User Review : Crysis 2

Is nanotechnology really the future?

2011 has turned out to be quite the year for sequals with great expectations from gamers and reviewers alike. Dragon Age 2, Portal 2, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Duke Nukem Forever are just some of the big names set to be released this year, and a strange feeling follows in their wake. It’s almost as if we were to enter a new era with these games acting like a gateway between here and there. Perhaps it’s because we feel that this generation of consoles and game engines have played their part, and we are hungry for something new and exciting. With the previous statement in mind, we raise our expectations above natural levels to mark a new line.

Crysis 2 is one of those sequals I daresay carried a lot of weight on it’s shoulders. It’s predecessor was a benchmark success, and was widely considered the game with the best graphics anyone had ever seen before at the time. Hell, I even remember overhearing people talking about it in school, often in conjunction with their badass computers that were able to handle the game with maxed out settings and no lag.

Crysis became a way to brag, and a way to messure your computer versus others. It is therefore no surprice that we would expect no less from a sequal. Now the time has come, and our critical eyes has been activated. We are literally ready to fire our guns as we start up the game for the very first time.

Set in a futuristic New York, Crysis 2 starts out with a CGI showing off some of what the CryEngine 3 can do. Here you immidiately stumble on the realization that you probably will spend the next 10 minutes just watching this could-have-been trailer for a hollywood sci-fi movie. You get to witness some inital and surprisingly realistic footage covering the events that occurred during the three years that have passed since the first game. At first I was certain I was watching a live action part, not only because the graphics were good, but because it actually looked like real news footage from a normal day in central park. The place then gets overrun by alien warships, and eventually takes on the presence of a post-apocalyptic city seen in every FPS game you have ever played before (sort of) making New York the ultimate battleground for warfare.

The player takes on the role of Alcatraz, the silent marine protagonist of the game. He gets washed up as the only survivor after his submarine is destroyed somewhere near the Statue of Liberty, and is then rescued by Laurence ”Prophet” Barnes from the first game. It turns out that he is dying from a lethal virus infestation, and so relinquishes his nanosuit and gives it to you while you’re unconcious. The game begins as he bestows the responsibility of saving the entire world on your ass and then commits suicide.

Gameplay has been improved to be consistantly more fluid, especially in combat. As you make your way through the streets of New York, battling both marine special forces and aliens with your signature SOF Combat Assault Rifle (SCAR), you are often forced to improvise on the situation. You also have the possiblity of using your binoculars to scan the area for tactical advice once you encounter a blockade of enemies in your environment, which makes for some great variation in your tactical approaches. A common feature in FPS games these days is the powerslide ripped straight out of Mega Man, and Crysis 2 is no exception. Sometimes the game will suggest it is most the tactically smart manouver to do, which on a personal note I think is right down badass.

Though while there are different ways to access a location, you are still tied in this closed-in atmosphere throughout most of the game. Even more so than the first game actually, or at least we can say that in this game you don’t even get the illusion that there are accessible landscape in every direction around you. Subways, scyscrapers and buildings placed close to eachother tend not to make for that many open world scenarios.

The main element of this game is of course once again the nanosuit. The power of nanotechnology compels you! You will see the return of the power-wheel interface from the first game that control its main functions. Cloaking, maximum armor, and weapon mode customization have taken a step up and are reformed to be more balanced and easier to accommodate.But you musn’t be fooled. There is no Maximum Speed anymore, it’s simply sprinting that is your ”fast” way of travelling. Maximum Strength has been partly integrated into your Maximum Armor, which isn’t a permanent mode anymore. It’s activated for a period of time until your energy runs out just like any other power. There are, however, some other significant changes to the way the game plays, due to the implementation of unique suit upgrades that are gained through progression.

Your nanosuit is very different than it was in the first game, and doesn’t have its full potential unlocked when you start the game. Certain enemies will drop what can be best described as some kind of nanotech points, and once you have accumulated a certain amount you can use it to purchase upgrades to your suit.

With a total number of twelve split into four consecutive groups, these upgrades will evolve your suit abilities to make them better in several ways. Some upgrades will make your standard powers last longer, others will allow you tactical advantage such as being able to see bullet paths to determine from where your enemies are firing at you. The twist, however, is that you can only have four upgrades activated at a time, one per group, which means you always have to change to adapt to the situation.

There are som technical difficulties in this game that really brings it down to the ground. The A.I is oh so terrible, and sometimes won’t even notice you if you’re standing right next to them. Sometimes they clump up on a stairway and just keep walking straight into each other, which makes for a really good laugh if you come across it. Holding certain objects also apparently makes you invisible, as they will completely ignore you while your walking straight into their asses. A tiny piece of obstruction the size of a shoe can in fact be enough for an enemy not to attack you. Maybe he just ate too many space doughnuts and can’t move due to falling into a sudden food coma, or perhaps he decided not to attack you but lacks the means to tell you he just want to be friends. Other than that, they can prove to be very challenging if their weapons are pointing at you, and often puts the pressure on if you are not cautious enough.

