Crysis Single Player Demo Reviewed

The wait is almost over with the release of Crysis SP demo, a game that has somehow created almost unreal expectation rivaling Halo 3 for the 360 crowd, whereas Halo 3 actually delivered. So far the PR and marketing efforts have been by the book, doing just about everything right, however the biggest question in PC gamers mind is whether the game will deliver or will it end up being another Daikatana.

If you must know the back story, you play a nano-suit wearing Jake Dunn of the US Delta Force sent to investigate what turns out to be an crashed (?) Alien ship on a tropical island held by the North Koreans. Because it is a review of a demo, I am keeping the back story alone - it won't be fair for me to comment on it. Additionally my machine is a DX9 machine, so I will be missing out on all the bells and whistles, in fact my machine is right on the Minimum System requirements - however there was talk about the game being able to scale to DX9 machines, so I will be able to comment in that.

Here is my experience with the SP demo, a whopping 1.7 GB download on my crappy ADSL connection. Keep in mind that my system is a AMD X 2 4200+, 2 GB mem with a Nvidia 7800 GTX 256K running XP SP2 with all updates, so while it is not a slow system, it is missing out on all the other DX10 stuff.

Lets get into the graphics first. Make sure you have the latest graphic drivers.

I let the game decided what the optimum graphic settings should be and it ran quite well, although I do get rocks, trees and people popping out in the distance quite frequently. It didn't bother me much, but it does detract from the game play. However even at Low setting, the trees, the foliage, the mist, granade explosion work quite well, although not as atmospheric as say.. Bioshock.

So I went back and made just about everything to 'High,' textures to shadows, turn on AA etc.. the load times increased noticeably, but once in the game it ran quite well, though I see some stuttering. In messy firefights, things slow down noticeably - which is not cool. But it did look great. At this time I am experimenting with several settings, but I am confident that I can find a mix of pretty and performance. So I am not too worried if the shipped game will run so that I get a decent experience on my system.

All the regular FPS conventions are there, the W.S.A.D for movement, R for Reload, Tab for Objectives etc..which is not a bad thing. It takes a while to get used to controlling the nano-suit functions, which is done through the Middle Mouse button. On my Logitech G5 it is a scroll wheel, so it is a bit awkward, however you get used to it pretty soon.

Sound effects are pretty good too, the guns fire realistically, grenades explode with a proper crump. Voice acting for the Delta Force team is pretty good from Prophet (stereotypical African American), Psycho (an Aussie??? in Delta Force?), Aztec (Spanish American) etc.. however the North Koreans speak in stereotypical Asian accent - 'I kill you now,' 'Ahh, don't be afraid.' And yes, there is swearing in the game too.

Some niggles though. The weapons are not as effective as in other games - even the Automatic rifle with all the silencers and reflex Scopes will mostly fail to take down an enemy with a single shot to to head - even at close range. Then there is the matter of the health - there are no unrealistic health packs to be picked up lying around, the nano-suit will automatically 'recharge,' your health, all you have to do is duck behind a cover to recharge; the problem is that - unlike Halo, where there is an audible cues that tell you when your shield is down or has been recharged, in Crysis, you just get the audio warning that your energy levels are low.

From what I have seen, Crysis looks promising, even with my old system, I am getting decent frame rates and decent graphics. If the storyline turns out to be compelling as promised, EA has a hit in their hands. I will definitely get it.

As an aside, I managed to visit EA Game Show in my area (see some photos I took). Crysis was the biggest thing there, but there were a few other titles like the Sims or 360 titles on display.

Expected release date is mid November.