Topic: Crysis gets 98% from PCG. UPDATE: New scores.

[Pugnate]

That's pretty insane.

98%? OK I am not canceling my pre order. While I haven't read the review, I hope they aren't overrating the game. But what this means is that the game probably has more to offer than visuals.

PC Gamer Holiday 2007 FINAL VERDICT: 98%
Highs: A graphical powerhouse; immersive, open-ended sandbox that encourages emergent gameplay; well-paced storyline; meticulously detailed; engrossing multiplayer; included map editor.
Lows: Alien enemy AI not as spectacular as North Korean AI; enemies can sometimes absorb too much damage; a few minor glitches
Bottom line: Destined to be a classic, Crysis is a creative and technological marvel that eclipses every other shooter released this year.

9.5 from gamespot
9.4 from IGN, thanks D.
8.0 from 1Up, again thanks D
9.0 from Eurogamer
PC Zone UK = 92%
Gamepro: 95%
Gametap: 10/10

[gpw11]

Nice.  Like I said, the demo grew on me a lot.

Although, hearing the alien AI isn't as 'spectacular' as the Korean AI is a bit troublesome.  Do they just fucking stand there while you shoot at them?  Because the Korean AI in the demo was somewhat weak.


Wait....why the fuck do they even have aliens in this game?  Why is it that every fucking FPS game HAS to either be completely tactical or have a point where aliens are all over the fucking place? 

[MysterD]

Nice.  Like I said, the demo grew on me a lot.

Although, hearing the alien AI isn't as 'spectacular' as the Korean AI is a bit troublesome.  Do they just fucking stand there while you shoot at them?  Because the Korean AI in the demo was somewhat weak.

Wait....why the fuck do they even have aliens in this game?  Why is it that every fucking FPS game HAS to either be completely tactical or have a point where aliens are all over the fucking place? 

A long time ago, when the game was first into fruition, Crytek said the Crysis game will take place in basically 2 acts -- just like Far Cry did. You'll have your tactical piece of the game where you take namely just humans on -- like in Far Cry. Then in the last half of Crysis, there will be a full-blown huge-scaled alien attack -- in Far Cry, the second act was filled w/ mutants.

[gpw11]

LAAAAAAAME

[Pugnate]

Well this might please Scottws, but the retail version of Crysis is apparently running much smoother than the demo. The Demo wasn't optimized to take advantage of multicore processors.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=80&threadid=2117273&enterthread=y

edit:

People with 64 bit OS' are having massive issues. Don't know if it is the game, drivers or both, but they are getting 15 fps.

[iPPi]

A long time ago, when the game was first into fruition, Crytek said the Crysis game will take place in basically 2 acts -- just like Far Cry did. You'll have your tactical piece of the game where you take namely just humans on -- like in Far Cry. Then in the last half of Crysis, there will be a full-blown huge-scaled alien attack -- in Far Cry, the second act was filled w/ mutants.

That's what I hated about Far Cry... the second part of the game.

[MysterD]

9.4 from IGN

Performance

The one thing that you're going to have to seriously consider before purchasing the game specifically for the visuals is the power of your PC. Crysis may very well kick your computer in the balls at Very High settings. It'll look spectacular doing so, but may very well turn into more of a slideshow than you'd probably prefer and in some cases become completely unplayable. On our Vista test machine with a quad core processor, 4GB RAM, and a single 8800 GTX, we had some pretty significant slowdowns with everything on very high everywhere but the most confined spaces. Tweaking the settings in DirectX10 helped a bit (you can fiddle with the settings to get just the right mix of resolution and detail in all the settings) while running the game in DX9 solved all of our problems and still looked spectacular with everything on high. We even could run DX9 on high at 1920x1200 with a good enough framerate to be comfortable playing nearly the entire time. In those rare moments where things began to chug, it was an easy enough thing to simply change the resolution for a minute, which can all be done in game, while loaded into the game, which is another terrific feature that's sadly missing from so many other titles. Luckily, for those of you without the best computers, Crysis still looks pretty fantastic on Medium. You won't get the same features, but Crysis never really gets ugly and still looks at least as good as Far Cry even on Low, though you will get a pretty significant amount of pop in at that level.

