Video Game Review: Crysis

Crysis heralds the birth of an awesome new franchise for the PC. The hype has been on for the last couple of months and even my dinky demo review received over 1,000 hits (thank you Google Analytics), which is a big deal for me. The interest and expectations have been high, just as high as Halo 3 in fact. In the title of my review, I asked if "Crysis can live up to the expectations?"

This review seeks to answer that question.

By now if you have heard of Crysis, you would have heard about the next gen graphics that it will bring and how great they are. You will also have heard about the high system requirements. Since I reviewed the graphics in my demo review, I will not go there. Sufficient to say that even on my DX9 machine they look good, however certain features have to be turned off to get acceptable frame rates.

Sound plays a key role and not only are the SFX of weapons and explosions well done, the voice acting is generally quite good too, expect for the use of stereo-types to differentiate characters, which detracts from the gameplay.

My concern was that we will be getting a pretty game but not much else, but Crytek manages to deliver a game that is almost like watching a great action epic. Set in the year 2020, the story is about a Delta Force operative code named Nomad who wears a nanosuit which basically turns him into a superhero. The suite makes him stronger so he can grab the enemy by the neck and toss him into his comrades,or allowing him to jump on top of buildings, it makes him faster, and can turn him invisible for brief stretches of time.

He is sent into a rescue a science team, that has made an unusual discovery, kidnapped by the North Koreans at the beginning of the game. Things escalate from the moment of airdrop and the action doesn't let up for the rest of the game until one of the best climaxes in recent memory.

The game starts off on the beaches and jungles of a tropical island, however soon you find yourself inside an alien ship, then in a deadly winter wonderland and finally on the deck of an aircraft carrier. The game has you using various weapons, however only after the midway point that you get to use the more cooler weapons. The game will have you driving enemy jeeps, big trucks, and in one of the more memorably missions have you flying a VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) plane in the jungle canyons while aliens chase you. Also in an earlier sequence, it has you fighting off aliens in massive interiors in weightless conditions, then in another scene almost out of Matrix Revolutions where the humans defend Zion, it will have you fighting off flying squid machines from inside a anti-aircraft vehicle. Very cool.

While aliens look quite a lot like the squid machines in Matrix, they are extremely tough and you really need to fire continuously to take them down making you expand ammo at a frightening rate. There are always guns and ammo dropped by dead soldiers, but you are always consciously looking for extra ammo because you don't know when you will be swarmed by the aliens. This makes for some tense moments.

The AI is also one of the better ones from recent memory. The enemy soldiers use cover, team work, a couple of well placed grenades and generally try to outflank you. The aliens are also pretty smart, although their use of tactic's is not as apparent as the North Korean soldiers.

Some niggles though.. while the music is appropriately epic, it gets a bit repetitious , especially during load times. Then there were some funny bugs in which the collusion detection was turned off making it impossible to kill certain enemy soldiers. This only happened once or twice and is easily fixed by quitting the game and getting back in, it is annoying. The game is stable and never once crashed.

I completed game in 10 hours at the normal setting, with multiple loads of the many quick saves, which makes it quite a short game. While the story ended, there is a wide open door left for a sequel.

I didn't get to try the multiplayer yet as my connection is quite slow and I am getting unreasonable ping rates.

This is one of the coolest games that I have played recently making it an ideal candidate for Game of the Year award. While Bioshock was great, it let it's technical issues detract from game play. Crysis is one of the rare games that ship with virtually no bugs. Great work Crytek.. and thank you.

Not only does Crysis have a strong storyline, but also action set-pieces that are frantic in amazingly beautiful locations. If your system can handle it, then this is a must for any PC -based gamers, if you have a DX10 machine, then it will be a memorably experience.