PCGamer Reviews Crysis

Gabe Newell played Crysis 3x on the GamesConvention in Leipzig (Germany).

And he liked the game ;)

good for gabe. But horses for courses as always.

The thing is people aren't trying to deter others from playing the game when they bag it. Unless they absolutely ****ing hate it and post in every single thread about how much it sucks and this part of it sucks and everything sucks and so on. Some people just don't like games others do.
 
Thing is, nobody saying Crysis will be "crap" it will be solid decent fun i predict, but no where near what the hype-machine makes of it. It does follow Far Cry footsteps too closely and the much talked about Nano suit and weapon modifications really do not at all impact the gameplay in a meaningful way. I think it just reduces the challenge and veriety of the game rather make it more "non-linear" becuase there's no need to something else than the Cloak+Armor combo over and over again.
 
The much talked about Nano suit and weapon modifications really do not at all impact the gameplay in a meaningful way. I think it just reduces the challenge and veriety of the game rather make it more "non-linear" becuase there's no need to do something else than the Cloak+Armor combo over and over again.
I'm beginning to find out, even from the hour or so long demo, that the suit does infact have a huge impact on the way you choose to play the game & tackle various situations. Each aspect of the suit has it's own stengths & weaknessness meaning you can't rely on one of them for every situation. For example, maximum armour restricts your movement to a snails pace while you can soak up a lot more damage. Maximum speed only lasts for a short burst & leaves you very vunerable in other areas. So it's maybe great for getting into or out of situations quickly but useless in combat. The cloak also only lasts for a short spell so you can't rely on it for to long. The silencer greatly reduces the weapons effectiveness at range so you might use the cloak to sneak up on some enemies & then pop them at close range.

Far Cry was great because it allowed you more freedom in how you tackled situations. You could amble in Rambo style guns blazing (seldom a solid tactic), you could sneak into a base, tag all the guys on your radar & then take up positions for the best assault. It was hugely satisfying that you could takle things in so many ways. I think Crysis builds on this idea with the nano suit & things are definitely going to get a lot more interesting as you are eased into the game. I'm really, really starting to like this game now. I've got so much play out of the demo so far it's ridiculous! I'm thinking of it as a kind of Crysis training session. Brilliant because when the full game cames along (and I'm buying it now without a shadow of adoubt) I'll already be well versed in the nuances of the nano suit :D

Current verdict on Crysis (based on the demo of course) - Far Cry with hugely improved graphics, better physics & quite possibly the best & most interesting combat system we've ever seen in an FPS.
 
I don't really think so about the suit. In the demo i just cloaked my way through, i would find a cover behind something to change for Aarmor so it will recharge the energy and countinued my cloack killing spree. Even if you find yourself attacked, with Armor on you should ba able to find a spot to regroup and cloack again eventhough the slow speed of the player.

The weapon efectivness is not so good w\o silencers too, enemies just take too much damage.

The super sprinting is usefull for high-tailing a situation and to cover ground between objectives, which is exactly what it ment for i guess.

The game will be worth a playthrough nevertheless, i just hope the quality doesn't dip after the first level like FC.
 
I just went into the editor and edited some of the scripts, and boy do you get some crazy ass results. i made the machine gun of the hover craft shoot nukes, so that there was a massive nuclear explosion. God this game is getting better by the day, and it's only the demo!
 
For example, I don't really give a hoot about the storyline significance of the final Strider battle in EP2. It was far, far to easy & needed more enemies, period! So just put them in. Why should it matter about the storyline? Let's get the gameplay right, challenging & fun & worry about the bloody story later

But a majority of players do care, not to mention that would just undermine everything Valve had done up to that point, its always been story driven for them, so why right at the end of EP2, throw in all these enemies out of nowhere, without any plausable reason of they got there. Thats a very backwards step rather than a fowards step. Not to mention, that most people I have heard said they still reall emjoyed the ending as did I, personally I thought the balance in gameplay was spot on, not too hard, but not too easy.

Far Cry was great because it allowed you more freedom in how you tackled situations. You could amble in Rambo style guns blazing (seldom a solid tactic), you could sneak into a base, tag all the guys on your radar & then take up positions for the best assault.