Difficulty -- Hardest Setting "Delta" Makes The Koreans speak in their native language

On easy, medium, and hard settings they AI will chatter in English so that you know what they're doing. On Delta, they'll chatter in Korean so that you have no idea, which really adds the immersion. It would have been nice to have the option to use the Korean barks in other difficulty levels since there are other ways to make the game more difficult. For instance, on Delta, the binoculars, which usually provide a wealth of intelligence information, don't operate as effectively, the reticule is turned off by default, and there's no warning when grenades are thrown. We'd definitely recommend that anyone who feels they're good enough at shooters to try it, use Delta for that fact. Hearing all of the North Korean army speak in English and constantly call you a Yankee dog can break the illusion. Delta is a challenge, but isn't the same ridiculous challenge that the highest difficulty was in Far Cry. It's definitely doable here. Hopefully Crytek will patch the game to make hearing Korean an option in lower difficulty settings as well.

[gpw11]

it was an easy enough thing to simply change the resolution for a minute, which can all be done in game, while loaded into the game, which is another terrific feature that's sadly missing from so many other titles.

Another great feature that is terrific and is sadly missing from so many other titles is the ability to use a 'mouse' to aim and a 'keyboard' to move and enter other commands.  The fact that the developers of Crysis had the foresight to include these is really wonderful and cements a nomination for them in the PC game developer hall of fame.


Seriously, if I was to ball park a figure of how many modern PC games don't let you change resolution 'in game' it'd be less than 10%.  Actually, it'd be pretty much restricted to low budget console ports.  How the fuck is that a feature?

[MysterD]

Damned if I know, GPW. Most modern games do allow changing the res' while in-game...

I've seen a few games do tell you that even though you made some of the fancier graphical option changes in-game, you will still need to close the game out and open again for them to actually take effect.

[Pugnate]

IGN: One of the greatest things Saddam Hussein did as a military leader was have a mustache.

We even could run DX9 on high at 1920x1200 with a good enough framerate to be comfortable playing nearly the entire time.

That's pretty much what I wanted to know.

[idolminds]

An interesting exchange on Shacknews related to Crysis performance.

First post:

I personally enjoy playing games on the Source engine with everything maxed more than playing games like Crysis with everything set to medium/low. In a few years though we'll be able to run Crysis at much better settings and get much better framerates and then I won't care anymore so, as others have said, it's all relative. Someone has to push the envelope I guess.

And response from George Broussard of 3D Realms:

You people thinking 1600x1200 is std are ... well.... laughable. the 360 is still more powerful than most pc's yet the res is 1280x720 and you know what...it's enough.

stop trying to run games in res's where the hardware really can't keep up. can you run half life 2 in 1600x1200 - hell yes. it's a dx8 game. can you run the bleeding edge of graphics demand at high detail and 60 fps, or even 30 fps most of the time - noooooooooooo - not if the game is really, really next gen.

next-gen starts at 30 fps on high end hardware. put down the 60 fps dreams and ultra, uber super duper high res's because your monitors can do it.

it's just insane. you guys expect too much. drop the res and your expectations. they are wildly out of control. Crysis != fucking half life 2, in terms of graphics demands.

somewhere along the line (oh say, the last 3 years when pc devs stopped acvancing gfx tech because epic went to consoles and id shipped doom 3 in 2004, and NOBODY else pushes graphics because publishers won't let them, or they are on consoles)....sometime in there....hardware got faster and faster and faster and allowed games to run in 1600x1200 and very high framerates...

the problem comes in when you draw say, 50x more things, and rendering passes in a game, and you still exepct to run 60fps at 1600x1200....ain't happening.

