Crysis

[MinisterofDOOM]

Having recently purchased a relative monster of a gaming PC, I picked Crysis up expecting it to be a sort of graphics tech demo with passable gameplay. Instead, I found the early parts of the game to be very fun and masterfully balanced. The free-form mission structure and maps are nicely complimented by the versatile nanosuit (with stealth, armor, strength, and speed modes, allowing you to further enhance your favorite approach to an objective).

The game is nicely challenging, but rarely frustrates. If you fail, you can try a different approach and can turn near-death into a strong upperhand if you're resourceful.

After the first two major segments (the second featuring some great zero-gravity gunplay) the game takes a nosedive, though. You're given tedious objectives and forced to fight tedious amounts of baddies. At one point, you encounter the baddies in a field. You kill two, get ready to move on, and another appears. Then you get ready to move on and ANOTHER appears. The pacing is just horrible and after the first two I just wanted to move on. Standing in the same open clearing and fighting baddie after baddie is not my idea of fun. Then after that you're forced to tolerate the worst idea in all of gaming history, bar none: the escort mission. You must escort an ally who will die if certain criteria are not met. But he's stupid, and things are buggy. Half the time I did my part and he (the ally) simply failed to take 3 extra steps to save his life, forcing me to go back and fight more annoying (and excessively numerous) baddies and try again. Ironically the whole time he was failing to save himself he kept screaming at me to hurry up and help him.That horrible bit is followed a while later by some troop transport flying, and either the game is as sadistic as ALL hell, or it's broken. My aircraft keeps spontaneously dropping out of the sky as though the game has forgotten it can fly. I finally gave up at this point because I tried every possible route and variation imaginable and cannot proceed...the craft keeps dropping like a rock after a certain point, with no indication at all as to what might be causing it...if anything at all aside from bugs.

Disappointing, considering how much fun the earlier parts of the game were.

Another small complaint is the fantastically clunky vehicle handling and nine hour delay after getting into a car before the moron main character decides to turn the key. The vehicle handling seems a bit backward and...random. Tanks are far faster and quicker accelerating AND better handling than pickups or humvees. Why? Humvees are so clunky and numbly delayed in obedience that it almost feels like you're driving drunk.

But the weapons all feel fantastic, and the customization options for them are nice and allow you to suit your tastes in a number of ways.

I think some of the bad guys are a bit too hard to kill at times, though. I'll lay into a guy for SECONDS on end and he'll just stumble trying to return fire. Either the weapons in Crysis have the worst spread of any weapons on earth, or those guys are superhuman.

Despite the handful of frustrations, the $40 "Maximum Edition" (with expansion) is definitely worth picking up if you have a reasonably new computer. The game is actually really scalable as far as what it'll run on, but if you have to back off to absolute minimal settings, you lose a lot of important aspects of gameplay, like destructible structures and accurate physics.

[xekushnr]

I've been thinking about building a new computer if I can save the money. If I do I would definitely get Crysis. I havent even played it yet.

[positron1]

I bought that game a couple of months ago, installed and played the beginning and it's cool! I unfortunately started on something else and put it down and haven't gotten back to it.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Back in 2004 when we bought our Athlon 3200+ rig, I remember picking up Far Cry and being impressed that I could run it at full spec. For the most part it was a great game, but the terrible save point system (you can't save when you want, ONLY at save points) ruined the later stages for me. A lot about that game was fun, but it had little issues. Crysis fixed a lot of those issues but kept most of the good aspects of that game (and improved on others).

Far Cry went through so many remakes and iterations, though...none were as good as the original PC version. The Xbox port, 360 port, Wii port...all the console sequels. They were all really dumbed down and strangely had a lot of major things changed (like main character names). But the Xbox port did have a decent console adaptation of the PC version's level editor to play around with (Crytek's level editors let you jump into any level while in the process of building it on the fly to get a better idea for how it's working out...tons of fun for screwing around).

[positron1]

Okay WTF is up with this game, I'm really enjoying it and I fight my way out of the Alien structure and back down the mountain to the crashed VTOL to rescue Helena and nothing happens. How do I get her out of the VTOL? I've gone over this thing from top to bottom and there's no way to get that thing open...do I have a glitch or something?

[MinisterofDOOM]

You're not supposed to open it. Sounds like your game glitched. There's supposed to be a scripted sequence where Prophet opens the door.

[positron1]

Yeah, I screwed up the sequence when I got out of the jeep by falling down the trench and didn't realize that Prophet was tailing me so I left him up there and that's where I made the error...thanks! Went back and restarted the jeep run from up the mountain and now I'm back on track! This game is excellent!

[Red coupe]

I got up to the part where I had to take out like 4 dishes spread out around the island... and just stopped playing. It wasn't a section that was too hard, it wasn't a rage quit, and I had no complaints.... One day I just never went back.

Aside from the cool suit gimmicks and nice graphics there just wasn't much to make me wanna play it.

