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Crysis 2 Review


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On 12/14/2011 at 12:00 PM by Travis Hawks

Console gamers can find out what we've been missing out on all this time.
RECOMMENDATION:

Shooter fans should experience the wondrous visuals, quality story telling, and engaging mechanics that make Crysis 2 stand out.

Reportedly, to play Crysis 2 on the PC, you would have to spend thousands on a graphics card composed of subatomic particles captured in the Large Hadron Collider. Anything less would require one hand on WASD and another pointing a fire extinguisher directly at your GPU. Problem is, we never heard about why this game might actually be worth playing besides eyeball-blasting gorgeousness. Maybe a mention or two about the alien invasion story that is actually engaging, or the body armor that spices up the standard FPS routine would have caused more demand to port the thing to consoles. Console gamers rejoice, Crysis 2 is now available on the box under your TV, and all of us with Dell assembled econo-computers can finally give the game a try. It’s a good thing too, because all shooter fans should dive in and experience this beautiful and well-made game.

Before I even start to discuss anything else about Crysis 2, let me answer that nagging question: “How are the graphics?” They are superb -- the best I’ve seen the 360 churn out. Outside of a somewhat lengthy loading period when you start up a session, hardly a chug comes out of the console. Yet, it is still able to produce a variety of intricate, accurately lit graphics that are several steps above anything else out there.

Those visuals set the bar extremely high, but some parts of the game approach the same level of quality. First off, and more unexpectedly, the overused alien invasion concept is brought to life and performed with more panache than ever before. The story is a continuation of the first game’s and starts off with the passing of the super-suit from the original protagonist “Prophet” to a new main character “Alcatraz.” New York City is undergoing a full-scale evacuation to rescue the few survivors of the Manhattan Virus that has liquefied millions of innocents as part of the Ceph invaders’ plan to take over the planet. The virus infected Prophet, forcing him to transfer the suit to the injured Marine (Alcatraz) who must then rescue Dr. Gould from inside the city. This is the launching pad for an experience that jumps back and forth across New York, battling aliens and commercial military as your suit evolves into the lynchpin that can save humanity. Nothing crazy and unique there plot-wise, but it’s never been told in such an impactful way in a video game before.

As you traverse the just-destroyed cityscape, you come across wet corners underground where people are slowly dying from the Manhattan virus. Colonies of suffering innocents call to mind the leper enclaves in ancient Rome. A man distraught at leaving his doomed wife behind actually made me hold my breath. It’s unsettling without forcing it, and you really feel how terrible of an event this alien invasion is. Additionally, the voiceover talent in Crysis 2 is blockbuster movie quality and what a difference it makes! The characters that you interact with come across as believable and far from the exaggerated stereotypes we’ve seen in every other shooter ever made.

The suit has an array of abilities that aren’t unheard of – cloaking, air stomps, shields, etc. – but it’s how those abilities are handled and upgraded that make them special. As you battle through the Ceph invaders, you can collect Nano Catalyst and cash it in for suit upgrades. Those upgrades fall into several categories, and only one upgrade in each category can be used at a time. For instance, you have to choose between quiet footsteps and slower energy drain in cloak mode under the stealth category. This forces you to switch up your improved abilities depending on the situation.

Each set-piece encounter makes you plan ahead, often prompting you to use your Tactical Visor that shows where to flank or use stealth. Once your method of attack is underway, you often must think on your feet as your suit’s energy drains and you find yourself about to uncloak in a swarm of baddies. The limited suit energy – which forces you to decide how long to leave your armor enabled, whether it’s worth it to throw a car at a squid-faced alien, and if you can sprint away from an encounter -- make the suit a challenging and rewarding addition. The varied abilities give you plenty of options for each situation, although I got the most joy out of quietly knifing as many enemies as possible while cloaked.

Unfortunately, a few details keep Crysis 2 from being an exceptional shooter. The biggest gripe I have is with the enemy A.I. There were some definite GoldenEye-era enemy patterns that I haven’t seen in a decade. On some occasions, I would come across a Ceph trooper frantically spinning in the middle of a street, which did make timing a stealthy kill fun, but was definitely a silly sight. Spinning or not, the mix of enemy types is a little thin. There are basically four flavors of enemies you will encounter and you’ve seen them all by the end of the second mission. The encounters and geography change enough to keep this bland enemy roll call from being a big issue, but it is a disappointment.

