Crysis.
The mere word makes the mind wander to islands, lush jungles, white beaches, and people to shoot. The mind is correct in thinking these things. Crysis is Crytek's second project, after Far Cry and its pitiful sequels. You play as Jake "Nomad," Dunn, an operative for the US Special Forces, as part of Raptor Team. Of course, you're not alone, silly. Why'd you think that?
Your team consists of yourself, your commander Prophet, your British mate Psycho, a Hispanic guy named Aztec, and Jester. Dunno where he's from, exactly, but assume they're all from America unless otherwise stated.
You probably already know that Crysis is basically the most hyped game this side of Deus Ex, but the hype is unfounded in some aspects of the game. Many features, such as the branching storyline, have been removed from the full game. Some have been changed, like the graphics (Toned down, though this can be corrected. Google Crysis Graphical Tweaks.), and the TAC bullet system, which became sleeper bullets that make your target pass out upon impact.
But, the game is still good. It has easily the best graphics and physics that I've seen in a game, trees snap where they're shot, buildings collapse from grenade blasts, and Koreans fly through the air merrily after being thrown by the neck. By you, naturally.
That's another thing, you're fighting North Koreans in this game. But, that is not all you're fighting. From the start of the game, you're exposed to many paranormal phenomena. Look around a lot while you're 'chuting to the island in the first part of the game, you'll see what tackles you and botches EVERY DAMN THING UP.
Gameplay is fun, yet similar to many other FPSes. Nomad (That's you.) is not your ordinary soldier, oh no, he is a KRYPTONIAN. Just kidding, he's actually part of the nanosuit prototype project, which outfits the best of the best with special exosuits. These give their bearer extraordinary powers.
You have four modes, strength, speed, armour, and cloak. Strength is the most fun, yet least used, of the modes. You can punch through walls and surprise a NK soldier as he pisses in an outhouse, then grab him by the neck and lob him through a tree. Also, you're able to perform super high jumps, and fire weapons with less recoil than normal in strength mode.
Speed is the second least-used, giving you, you guessed it, super speed. For a limited time, of course, but it's good for legging it after jumping in over your head, or as an alternative to the vehicles. NK soldiers recoil in shock if you super speed up to them, too. Which is fun.
Armour does what it says on the tin, being the most (Or second most, depending upon your playstyle) useful power. It basically uses up your suit's energy reserves to let bullets ping off your outer shell, like gnats biting a mule. Then your suit energy fails and you die, but it's fun while it lasts. Use liberally.
Cloak is the final, and second most useful power. It lets you blend in to your surroundings, hiding from the short-sighted enemies. Works well in combination with a bush, and prone mode, but your energy gets eaten up like fat-free pies in a weight loss meeting while you run in this mode. Use with caution.
Now, on to the weapons. The enemies in Crysis seem to be made of Kevlar, and are thus capable of absorbing 6 bullets to the FRICKING TORSO while they're FRICKING ASLEEP. Either that, or the guns are utter bollocks. The rifles are.. Rifles. SCAR ammo is SCARce (See what I did there?), so dump it for the NK rifle early on. The minigun is.. Fun. Shoot it while shouting "SO MUCH BLOOD!!!" and you get the full experience. The shotgun is rather useful in close-quarters combat, but is otherwise useless.
The gauss rifle is very useful in the latter parts of the game, as it eats aliens for breakfast, lunch, and tea. The precision rifle is bollocks. Just use the NK rifle with a sniper scope and laser sight thingy. The pistol is a pistol. What more can I say?
That's about it for guns, on to enemies. The enemies in Crysis are smart. They throw frag grenades, split up to hunt you down, and use turrets for suppressing fire. They're also lifelike if not alerted. They smoke, sleep, wash cars, lie down, piss, talk to each other, go on patrols, everything you could expect from a small military outpost.
I won't even mention the multiplayer. Much. It's utter shite, just don't play it.
The maps are generally huge in both SP and MP (Perhaps its only redeeming feature), covering enough space for a helicopter to take a while to traverse it. Helicopters are also bastards. Kill them whenever you think you can. Use missile launchers or jeep-mounted machine guns.
The vehicles are pitiful, exploding way too easily, taking tons of damage from small knocks, and other rather bad things. I quite liked piloting the VTOL, conversely, but the tank level was horrific. The only good thing about vehicles in Crysis is ramming them into small huts and watching them explode in a glorious display of physics, and shooting down helicopters without dying horribly.
The storyline is acceptable, of the average action film style. The ending left me wanting more, because it was a cliffhanger mainly, but it's going to be a trilogy of games anyway so let's hope Crysis 2 isn't gonna do another Halo on us.
The last boss was rather clichéd, involving an Independence Day-esque "Nuke in hole at the bottom of big ship," death. The level in the alien ship is confusing, though that's what it's meant to be since it's in zero-gravity, but the relief I felt when I finally got out of there was immense. The gooey aliens are tricky bastards by the way. Shoot them before they cotton on to you, or just evade them.
Last of all, perhaps the biggest turn-off out of Crysis. It eats computers for a mid-afternoon snack then heartily belches until a little bit of vomit comes up and it needs a drink of water. Sorry, that got a bit deep, but anyway, you need a very, very, very good system to run Crysis on high settings at a good FPS. Doesn't even look that great without a graphical tweak, anyway.
Once more, my review has ended. I'd give Crysis a score of 8/10. It looks magnificent with a graphical tweak, though we shouldn't need that, it plays well, though disappointed me due to its lack of some features Crytek showed in earlier videos. The MP is crap, so don't buy it for that. If you see Crysis and think your computer can run it, pick it up.
Sith
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