Crysis 3 should be really fun. I've spent a lot of time over at the Crytek website going through all their tech demos of the new engine, all their blogs, and publications, I'm a big fan of the studio. Crysis 2 was the best looking game on console when it came out, and it was the most mechanically fun shooter I ever played. Crytek is a highly respected developer and a dream job for people who like making FPS games and engines, but it's still a company that people here don't know much about since it's headquartered in Germany. They are extremely busy over in Europe, they have expanded to a ton of studios and are experimenting with some different genres in some of them, they license Cryengine to schools and universities and get involved in the educational field, they're way bigger than people realize but the name brand isn't household yet. They just opened up a studio in Austin which is great so they have a foothold in America for the first time.
I personally think Crytek is the best FPS developer in the market, no matter how much I love Halo and Half Life. CryEngine 3 can hold it's weight against any other engine I know of and when it comes to cutting edge features and usability it should be a good competitor for Unreal 4 in the next gen. The most fun FPS games you'll play this gen will probably be Crysis 3 and Ubisoft's Far Cry 3 and they have the option of stealth in common and sandbox gameplay design in common. I played 73% of Crysis 2 with the cloak mode activated and I played it at my own slow pace stabbing people and using a silenced magnum a lot. My 2nd playthrough I played it like Halo with an assault rifle, rockets, C4, letting everybody know I was there etc and it was better at Halo than Halo is. Not only is every level designed with both of those playstyles accounted for, but they both end up working well. The guns feel solid similar to CoD with low latency and fast cause and effect, but the overall pace of the game is up to you because at any time you can use stealth and high action on the fly as you see fit. There's a vertical element to the levels as well which Halo and CoD never had. You can run, super jump, climb up on ledges, run and slide under obstacles while shooting, and even random things you never get taught like blowing a car to pieces than grab the car door to use as a shield. Really impressive lighting, impressive simulations, Crysis has a new wind feature in which foliage will react to the outward force of grenades, helicopter wash, and any wind setting the designer put in. The difference being that most "wind" simulations in games are just smoke and mirrors with a scripted motion repeating itself. In Crysis 3 the designers have been able to place a wind entity in an area, control the direction, the speed and physical force, and things like the foliage will finally have the ability to react to the physical force. I've been waiting for a system like that since Halo 3 and it never happened, Bungie engineers talked about doing that but either couldn't or didn't. If you're a graphics snob and/or performance snob, which I know Julian likes the graphics, you'll want to see what Cryengine 3 is doing. There's a nice set of features built in, and the engine handles it well, and the games are pretty fun.
Crysis takes influence from all the other great games like Halo, CoD, and Half Life, except the gameplay is better than any of them on their own and adds new features like being able to modify your weapon as you play in real-time without pausing. It doesn't sound like a big deal but once you've done it in Crysis 2 and 3 you will wish you could do it in all other games. On console you hold the select button, your gun comes up, and at the press of any of the buttons you can add a silencer, grenade launcher, rail items, etc and have the gun modified instantly while you hide behind cover in the middle of a firefight, and be back in the action without any stoppage.
For all the people who enjoy shooters, if you're not at least trying out the Crysis games you're really missing out on a legit AAA shooter with a fun and diverse sandbox from a legit design team on a more than legit engine. I'm happy singing their praises, try the game out, don't be a jabroni. Even as beautiful as Halo 4 is and with all the nice features their engine has, they are basically just dabbling in the stuff the Crytek has been mastering with Cryengine. Halo 4 is like the junior varsity team and Crytek is varsity.
Here are some really cool demonstrations of the engine I enjoyed that you all might as well. Especially the first video, in it you can see the wind features, some lighting features, a little bit of cloth sim, water and how light is reacting with the water sims, and particle effects and how light interacts with the particle effects.
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