There is a multiplayer component to the game, but the community appears to be on its last legs. The leader boards indicate that over a million people have logged time in the game, but it sure doesn’t seem that way now. I struggled to get placed into matches of any type, especially the solo death match. When I was able to get in a round I had a decent time, but everything came off a bit sterile. The constant use of stealth mode makes it a bit interesting at first, but once that novelty fades, the bland maps and same old game types didn’t give me a reason to hang around in the lobbies waiting for a group to form.

Even though the multiplayer component is rattling around waiting to die, Crysis 2 is definitely worth your time if you are a shooter fan. I’m sure the visuals are a bit less amazing than on a high dollar gaming rig, but no matter. They are still top notch for a console game, and the story and suit capabilities make the game something unique. So, head over to the bargain bin and try to find a copy – and you can skip the fire extinguisher.

Review Policy

In our reviews, we'll try not to bore you with minutiae of a game. Instead, we'll outline what makes the game good or bad, and focus on telling you whether or not it is worth your time as opposed to what button makes you jump.

We use a five-star rating system with intervals of .5. Below is an outline of what each score generally means:


All games that receive this score are standout games in their genre. All players should seek a way to play this game. While the score doesn't equate to perfection, it's the best any game could conceivably do.


These are above-average games that most players should consider purchasing. Nearly everyone will enjoy the game and given the proper audience, some may even love these games.


This is our middle-of-the-road ranking. Titles that receive three stars may not make a strong impression on the reviewer in either direction. These games may have some faults and some strong points but they average out to be a modest title that is at least worthy of rental for most.


Games that are awarded two stars are below average titles. Good ideas may be present, but execution is poor and many issues hinder the experience.


Though functional, a game that receives this score has major issues. There are little to no redeeming qualities and should be avoided by nearly all players.


A game that gets this score is fundamentally broken and should be avoided by everyone.


 
#Crysis  #Cry engine  #Crytek  #Fps  #Pc 

Comments

Michael117

03/05/2012 at 02:10 PM

Great review Travis, I was happy to see this game get some attention. Crysis 2 is mechanically my favorite FPS I've ever played, up to this point in FPS history. I love my shooters, Halo, Half Life, CoD, Fear, Far Cry, and many others, but Crysis 2 was different. It just felt so fresh and polished. The mechanics it uses aren't anything that haven't been thought up or used before, but the way they work in the game are what's great.

I love being able to see the player's body on screen at all times. I love the movement mechanics. The energy gauge is balanced well and upgrading it is extremely useful. The gauge can be depleted by sprinting, super-jumping, using stealth, or armor, and each action seems to use up the gauge fairly and in good balance. If I'm stuck in a sticky situation and need to escape, even when the gauge is weakest, I can use a skill to save my life and give me a chance to regroup. The skills like stealth and armor don't break they game, they make it exponentially more enjoyable and frantic. I loved super-jumping onto buildings and climbing everything. The level designs have a lot of verticality in mind and I felt like a real super-soldier when I was running around, climbing obstacles, scrambling into and out of cover, or even when I would sprint and do a slide underneath the trailer of a semi truck.

Using stealth is so satisfying and it comes in handy all the time. I spent over 40% of the game sneaking around, assassinating enemies from behind, or using a silenced magnum to drop enemies with one shot to the face. I was able to basically play this game like Splinter Cell and that blew my mind. And I didn't have to either! I could've played it balls to the wall like Halo if I wanted, that's how dynamic it ended up being. I can play like a Halo Spartan, activate the Nanosuit's Armor Mode, scramble out into the thick of battle with no cover and just start shooting and beating people to death, or I could stay in the shadows using Cloak and taking it at my own slow pace. Or I could play like CoD and hide behind cover while I pick enemies off like whack-a-mole. I've never played a shooter with that much diversity and have all that diversity not only make sense, but work in the game, and be so much fun. You can play this game in different ways, and they're all great.

I love the level design because the encounter spaces are all open and you can plan how you want to deal with enemies. When Crytek brought up that bullet point in their marketing I thought it would just be bullshit because everybody says that their game will be dynamic and give you choices, and it's hardly ever true, or at least hardly ever implemented the way I would want. When you come into an encounter space it's very organic because the enemies don't know you're around (unless you get their attention). In many games you walk into an area and the AI all instantly know you exist and they are hellbent on killing you and funneling towards you. In Crysis 2 I was able to just wander around and observe like a predator figuring out how and when I wanted to strike.

