Crysis 2 - PC

Crysis 2 Review: A Welcome Antithesis To Copycat Shooters

2011-03-22T20:26:00Z

With a core of dedicated PC fans that demand technical excellence and a curious console community that wonders what all the fuss is about, the expectations for Crysis 2 are quite high. For the franchise’s introduction to those who didn’t own a NASA super computer capable of running the original game in all its glory, Crytek wisely sticks to the traits that made the first game successful while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of graphical fidelity.

Though the story touches briefly on the events of the first game, the Crysis 2 plot is self-contained enough that you won’t be missing much if this is your first experience. Players take the role of a Marine named Alcatraz who, due to a series of circumstances beyond his control, ends up donning a nanosuit that gives him super speed, strength, armor, and stealth capabilities. With an airborne disease plaguing New York City and an alien uprising destroying the capital of the world, Alcatraz must track down a researcher who may have knowledge of how to squelch the invasion.

In the face of this grave threat, you would think our business, military, and scientific communities would come together to put forward a united front. Instead, disagreements fracture the armed forces, researchers, and a private military contractor hired to aid the city. With all the sides at odds, Alcatraz is humanity’s best bet.

Armed with the nanosuit, that load is much easier to carry. Crytek deftly mapped the suit’s abilities onto the gamepad without sacrificing traditional shooter controls, giving you cloaking, armor, and tactical assessment skills at the touch of a button. The gunplay handles as smoothly as the best shooters in the business, and the frequent weapon drops allow you to experiment with new toys without worrying about losing your preferred gun for good. The team also implemented a useful first-person cover and lean system.

In terms of level design, the game takes its cues from the streamlined approach Crytek adopted for Crysis Warhead. The decimated buildings and barricaded streets give the action a more enclosed feeling than the expansive open worlds of Far Cry and the original Crysis, but the environments are still large and varied enough to give players the freedom to wage war against the above average enemy AI with a tactic of their choosing.

Rather than force players into a series of predicable fights with predetermined weapons, Crytek creates sandbox battle scenarios and allows each player to adopt his or her own preferred approach. Like Batman: Arkham Asylum, you often enter the battle arena at a vantage point just out of sight. This gives strategic players the option of marking all the targets in the area so they don’t encounter many surprises once they open fire. From here, how you confront the overwhelming odds is up to you. You can stay in stealth mode to silently pick off enemies one by one, adopt a hit and run strategy by jumping in and out of stealth to recalibrate your approach after each kill, activate power armor for a frontal assault, or snipe enemies from the high perches present in most scenarios.

The battles and set piece moments intensify as the game progresses. I wish I could say the same for the narrative. The pawn in the middle of the human factions tasked with saving the city, Alcatraz may as well be a robot. Unquestionably following orders from no fewer than five people during the 10 to 12 hour campaign – who are oftentimes at odds with one another – the protagonist has no agency even though he controls the most powerful weapon at humanity’s disposal. Other than the CEO of the biomedical company that designed the nanosuit, whom you meet in a memorable scene, all the characters you encounter similarly lack depth. This is a shame; the theme of the lengths that the frail human race must go to defend itself from an overwhelming alien threat and how the suit changes its users is an intriguing jumping-off point.

Though its single-player campaigns are lauded, Crytek’s multiplayer has always lacked allure. At face value Crysis 2 shamelessly borrows elements of the two most popular online shooters, Call of Duty and Halo, but once you dig into the experience you begin to respect its subtle differences. For instance, instead of giving you game-changing bonuses for killstreaks, you need to collect the dog tags from your fallen victims to access radar, airstrikes, or a gunship. This forces campers out of their comfort zones or keeps their influence in check if they prefer to stay and snipe.

As with the campaign, the nanosuit is the great differentiator. Crytek UK balanced the suit's abilities well and created a smart system of persistent enhancements that players earn by using the suit’s power, armor, and stealth abilities during battle. There are enough upgrades to give players the flexibility to build a unique suit tailored to enhance their strengths or shore up their weaknesses.

With 12 maps ripped from the campaign, 50 rankings, medals, and customizable kits, Crysis 2 makes a strong case for becoming a destination multiplayer mode. The one major criticism I can levy is that Crytek locks the more creative game modes. You won’t have all the modes unlocked until level 39, which seems needlessly buried in a game that doesn’t have a large community behind it that is guaranteed to keep playing for the 15-plus hours necessary to access all the options.