It takes 3 cpu cores and a fast video card to run most 360 games at 30 fps. you guys expect to run in higher res's with lesser, or even equal hardware, on the pc, and complain about framerate?

All DNF jokes aside, he does make a good point. People want games to have more characters on screen, higher res textures, higher poly models, larger more detail worlds, more physics objects with more accurate physics, better lighting, etc etc. And they still want to run in some insane resolution at 80FPS. Maybe our expectations are a little too high.

[gpw11]

Oh, I'd say they are for sure, but the people who expect that are the people who buy a new card every year and constantly spend a ton of money to upgrade their machine.  But, at the same time, most of the complaints I've heard are that the game doesn't scale well at all, and I think that's very valid.  He won't understand this - because he's a fucking developer but developing games that can't run on anything but the latest hardware is kind of fucking stupid from the consumer's standpoint.  I agree with him about resolutions, frames per second, and people expecting too much, but at the same time, the whole "it's for next gen hardware" is and for the most part always has been an excuse to throw efficiency out the window. 

[Cobra951]

Oh, I'd say they are for sure, but the people who expect that are the people who buy a new card every year and constantly spend a ton of money to upgrade their machine.  But, at the same time, most of the complaints I've heard are that the game doesn't scale well at all, and I think that's very valid.  He won't understand this - because he's a fucking developer but developing games that can't run on anything but the latest hardware is kind of fucking stupid from the consumer's standpoint.  I agree with him about resolutions, frames per second, and people expecting too much, but at the same time, the whole "it's for next gen hardware" is and for the most part always has been an excuse to throw efficiency out the window. 

Hear, hear!

You people thinking 1600x1200 is std are ... well.... laughable. the 360 is still more powerful than most pc's yet the res is 1280x720 and you know what...it's enough.

I never did understand the obsession with resolution.  1024x768 is still plenty for me at 4:3 aspect.  Once the scanlines get so close I can't see a gap, I'm happy.

[idolminds]

I agree with that as well. Its kind of a shock Crysis doesn't scale well, seeing as how Far Cry was very impressive on what it could do on relatively modest hardware.

It would be nice if developers changed how they do that sort of thing. They build the game and look at it and ask..."what does this run on?" instead of designing a game around a certain level of hardware. Thats where consoles have an advantage, as devs are forced to work within its limits. On PC they just go nuts and figure all their users can upgrade if it doesnt run well. Fuck that.

[Pugnate]

9.5 from gamespot

How do you guys rate Ocampo? I haven't been paying much attention since the departure of Kasavin.

it was hard not to be completely impressed when the first images and videos of Crysis appeared about 18 months ago. Scenes of lush jungles and towering alien war machines looked light-years beyond what seemed possible. Of course, the two questions that revolved around Crysis since its announcement were whether it would deliver on those visuals and whether it would deliver a game worthy of those fancy graphics. It turns out that the answer to both those questions is a resounding yes, as Germany's Crytek has proven that its 2004 hit Far Cry was no fluke. In fact, it was just the beginning from this studio. With its sophomore effort, Crytek has managed to deliver an incredibly advanced and exciting first-person shooter that practically rewrites the rules for the entire genre.

Pretty huge praise.

You can play like the eponymous character from the movie Predator and use your cloaking abilities to stalk North Korean patrols, picking them off one by one and watching the survivors react in confusion. That could be via a silenced rifle, or simply coming up from behind a guard and grabbing him by the throat and hurling him off a cliff, or through the roof of a building, or against a tree, or whatever catches your fancy

That sounds sweet, and seems to be what Gregg was talking about...err... I mean GPW.

Enhanced speed and strength give you an amazing amount of mobility, so you can vault atop buildings and come down behind someone, or run up against a North Korean vehicle next to a cliff and push it over the side. In a heartbeat you can switch between different roles, from stealthy assassin to seemingly unstoppable death dealer. It's a game that makes you feel like a superhero, though not an invincible one, because you simply can't run roughshod over the enemy.

Pushing vehicles over sounds fun.

