Crysis Review

Crysis had been on my must-buy list even before the demo was out. I was bought by the hype that surrounded it. But, as the release date of the game approached nearer, I found myself wondering whether I really want to buy this game, when I have already bought so many fantastic shooters recently, especially with CoD 4 and The Orange Box, which had so much replayabilities with its robust multiplayer features. And the more I read the previews and watched the demos, I started to realize Crysis wasn't really my cup of tea. However, I still bought the game in the end (well, partly because it was on promotion, got the game for only S$44.90). And hence here I bring you my review of Crysis.

The plot of Crysis is pretty standard for a shooter. You're a special ops agent sent into an island in North Korea to save a few archaeologists, but turns out your enemies are not only the North Korean army. The archaeologists have discovered alien lifeforms from their diggings, and *surprise!* these aliens are not friendly. And hence for the second half of the game you'd be battling them, which, to be honest, I find to be a relief after fighting all those irritating North Koreans.

I can't seem to appreciate the supposedly next-gen graphics that Crysis had promised -- sure, they look great, but they weren't nothing that I haven't seen from other games (personally, I felt that Episode 2 looked better). But, maybe it's partly because I had set the graphics settings to medium, which was the optimal settings for my rig. Which brings us to another issue. The thing is, my computer can be considered to be on the higher end as compared to those that most gamers have. If that's the best settings that I can enjoy at without any framerate issues, what about the rest of the gamers? Even if Crysis looks badass at the highest settings, most people won't be able to have access to it, given the limits of their system spec.

My second issue with Crysis would be a more controversial one. For the first half of the game, when you are fighting the North Koreans on the island, the gameplay is pretty much a sandbox type of gameplay -- you have total freedom to choose your methods of finishing your objective. Maybe it's just me, but I don't really dig this kind of gameplay. In addition, the map of the island is such that the route to your objective is more or less the same, and most of the time the missions have you infiltrate into the enemy's base to retrieve some data or jam their radar, so much so it gets pretty repetitive. Also, I found myself more often than not sneaking into the base Solid Snake style, not solely because I like to do that, but it's partly due to the fact that it's probably the only way to do it without getting killed.

Which brings me to my next gripe. What's up with the North Koreans anyway? They wearing nanosuits too? I swear these guys take way too many bullets to kill. The enemy can get riddled by tons of bullets and yet still be able to stand firm and fire back at you. It's really frustrating when you've thought you had silenced the enemy only to see them still alive and kicking as if they weren't injured at all.

It may seem that my experience with Crysis was a negative one looking at all the complaints that I had. However, I have to admit I do enjoy the second part of the game when you are battling all the aliens. I know that there are a lot of people out there who think otherwise; they prefer the freedom you have while fighting the North Koreans on the island and absolutely hated the linear gameplay that dominated the second half of the game. I guess it's a matter of taste, and that is probably why I'd rank Call of Duty 4 over Crysis in my personal list of Game of The Year.

PC Gamer gave Crysis a whooping 98%, a score that is only rivaled by games such as Half Life 2, but I beg to differ. To me, it's just another above average shooter with an innovative nanosuit feature.

Score: 7.5/10
The good: Nanosuit feature is cool.
The bad: Need a really good computer to achieve next-gen graphics, hard to kill enemies.

PS: Seems like the game didn't have any in-build screenshot taker, so I had played through the whole game without taking any screenshots. I don't think I'll be replaying the game anytime soon, so if you are looking for screenshots, check out other sites such as IGN.