Actually, the only freedom Far Cry offered in terms of combat was a direction of attack or to gain height advantage or something, stealth was none existant in it. As soon as you silently took out a gaurd in any of the bases then the entire place would erupt and chopper would appear within minutes. I mean bloody hell, if you just happened to snag a tree while trying to sneak in they would call in the choppers.
 
So awhile ago we clamped down on Halo vs Half-life threads, and that's because it's such a pointless and inane argument; it'll crop up from time to time in threads outside of the two games, and that's fine because it's not like we're going to stop you talking about it altogether. It's the exact same with Crysis vs Half-life or whatever other game you want to throw out there. It's pointless, and it's not going to worm its way into these threads.

By all means, rave about how awesome Crysis is, or condemn it for basically being Far Cry 1.5, but you're not going to bash it to shit because it's not as good as Half-life, or that Crysis stamps on Half-life and this is why, because people are just going to grab the torch and go running and we'll have some fruitless ****ing debate that stretches the thread over a dozen pages with people throwing their toys out of the pen. Not happening.

Back on topic.

(Yes, I deleted the rant posts. If anyone wrote a chunk and would like them back, feel free to pm me and you can post them elsewhere. And by that I mean where they are relevant.)
 
You still haven't explained what "Horses for courses" means.
 
Every thread about Crysis turns into a 10+ page thread.
Wtf? Samon, don't you think you should make a Crysis forum?
 
it means
kisslow2.jpg
 
So awhile ago we clamped down on Halo vs Half-life threads, and that's because it's such a pointless and inane argument. It's the exact same with Crysis vs Half-life or whatever other game you want to throw out there. It's pointless.
It is. Because HL2 & Far Cry ..... sorry Crysis are 2 very different games with quite clearly different approaches & I think that's great. It's good to have some variety in the FPS, shoot-em-up genre. We have this diversity because of games like HL & it's a very good thing. So like Samon says it's totally pointless pitching one against the other. They're both excellent games in their own rights.

On the whole Far Cry 1.5 thing - I guess it was inevitable that Crysis would be very much like Far Cry. Personaly I'm not to bothered about this because I was a huge Far Cry fan. Obviously from the point of view of Crytek it also makes a lot of sense because Far Cry was hugely succseful. Why would they do things so differently? We all loved the original HL & for HL2 we basically wanted more of the same & we got it only with much better graphics, a fantastic physics engine + a few bold additions like vehicles. Same with Crysis. It's Far Cry with knobs on & I'm glad about this ........ on the other hand, what's the deal with Far Cry 2? It seems that this will be more different from Far Cry than Crysis is!!
 
Both Half Life 2 and Crysis have their strengths. Lets leave it at that.
 
An ex-girlfriend of mine used to ride horses. But during a show jumping tournement the horse had a fall & it landed on her legs. She was paralised from the waste down for about 3 weeks. She was lucky to be able to walk again at all apparently! You hear about to many serious accidents to make it sound like a good idea to me. Look at Christopher Reeve. I mean if a Horse can f**k up Superman what chance have the rest of us got?


Anyway, back on track. Crysis is definitely shaping up to be the horse for my course. I've just realised that I've not even fired up EP2, TF2 or Portal since getting the demo (these are the only other games installed on my system). I keep meaning to but then I end up clicking on the Crysis demo. There's so much replay value in that alone because of the non-linearity of the levels. That's one thing that I will definitely say about Crysis over HL2. Sure HL2 & the episodes have replay value because they're so good (I've played through HL2 about 3 times, EP1 twice & I'm on my second time through EP2). But everything always plays more or less the same. Not so with Crysis. Obviously the goals are the same but you can tackle them in any number of ways. It's hugely rewarding gameplay.
 
I just rode a donkey once..

And an elephant :D
 
I was put off by the demo. Took 3 - 4 shots to down someone when shooting them in the head.
 
I was put off by the demo. Took 3 - 4 shots to down someone when shooting them in the head.

Uhh...you weren't shooting them in the head then. :upstare:

Even with a silencer on a pistol, enemies were downed with a headshot.
 
Shame it's not coming out on XBOX 360. My PC can't play the demo in anything greater than 800 x 600 without having a fit and I aint upgrading for 1 game.
 
