Three years is a long time to wait, but it'll be well worth it for fans of Crytek Studios. That’s how long the wait has been from the release of 2004's 'Far Cry', to the eagerly anticipated release of Crysis earlier this month.
Ok, so they released a one-level playable demo in October, but I suspect many gamers breezed through that and were left hungry for more.
That said, Crysis delivers a full plate of tasty goods. The graphics are stunning and the game play and interaction is just as good so you know this isn’t just about the eye candy. However, in order to take advantage of the good stuff, you will need a fairly current rig, loaded with a fast processor, lots of RAM and a video card that packs some serious heat. After some tweaking, I found that the game played fairly well at 1280x1024 with all settings set to high in DX10. This, on a computer that’s barely two months old.
You could, of course, turn down the settings but after doing so, I noticed a distinct lack of detail, especially in drawing distance with the settings at medium.
Like Far Cry, Crysis is set on an island. I won’t give away too much of the story but it takes place in the near future and involves aliens, archaeologists and North Korean bad guys. You of course play the special forces soldier sent in to save the day. And yes, there is much more to this island than meets the eye.
In order to kick some serious bad-guy butt, the U.S. government has kindly provided you with an exo-skeleton suit/body armour that lets you run, jump and cloak yourself when needed – and you will need all of these functions regularly throughout the game.
Did I mention the weapons? The usual assortment of rifles, pistols, shotguns, and automatic weapons show up throughout the game but you also get some serious soldier-shredding weaponry in the form of a chain gun, shoulder-launched rockets and a rather monstrous looking thing stolen from the alien lair.
In addition, you can enter just about any type of vehicle – Humvee, hovercraft, VTOL aircraft - and use the onboard weaponry at your leisure, or until said vehicle is destroyed, as evidenced by the damage meter at the bottom of the screen. I didn’t think it was possible for a Humvee to survive flipping over five times but there you have it. Took some nasty bad guys with me too.
The bad guys of course are what makes first person shooters a blast (pardon the pun), and Crysis is no exception. Depending on your difficulty setting, the North Korean soldiers will either yell at you in English or Korean – not that it really matters for the most part, since your job is to splatter them - not sit them down and have a heart-to-heart.
The aliens are a whole other issue. You will encounter numerous types during your journey on and in the island. Some are fairly easy to take down and others require quite of bit of time (and ammo), even on the easiest setting. The alien AI is superb – they move fast, and never stay directly in front of you, making the kill that much more challenging. Things get even more hectic in the zero-g confines of the alien mother ship but as promised, I won’t get into specific plot details.
Crysis also has online play for when you tire of the whole one-man-army thing. I didn’t spend a lot of time in the online side but it was fairly easy to create an account and join a game in progress. Online consists of team-based play or deathmatch if you have the whole lone-wolf thing going on.
Aside from the steep hardware requirements, I can’t find any faults in Crysis. The game play is fantastic, intuitive and engaging with the best graphics I have ever been witness to in a PC shooter. If you love first-person shooters and are jonesing for something to play on your shiny new rig, this is the game for you.
WHAM! Rating: |
9.5 out of 10 |
ESRB Rating: |
M (Mature) |
Official Web Site: |
|
|
