Crysis

[Carlo Sandiego]

In my typical delayed-due-to-laziness lifemode, I only just ordered the game. However, just the demo looked (and played) amazing, and i found it a useful test bed to see how far I could turn the graphics up.

(answer: Everything on high, resolution on much-higher-than-normal. joy.)

Anyways, I was just wondering what people thought of the game, whether it's from playing it or just watching trailers and reading reviews.
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Why must the government repress our god-given right to no pants?

[Forumgoer Unavailable]

Well, I'm sorry to say I wasn't too pleased with this game. The stereotypical plot was only made up for by pretty goddamn intense multiplayer, and even that had it's flaws.

The graphics were, to say the least, stunning. I could play them at ultra high, but it was more of a slideshow than a game in doing so.

The gameplay felt a little stale and unresponsive, especially in the VTOL section.

Oh, the VTOL. For those of you who haven't played the game, only Yatzee Croshaw can describe it with justice.

"Imagine you've just woken from a six year coma, and celebrate the occasion by getting incredibly drunk. Just then, you're called in to pilot a small aircraft carrying a cargo of several large hippopotomi."
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I'm outtie, y'all. Lates.

[Aramor]

That's not exactly how he describes it. It was more like this:

[Forumgoer Unavailable]

[Aramor]

[Forumgoer Unavailable]

[Carlo Sandiego]

...that...that is a wonderful description of the VTOL section.

The game is amazing early on, and gets less awesome as you progress. I love the fact that the AI is marginally capable, although there's no such thing as perfect AI no matter what.

but...wait...Regret, you're marking it down for stereotypical PLOT?
it's an FPS. they can't all have the story of Half-life or HALO. As a genre, they're not bloody Neverwinter Nights. You shouldn't play them for the story, any more than you should avoid watching The Protector with Tony Jaa just because it lacks character development.

Different strokes for different folks, though. I can understand your point.

I like the multiplayer, but It'd be nice if there was such a thing as a server with Anti-cheating set to on.
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Why must the government repress our god-given right to no pants?

[Forumgoer Unavailable]

[Carlo Sandiego]

[Aurelyn]

[Sal]

Syphilis.
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i have no time for anal love

[Carlo Sandiego]

[Forumgoer Unavailable]

And also Halo had a terrible plot.

I mean, a bunch of giant alien cockrings floating around in space, destroying the past? Not too scholarly.
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I'm outtie, y'all. Lates.

[Satan Crime Wash]

[Carlo Sandiego]

You speak the truth.

I like the multiplayer in Crysis, but they need to get the patch that allows anti-cheating to be set to "on" ready for download. I'm tired of trying to fight idiots with teleportation powers.
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Why must the government repress our god-given right to no pants?

[Simon_Says]

Yeah, I know, very good timing.

So I played Crysis. Graphics are stunning, even on medium (which is what I had to set most of my settings to due to owning only two measly nvidia 7900 gtx's), and the first half of the game (which will actually take up about 66-80% of your playtime due to the point which I will get to) is pretty frikken solid, if somewhat easy compared to its predecesor, Far Cry.

Then you get out of the alien spaceship (Oh sorry I forgot to mention, there's an alien spaceship) and it turns into a graphigasmic version of Space Invaders. I mean, how else can you describe taking on waves and waves of aliens ad nauseum. This takes up the latter half of the game, according to the level list, but I was able to finish this entire half of the game in one evening. For comparison it took me that amount of time to get through the fucking tutorial level.

All of it ending in a pretty unsatsifying cliff-hanger. If they're going to end a game with a cliff hanger, it's got at least to have some plot revelation to it. Halo 2 had the Forrunner vessel arriving at Earth, which was a plot development. So you take down the alien... choppa and the carrier goes down, and you're off back to the island. Sorry but that's like ending a book in the middle, rather than the end, of a chapter. Disappointing is not an adequate word.

Speaking of Halo 2, Crysis is essentially the clone, gamplay-wise, of that monumental achievment of wasted potential. The shield is now armor mode, strength gives Nomad the Chief's jumping and tank flipping superpowers, and cloak had to have been reverse engineered from the Arbiter's armor. Despite this, Crysis actually did the job better than Halo 2 did, in my opinion, since the use of the protagonists' powers could actually be used creatively and often. The combat definately had a Halo 1-esque vibe to it, when I had to ditch approaching the game Thief style, and that's definately not a bad thing. The only complaint I have is the misuse of grenades, a very common problem that so far only Halo had managed to get right. Maybe I'll just bind the nade key to q or somthing and that should fix the problem, hopefully. But other than that the gameplay, while solidly based on what came before, definately perfected the formula, making the game flexible yet truly awesome at the same time.

Anyway I upgraded my rig with two severely overclocked 8800 gts's, so theoretically I should be able to play Crysis on high/very high settings at a higher resolution than XGA. That is, if the patch finally includes SLI support (somthing I've read conflicted reports on), and fixes that 1.1 patch bug that made loading and saving games take more than 5 minutes at a time. They better also have the collector's edition vehicle ready to go.

As for multiplayer, I couldn't succesfully get into any servers on my first run with the game, so I can't judge. Hopefully I can get it working, and then I'll come back and report.

So in summary: stunning graphics, great gameplay for the first half, a plot that no one should really care about (hence I didn't review it), only marred by a spectacular failure of a third act.
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