Uhh...you weren't shooting them in the head then. :upstare:

Even with a silencer on a pistol, enemies were downed with a headshot.

I noticed it happening both ways. I think if you headshot them while they're unsuspecting, they'll die one shot, but otherwise they dont. Also, does shooting while cloaked deliver more damage? I noticed it takes away most of your suits energy if you shoot from cloaked.
 
I noticed it happening both ways. I think if you headshot them while they're unsuspecting, they'll die one shot, but otherwise they dont. Also, does shooting while cloaked deliver more damage? I noticed it takes away most of your suits energy if you shoot from cloaked.

No extra damage is done while attacking from cloak. It's takes away the energy so you can't re-cloak right off the bat.
 
I would assume the loss of cloak energy is explained as the cloak trying to cover up the weapon flash, etc.

Also, I'm pretty sure whoever mentioned 'unsuspecting' headshots being the only fatal ones. Which is of course stupid as hell. Just because you're looking at the barrel of the gun does not make it any less dangerous.

But then, I haven't played the demo much.
 
reading through this thread makes me feel as if 70% of the posters have in fact been replaced by Samon, (no offense intended, samon)

Why all the hating attitude? It took a while for me to get crysis sp demo running due to some shitty nvidia issues, but once i got it running, it was a blast.

the AI aren't geniuses, but they are definitely better than most AIs seen in games now. The voice acting doesn't detract from the story like farcry did. The graphics support the gameplay as well as well as providing an assload of immersion and interaction. While the game is linear in the respect that all roads lead to rome, you can take whatever route you can see, cut through forests, drive on roads, take a boat, swim. its all available.

In addition, the pure shooty aspects combine just the right amount of arcadiness with realism to keep me entertained long after the graphics no longer hold all the appeal. More interation and attention to detail than any other games i can think about thats for sure.

The game feels awesome on delta mode, BTW.

P.S. God bless my 8800 ;)
 
I've played the demo and the reason Crysis pwns so much is not just due to the graphics, but the innovative and balanced gameplay they created.

Without having to load different levels and restricting the player to certain solutions, the player is free to take on each obstacle in their own way. Whether it be cloaking and taking out enemies on by one, or by rushing in and going all Rambo on their ass.

I agree Flyingdebris, delta difficulty mode is cool because instead of just increasing health damage or AI intelligence to make the game harder, they disabled certain "helper" features like crosshairs and GUI hints (ie: grenade warnings).
 
reading through this thread makes me feel as if 70% of the posters have in fact been replaced by Samon, (no offense intended, samon)

Why all the hating attitude? It took a while for me to get crysis sp demo running due to some shitty nvidia issues, but once i got it running, it was a blast.

the AI aren't geniuses, but they are definitely better than most AIs seen in games now. The voice acting doesn't detract from the story like farcry did. The graphics support the gameplay as well as well as providing an assload of immersion and interaction. While the game is linear in the respect that all roads lead to rome, you can take whatever route you can see, cut through forests, drive on roads, take a boat, swim. its all available.

In addition, the pure shooty aspects combine just the right amount of arcadiness with realism to keep me entertained long after the graphics no longer hold all the appeal. More interation and attention to detail than any other games i can think about thats for sure.

The game feels awesome on delta mode, BTW.

P.S. God bless my 8800 ;)

We (or at least most of us) arnt saying its going to be a bad game. Im willing to bet that I'll enjoy it and most of the people in this thread will too, but we are sick of all the super positive press and hype its getting that we feel is undeserved.
 
I think I'll be holding out for the Zero Punctuation review on this one, so far he's been spot on with a number of games, in terms of their positives and deficits. There seem to have been a rash of occurrences in the last few years of games reviewers throwing out insanely high scores that months later look more than ridiculous in the cold light of day. All I'm really hearing when reading through what people say about the game is that it looks great and the combat is fun, but nothing about there being a compelling storyline or interesting characters. Without those aspects as well I'm really not seeing the draw, because if I want tight combat, online MP is always more challenging than ingame AI ever proves to be.
 
let me put in another way, what FPS games tackle as much as crysis does and are better?

(edit) yeah, i as well want to see 0 punctuation's take.
 
let me put in another way, what FPS games tackle as much as crysis does and are better?