So the mechanics are incredible, the level designs are superb, but what of the guns? I thought the guns were terribly fun to shoot (that's critical in an FPS). The assualt rifles had plenty of punch, the sub-machine guns had great tradeoffs between power, rate of fire, and maneuverability. The sniper was a beast. Not only were the guns fun to shoot, crisp, and served their purposes well, but what I thought was the best thing about the combat was being able to customize your weapons on the fly with the Back button. If you want to put a silencer on your gun, slap on a grenade launcher, or change the iron sights to a holosight all you have to do is take a moment to hide behind cover, press Back, see a hologram appear on screen and quickly choose the augments on the fly. The games continues to play out, there's no pause menu, no break in the immersion and you can even move around as you change things it's awesome.

Mechanically Crysis 2 is my favorite shooter yet. On the visual side I agree with you, the game is the best I've seen the 360 put out. The lighting affects are second to none, and the water effects are unique. Do you remember the effects when your swimming through water Travis? The way light diffuses through the water, the level of murkiness, texture, and character movement through the water. I haven't played anything like it before. It's hard to convery through words, you just have to play it and see what I mean. It just feels right and looks right. The few weeks spent I spent playing Crysis 2 I was also working a lot on my Forge World Diaries feature building things in Halo Reach and even though Reach is beautiful, Crysis 2 has it 1UP'd in just about every way. The way water is handled with CryEngine3 makes Reach's engine look dull. When you go underwater in Reach it's just a single shade of blue, nothing interesting, and when you interact with water (shoot it, move through it) the react is always the same small ripple. In Crysis 2 the ripples are far bigger, more animated, and the way the water moves makes it look a little less like geometry and more like an honest fluid. It's far from perfect, it's still just "video game water", but it's by far the best video game water I've seen so far. The particle effects, lighting, fire, water, and physics are just so much fun to see in action in this game.

So anyways lol, I adore the gameplay and presentation and those things by themselves are enough to make it one of my favorite shooters ever. The downsides for me are all on the story and character side. I thought the story was awful, the script was boring, I could never attach to the characters. You were saying you really liked the voice acting, now that I think about it I guess the voice acting itself wasn't bad, but the script was bad. The story sucked, but the spectacle was great. Remember towards the end when Central Park gets raised out of the ground and suspended in the sky? Awesome. Another thing I thought was nice about the setting was the way people were gathered around decontamination tents and the situations they are all faced with. The Manhattan virus was brutal and it was interesting to wander around and see the plight of the humans in this situation. It was similar to wandering around in Half Life 2 and seeing the plight of people under the oppression of the Combine. I definitely think Crysis 2 takes a lot of inspiration from franchises like Half Life and Halo. The way the NPCs are presented to you is very Half Life-esk, and the levels of interactivity you can have with objects (like picking up random items like a radio, trash bag, container) is very Half Life.

The AI was okay during my playthroughs, I never had any soldiers or Ceph spinning in circles. The enemies were bland I guess you could say. Their AI wasn't anything special, their hit-reacts weren't anything special, their animation and behavior was very easy to grasp and comfortable to deal with. To show contrast and give an example of enemy AI and animation that isn't easy to grasp or be comfortable to deal with, look at RAGE. I played the RAGE demo last night and mutant enemies were scrambling everywhere like I've never seen before. Rolling, dodging my shots, climbing over rails quickly, and even doing parkour across encounter spaces. I had a mutant run straight at me down a hallway, jump off a wall, and do a 360 before he attacked me. WTF?! The RAGE AI throws me for a curve everytime and I can tell you I died quite a bit, it's weird to get use to enemies that are so eccentric and acrobatic. In Crysis 2 the enemies will just scurry around, take cover, come out of cover, shoot, and be shot. Very familiar and easy to grasp, nothing unique.

I'll start with the worst aspects and work my way to the best. I didn't like the story or characters, the AI is "meh", but the setting was great and the way the plight of survivors is conveyed to you is interesting. The presentation and feel are outstanding. Level designs are open and encounters offer plenty of FPS variety. The mechanics are incredible and putting them together with the great level design makes the gameplay second to none. I think this game is amazing, and I can't recommend it enough. Even if you just play it for the gameplay and ignore the story it's well worth the price of admission, that's how much fun it is.

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