Okay, everyone has heard about it. No doubt most of you have played it. Crysis. The game that had everyone talking for years after it was announced. It was the be the “New Benchmark For PC Systems!” offering unrivalled visuals, that looked so damn real even I, at the time an AVID RTS gamer found myself solely excited for this one game.Fan sites sprang up before the game was even released, and when the demo was released the buzz reached an all new high. With my substandard internet connection, I couldn’t download the immense file required to play it, so I happily skipped off to my local EB Games 2 days before the scheduled release date to pick it up, as most people did, and rushed home in my car, a hot little steel-book case of Crysis on my hand.
I understand that there was already consternation brewing as some countries did not receive a steel-book case with the Collector’s Edition. The Australian version certainly did, pictured below:
It even looked pretty on the inside:
The special edition contained a small 16 page art booklet, the game on a DVD, a DVD with “bonus features” (which for the record cannot be used in a conventional DVD player like the extra one in Bioshock) an unlockable APC for online multiplayer gaming and a copy of the soundtrack, which is in my humble opinion, pretty sweet.
So I fired up the game on my PC only to find that the game’s system requirements completely ate my video card for breakfast. Finally finding a sweet spot (lowest settings on a slightly higher resolution) I set about invading Korea in a spectacular fashion.
After familiarizing myself with the incredibly rad nanosuit settings, I felt very guilty. I was playing this “revolutionary game with realistic graphics”. I needed a REAL MONSTER of a PC to play this on. The answer came in the form of a phone call from a friend of mine who definitely has too much money to burn. He wanted me to come over and benchmark his PC with dual Leadtek 8800 Ultra Leviathan OC GPUs with their own water cooling units. I have never seen such an insane video card (nor an insane price, this SLI card setup ALONE is worth about the same as my current PC) as well as an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850, 6 gig of RAM, and a mouthwatering 30 inch screen. I could go on about his PC but the details would bore most. Suffice to say, he’s a crazy man with way too much money to burn.
So I brought over Crysis and fired it up in this PC and maxed out the settings. Though there were a few initial minor issues that some other computer owners reported, the game ran very smoothly. The spectacle that greeted me was indeed breathtaking… but not to the degree of realism the initial demonstrations had led me to believe.
There have been a number of jpegs floating around depicting two different versions of the jungle presented in Crysis.
Now of course the graphics are still amazing, and I haven’t even touched on the gameplay elements… especially an incredible level where you fight in zero G in an Alien spacecraft, but for all the hype I expected something a little more. The grass looks a bit fluffy, the leaves still have hard edges and the light doesn’t stream through like it did in the initial videos.
However I am still not disappointed. This game is and will remain a must have for anyone who enjoys the FPS genre, and an intelligent buy for anyone who wishes to dabble. The graphics still look amazing even if they aren’t at the level of realism first proposed. Although it wasn’t ALL that was promised us, it remains a tempting offering.
- KaTaKlysM
Filed under: General | Comment (0)
So the most anticipated PC game of the year is almost upon us. To say I’ve been feverishly anticipating this game would be an understatement, and with the recent release of the single player demo a little review of the demo seems in order.
The demo begins with a fairly slick opening cinematic showing off the different powers your nanosuit grants you. This futuristic military armour grants you enhanced strength and speed, cloaking and damage absorption, and although it seems difficult at first to quickly switch between suit modes, by the end of the demo you’ll be nimbly switching between the four modes in the middle of a firefight. After that there’s another opening cinematic where you and the rest of your team all kit up and drop out of an aircraft. However, old friend plot device strikes you on the way down so you crash land separated from the rest of your ethnically diverse team, and it’s your job to meet up with them again. So far, the plot seems very paint-by-numbers; nothing jumps out at you that tells you this is going to be the next Shakespeare. But that’s okay in this instance, as you’ll soon discover when you take over and can freely move about; this game isn’t about the story, it’s about the gameplay. The first thing you’re likely to notice (assuming you have a nice PC) is that the game looks utterly fantastic. The second thing you’ll probably notice is that you can pick up a turtle which is happily lazing around on the beach. I repeat; YOU CAN PICK UP A TURTLE AND THROW IT AROUND. If this isn’t enough to make you rush down to your latest game store and preorder Crysis then I’m not sure this game will be you.
In fact it seems you can pick up almost everything in this game. Shoot the hat off an enemy and you can pick it up; catch one of the little birds running around and you can use it as a weapon or just to satisfy your sadistic needs. The physics in this game are absolutely incredible; Half-Life 2 Episode Two may have wowed us with its Striders demolishing complete houses, but that was all scripted. Demolition of houses in Crysis is completely physics-based; Grab a Korean by the throat and throw him into the side of a wall and it will collapse the wall, taking the rest of the building with it. Take out the supports of a small shanty building and watch as the rest gives way. This all looks and feels absolutely incredible and real. But it’s not all good; while the graphics and physics are phenomenal you will need a monster rig to get the best out of this game, and there’s lots of little bugs and things missing that need to fixed before the finished version hits the shelves. The gun and weapon sounds really need to be tuned up as well; weapons generally don’t sound very powerful, and someone tell me why an enemy can bring down a highly trained high-tech soldier with just one whip of his rifle?
Still, these are minor things that I’m sure will be fixed by the time the actual game is released. The single player is going to be amazing, but don’t write off the multiplayer; I’ve played a lot of it in the beta so far and it’s an absolutely unique experience; I can’t say anything else without giving away too much but multiplayer is going to have a lot of people hooked for ages, the unique mode Power Struggle is so good it simply cannot be missed. Mark November 16th on your calendars; Crysis is coming.
Check out some amazing videos of Crysis in action:
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/2509.html
- KillaCon
Filed under: New Release | Comment (0)
