bow, but when you're in stealth you're a lot harder to see than in Crysis 2, for me, too clear.

I do miss Crysis 2's MP maps, not that the ones in 3 are bad, they're not, this isn't a case of Halo 4 where they're clearly a lot worse than the previous game, some are great, Airport in particular, but Crysis 2 had some real gems.

Overall I am definitely happy though, it's a tighter experience, more polished than Crysis 2, and I can't wait to play with more friends.

[ratsoalbion]

Quite the opposite to Tony, I actually found the early stages quite dull. It was when the levels opened up that I really started to have fun with the suit abilities, stealth, hacking and so on.

[DomsBeard]

I've played the first couple of levels found the handholding dull. Not been back since I started Revengance.