Minor issues such as cutscenes that fail to activate, proper CD-key validation for online-play, and looping sound effects may also plague you while experiencing this game. I sincerely hope there will be a patch that fix some of these problems later on.

The game also has this on-the-fly input system where the game takes control of your character to analyze a situation, or to provide tactical support as to which buttons to click to make a certain move. I don’t have a problem with this, if they were to come in a more moderate flow. The way it is now makes you feel imcompetent, and is not something I would wan’t from this game. You have people phoning you throughout the game much as it is, telling you where to go and what to do (create a distraction here, create a distraction there). You don’t need to have the game to constantly tell you what buttons to click as well.

Problems aside, the game looks really fantastic, and you can tell that Crytek has worked really hard to maintain their position in graphical development. The lighting and particle effects is some of the sweetest eye candy you will come across this year – if your computer can handle it. The environment is thoroughly detailed down to the deepest layer of every explosion, and while cities are usually toned in different colors of gray (unless you are in a park, then it’s green) you will find yourself amazed over the change in sceneries.

Yet, the first thing you may notice is the complete lack of customization related to the various aspects of the graphical settings you would normally find in most FPS games. The PC version consists of three preset and unmodifiable settings: High, Very High, and Extreme. In contrast to the first game, where you also were able to change texture quality, physics quality, game effects quality individually and so on. Crysis 2 can be described as nothing but user-unfriendly compared to its predecessor. Also considering that graphics are one of the main foundations these games are based upon makes it feel highly self-contradictory to remove these settings for Crysis 2, as well as removing the options for Low and Medium quality graphics.

Luckily, some people have managed to coax out some sweet console commands that will alter not all, but some of these settings. I’ve also seen some third-party programs being created that can change these settings as well. We should be lucky that the internet is full of people smarter than game developers. Cheers to them.

The story itself is not strickly connected to the first game. Simply put, the plot is about your suit and its ability to merge and intergrate with alien technology. On top of that every god damn son of a bitch in the world is trying to kill you. There is a constant interaction with different scientists that are communicating with you through your suit radio, but that doesn’t flex the story too much. It’s just science mumbojumbo and cogwheels to make you go forward after completing your current objectives. There is no real mystery to it all to make it interesting, which is a bit of a letdown.

From the look of things, the singleplayer adventure apparently ends with this game, and perhaps that’s a good thing. I hate to see this particular storyline branching out over many more sequals. On the other hand they have promised us a trilogy, and stated that Crysis Warhead is not a part of that - meaning Crysis 2 is only the second chapter of the story out of three. It has been a fun ride so far, but when the ride gets too long it turns amazingly dull. I hope this will not be the case for this series. I do however wish to stress the fact that this is an FPS game, and those rarely come packaged with sophisticated stories worthy of a Nobel Prize. In other words, compelling stories is simply not the bread and butter for this genre. If you take that into consideration, you can enjoy it for what it is which ain’t half bad at all, and any amount of sequals may be just as riveting as it’s predecessor.

Multiplayer is packed with a multitude of game modes. The always familiar death match, team death match, capture the flag all has been adapted to the gameplay of your nanosuit and makes for a fun and odd experiance. There are also unlockable dog tags and badges that you can collect which feels rewarding in itself if you’re into that kind of thing. For some reason it appears to be capped at 16-player mode as maximum, which is kind of disappointing. Though in the long run I’d say you are probably better off playing CoD or Halo instead. It’s just a feeling but Crysis 2 wont catch on that well in the multiplayer aspect on a global basis, especially considering there are some other great FPS games released in the same timeslot.

When it comes down to the final boiling point, Crysis 2 more than well deserves to be called a great game. However it doesn’t reach the sky as high as its predecessor did back in 2007. You don’t see that many new concepts added into the action or any special weapons you haven’t seen before. While it’s doesn’t exactly fit into the category of historic breakthroughs in gaming development, it’s at least on par with other good FPS games released recently, if not a little bit better (technical issues aside). Some of the more redeeming qualities lies within the nanosuit and the explosive firefighting, but something tells me it might be overshadowed pretty easely in the future, and Crytek will have to come up with something more jaw-dropping to keep up.

I’d also like to point out (and this is probably the most important detail of this entire review) that you will most likely NOT have to pay the ridiculous price equivalent of 60 dollars if you live outside america. The reason I bring this up at all, is that I have seen many many many reviews spread across the web complaining about this issue in particular, and that you should hold of buying this game for now because of it.

I spent about 46,5 dollars or 33,5 euros (ca 300 swedish bucks) for this game, with the limited edition being only slightly more expensive. I’m sure you will find very similar prices around most of europe.