Do you think that Crysis is more than it's game engine? What I mean by that is, do you think the game feels crafted beyond the visceral nature of the graphics and AI, in the same way HL2 and Bioshock were?
 
i think it has the potentional to.

gonna need to play the game fully before i can answer that. but right off the bat i enjoy the combat considerably more.
 
the AI aren't geniuses, but they are definitely better than most AIs seen in games now. The voice acting doesn't detract from the story like farcry did. The graphics support the gameplay as well as well as providing an assload of immersion and interaction. While the game is linear in the respect that all roads lead to rome, you can take whatever route you can see, cut through forests, drive on roads, take a boat, swim. its all available.

In addition, the pure shooty aspects combine just the right amount of arcadiness with realism to keep me entertained long after the graphics no longer hold all the appeal. More interation and attention to detail than any other games i can think about thats for sure.

The game feels awesome on delta mode, BTW.

P.S. God bless my 8800 ;)

You must be joking. The AI was no better than that in Farcry (okay, maybe slightly better. I did notice they were better at deciding when and where to lob grenades, and were also much better at doing reconaissance), but the AI was by no means revolutionary. Most of the time they would just sit there and shoot at me, and I could easily just get behind a rock, wait for a few seconds, pop one in the head, run to another rock, wait fora few seconds, repeat. In one instance, I was able to jump onto one of the boats, confusing the driver and and the gunner and causing them to drive around in circles until I punched each of them to death. Then I was able to mow down every infantryman on the beach, because apparently crytek decided not to give them any AI instructions for what to do when a boat is shooting you at a distance other than "run to the edge of the water and throw grenades".

The enemies are exactley the same as the ones in farcry. You have the generic mercenary folk (except this time they have unoriginal, trite korean accents (speaking english no-less) rather than unoriginal muscle-heads speaking in professional-wrestlerese, you have the guys sitting in jeeps, and the boats that are exactley the same as the ones in far cry. At least in this demo, it felt precisely like I had loaded up that mediocre shooter from the past up and applied a graphics patch to it.

The voice acting is also shit. "I will kill you american pig dog!" is hardly better than "your ass is grass!". The graphics are quite good, but unfortunatley everything on medium settings brings my 1900 pro XT to its knees, and I rarely get above 10 FPS in firefights without dropping shadows, shaders and textures to low.

The open-ended nature of the game, I feel, is its greatest weakness. Since it is indeed linear, yet still open, the player is able to bypass most all of the game. For instance, I saw no reason to go across the beach when I could swim the entire way, and that I did indeed do. Other times I would simply jump up the side of a mountain and completely bypass all combat altogether. What good is content in a game when the player can just avoid it?

Also, I hated and I mean HATED having my view taken away from me whenever the game decided that there was an important story event I had to see. I really wish all games would take the valve route and abandon the stupid cut scenes altogether. If there's anything that ruins immersion, its to have your view and controls taken away from you, while your character spouts stuff in a tough-guy accent.
 
You must be joking. The AI was no better than that in Farcry (okay, maybe slightly better. I did notice they were better at deciding when and where to lob grenades, and were also much better at doing reconaissance), but the AI was by no means revolutionary. Most of the time they would just sit there and shoot at me, and I could easily just get behind a rock, wait for a few seconds, pop one in the head, run to another rock, wait fora few seconds, repeat.
When the last time in a game were enemies reacted to building being bashed apart while they are inside? When was the last time they shot down trees so that they would fall on the player? When was the last time they dodged a bunch of logs rolling down at them? When was the last time AI actually snuck around behind me while I was shooting every one else then killed me?

The voice acting is also shit. "I will kill you american pig dog!" is hardly better than "your ass is grass!".
I can tell some one has yet to play on delta, which also reduces the AI a little as well.

The graphics are quite good, but unfortunatley everything on medium settings brings my 1900 pro XT to its knees, and I rarely get above 10 FPS in firefights without dropping shadows, shaders and textures to low.
I have a AMD X2 socket 939 4200+, 1gb ddr ram, and a x1950xtx, and can run it on med with some options on high @ 1440x900 no problems.

Also there is no Pro Xt, only a Pro or a XT.
 
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