Crysis 2 largely avoids the problems that surfaced during the beta, though there were some hiccups. With no dedicated servers, a few matches were interrupted by the annoying server migration. In my seven hours on the battlefield I occasionally suffered from game-crippling lag, but these instances were rare.

If you’re tired of fighting corridor-based wars against an endless flow of brainless meatbags, Crysis 2 is worth a look. The unique sandbox approach to gunfights and game-changing nanosuit lend the title a flavor of its own, and Crytek smartly leverages these strengths in both the single- and multiplayer modes.

Crysis 2 Videos Just Keep Coming

2011-03-17T17:00:28Z

Another day, another Crysis 2 video. Today Electronic Arts regales us with a long gameplay segment that showcases the sandbox shooter in action.

The final episode of the Crysis 2 video series, called Gate Keepers, pits the nanosuit wearing *** against a large squad of CELL soldiers. In typical Crysis fashion, he picks off the platoon one by one using his rifle and the Nanosuit's special stealth, recon, and armor abilities. The video also gives you a glimpse into the suit's upgrade system, as seen in the screenshot below.

Here is the trailer.

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Crysis 2 ships next Tuesday.

Speed Is Key In Latest Crysis 2 Trailer

2011-03-12T00:30:00Z

In the few years that passed since the original Crysis, the planet was hit with devastating natural disasters comprised of earthquakes and floods that ravaged the world. In New York City, a plague consumes the city and aliens have returned. With the help of your Nanosuit, it's up to you to restore order.

Crysis 2 is slated to launch on March 22, but in the meantime check out the latest trailer titled "Be Fast". In our recent interview with executive producer Nathan Camarillo, he encourages players to be fast and virtually invisible to survive the onslaught to come in Crysis 2. Check out how speed and agility granted by the Nanosuit is taken advantage of in the latest media below.

For more Crysis 2: First Look, Gameplay Tips, Screens.

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Four Single-Player Pics Explode With Potential

2010-12-16T21:55:00Z

Not only will you look like you have crazy space muscles on the outside of your body, but you will shoot alien hovercraft in their stupid faces with huge rockets in Crytek's upcoming sci-fi first-person shooter.

Anyone else ready to make this thing happen? And by "this thing" I mean "flaming alien death" and by "happen" I mean "seriously I'm going to genocide any bug-eyed *** wants to mess with NYC."

Crysis 2 launches March 22.

The Destructive Drama Of Crysis 2

2010-06-17T07:20:00Z

Crysis 2 was out in full force at E3, showing off a couple of impressive gameplay sequences, as well as some new screens.

Both Crysis 2 demos we saw took place in a destroyed New York City in 2023. Developer Crytek is known for its graphical mastery, and it was on display here as Nomad stalked the streets littered with debris and picked off enemies in the nearby skyscrapers. What was cool was that even though he was on street level and outside of the buildings, you could zoom in and see quite a bit of detail inside the office towers as he shot up his alien enemies within them with ease. Crossing a foot bridge with a few burned-out taxis, Nomad demonstrated the power of the Nanosuit by attaching a couple of mines onto the trunk of the taxi and then kicking the thing with ease down on some foes lurking below in the fire-enveloped rubble. Later on, a heat-sensing scan mode helped him pick out some enemies hiding here and there.

After finding a detonator and blowing the hell out of a building in a glorious blast, the demo switched to Grand Central Station. Like the detonation sequence before it, this part of the demo showed off what Crytek is calling the "choreographed sand box" of Crysis 2. They want to give you plenty of freedom to tackle the game any way you choose, but also add in focused sequences to bring out more drama. In Grand Central Station there was plenty of that as Nomad ran around taking out aliens left and right before a mech-like Pinger enemy dramatically crashed through the giant, scenic window that the station is known for. The Pinger is a deadly enemy, and Nomad had to hit it with several different weapons before it fell, including missiles and more mines, as well as engaging the Nanosuit's stealth invisibility to sneak up on The Pinger, which tracks you by sound.

It turns out The Pinger was just the first wave of the attack, as a ship starts slicing up a building looming above the station. Nomad gets out and meets up with an armored personnel carrier with some troops. As Nomad is leaving the scene, a civilian begs you to help him free his wife who is trapped under some rubble nearby. Torn between helping and getting the hell out of what is quickly turning into a bad situation, we see Nomad's indecision. Unfortunately, there is no other choice but to beat it out of there, as the ship above blasts the building to bits, and brings it down right onto where the pedestrian was standing, narrowly missing Nomad as he and the carrier high-tail it out just in time.

Crysis 2 for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 comes out early next year.