[positron1]

It really does get much much better the farther up the island that you push up!

[Red coupe]

It really does get much much better the farther up the island that you push up!

I only have so much time for gaming, and who wants crysis when you could be playing Fallout 3!

[positron1]

Agreed! So much gaming goodness out there these days and so little time! I can't believe that I've gone a week without playing Fallout since I beat it last Saturday but I'm about to dive back in with the DLC and some exploration!

[Red coupe]

Agreed! So much gaming goodness out there these days and so little time! I can't believe that I've gone a week without playing Fallout since I beat it last Saturday but I'm about to dive back in with the DLC and some exploration!

I just started another game after beating the first time. I mostly stuck to the main point of the story, and was a nice guy.

This time I pillaged the s*** out of megaton, then nuked that SOB. TBH a much better choice. Highly recommended, my new home is MUCH nicer.

I honestly was a little worried about fallout, ever since BF2 I have been skeptical of games that don't allow you to use the actual gun sights, and when I saw it was nothing more then aiming with the crosshair I was slightly disappointed. However as soon as I returned triumphant to the brother hood of steal with news about the enclave and literally felt accomplished I knew how good of a game it was.

At no point during crysis did I feel as much a part of my character or as proud of my actions. I just kinda shot people in the face a lot.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Fallout's an RPG and Crysis isn't.

I'd rather play Fallout 3 any day, but I've already finished it. I did start a new "evil" character, but it's not as fun. Honestly, being nice just ensures you don't miss out on opportunities. Being evil, I always have to double and triple check my decisions to make sure I'm not locking myself out of some potential gain down the road. Not worth the hassle. Tenpenny tower sucks...way out in the middle of nowhere, no functional benefits over the house, and you have to go through extra loading screens to get to your room vs just walking into the house. Plus the stupid Roy quest ends inconveniently for your character no matter which way you go if you're living there. Not really much left worth doing in Fallout 3 for me. I've got the last remnants of downtown DC to explore (maybe a dozen map markers left) and that's it. Nothing really compelling. Nothing new.

[Red coupe]

Fallout's an RPG and Crysis isn't.

I'd rather play Fallout 3 any day, but I've already finished it. I did start a new "evil" character, but it's not as fun. Honestly, being nice just ensures you don't miss out on opportunities. Being evil, I always have to double and triple check my decisions to make sure I'm not locking myself out of some potential gain down the road. Not worth the hassle. Tenpenny tower sucks...way out in the middle of nowhere, no functional benefits over the house, and you have to go through extra loading screens to get to your room vs just walking into the house. Plus the stupid Roy quest ends inconveniently for your character no matter which way you go if you're living there. Not really much left worth doing in Fallout 3 for me. I've got the last remnants of downtown DC to explore (maybe a dozen map markers left) and that's it. Nothing really compelling. Nothing new.

I still think of fallout as an FPS. It just incorporates some of the best parts of an RPG.

Time will tell if your opinion of an evil character fits with mine... I am still very early on. (got into the tower, found my room). As of now the main difference is that I have WAY more money, and much more ammo. Plus watching megaton blow up was cool I am not worried about loads, infact if anything they are too f***ing short in this game. There has been a tip or two in the lower left corner that I really wanted to read, but didn't have enough time to.

At anyrate, sorry for leading this thread off topic, I am just hoping that the gaming forum is so desolate that any traffic is good traffic :P

The Crysis engine is very good, but the game itself didn't seem to be much more then playing with the invis suit and shooting people. Perhaps I gave up too early (as I recall, I was at least a few hours into the game) but it really didn't offer anything I cared about other then the very nice and future proof engine, and the cool suit functions. The novelty of the suit funtions wore off quickly....And while my computer is good enough to run the game on medium levels, it isn't enough for the engine to really be worth finishing a game.

[MinisterofDOOM]

No problem with the threadjack. I do it all the time, too.

Actually, on the subject of the crysis engine, you should play around with the editor. It lets you jump into any map you're working on on the fly (in the editor window itself with split-second load time). I've had a lot of fun making a map and then creating and un-creating roads to drive around on (making roads is simple since the editor has a road tool and even auto-levels the roadbed to dampen terrain elevation changes if you want). Plus playing with the VTOL and helicopter is fun.

[Red coupe]

No problem with the threadjack. I do it all the time, too.

Actually, on the subject of the crysis engine, you should play around with the editor. It lets you jump into any map you're working on on the fly (in the editor window itself with split-second load time). I've had a lot of fun making a map and then creating and un-creating roads to drive around on (making roads is simple since the editor has a road tool and even auto-levels the roadbed to dampen terrain elevation changes if you want). Plus playing with the VTOL and helicopter is fun.

Hmmmm, I dunno if my "borrowed" copy lets me play with editor....

Now that I have the hard drive space I may have to re-install and see.

[MinisterofDOOM]

The exectuable should be in your "Bin32" folder for Crysis.