. Getting caught in a firefight in the jungle is a cinematic treat, thanks to the way the bullets will chop down trees, while branches sway from impacts. This isn't just a visual effect, either, as falling timber can kill if it lands on someone. There's all sorts of emergent behavior like that throughout the game, events that spring up completely unintended or unforeseen. In one instance, the flaming wreckage of a chopper landed on a hut, crushing it and killing all those inside.

Reminds me of the Predator movie.

The one criticism that can be leveled on the story is that it leaves you screaming for more. While there's an adrenaline-packed finale, you still don't want the game to end on the note that it does. The single-player campaign is around eight to 10 hours long, which is a healthy amount for a shooter. There's a lot of replay here, too, as you can experiment with a multitude of different approaches. Plus, it's fun to go back and try out the large, set-piece battles again and again, since they can unfold in different ways thanks to the dynamic nature of the combat and the artificial intelligence.

8-10 hours sounds about par.

The single-player game is a considerable accomplishment by itself, but Crytek has also included a full-featured multiplayer mode called power struggle that combines the best of the Battlefield games and Counter-Strike.

Graphically, Crysis looks photorealistic at times--it's that amazing. Crytek has managed to achieve a visual fidelity that blows away anything seen to date, and there are countless moments when you'll just stop and gape at what you're seeing. Sometimes it's just the ordinary, like the setting sun casting all sorts of shadows and rays through the jungle canopy. Other times, it's something epic, like watching a huge alien war machine stomping toward you. The impressive aspect of the graphics is just how it manages to render huge, open, dynamic, interactive levels. Everything looks amazing up close or far away. Interacting with your squadmates lets you gaze upon the mechanical sinews of their nanosuit, or the incredible facial animation that brings them to life. They're capable of the subtlest of facial gestures to help convey emotion. Then you can sit on a ridge and peer down using binoculars to a village a kilometer away, scouting the location of the patrolling guards and machine gun posts. The sheer fact that many of the trees and buildings are destructible just adds a level of realism that's staggering.

Awesome.

You'll need a fairly high-end system to make the game look its best. In that regard, Crysis really does embody everything that's both exciting and daunting about PC gaming. A dual-core CPU and the latest generation of video card can run the game at maximum detail settings capably, though you have to lower the resolution a bit to do so. It's doubtful that a system has been built yet that can run the game at ultra-high resolutions with all the graphical sliders maxed out. Dial down the detail settings to high, which is the next-lower setting, and Crysis still blows contemporary games out of the water. Results are a bit mixed at medium and low settings, though. At the lowest detail settings, objects pop in and out with a fair degree of consistency. It's annoying at best and frustrating at worst, as it can impact gameplay. Crysis does support both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10, though the latter requires you run the game using Windows Vista. The visuals in DX9 are impressive, but they really come to life in DX10, provided you have the hardware.

So yes, it doesn't scale well, which sucks. I bet that with patches they will correct the performance to visual ratio for the lower and mid range.

The game also sounds fantastic, from the primordial "moans" that the island periodically releases, the soft crunch of dirt and branches under your feet, and all the background sounds that you'd expect in the middle of the jungle. Turn on your suit's cloak, and everything sounds muffled. The music, by composer Inon Zur, feels inspired by the scores from epic Hollywood action movies, while the voice acting is also excellent, helping to deliver some distinct characters and even a little humor.

If you put it all together, Crysis is just remarkable. This is a game that pushes the envelope in terms of both technology and gameplay and does so with aplomb. Crysis raises the expectations for every shooter to follow when it comes to graphics, interactivity, environments, immersiveness, AI, and gameplay. Quite simply, Crysis represents the first-person shooter at its finest, most evolved form.

OK so I pulled a Myster mystery D. I apologize.

[gpw11]

Hear, hear!

I never did understand the obsession with resolution.  1024x768 is still plenty for me at 4:3 aspect.  Once the scanlines get so close I can't see a gap, I'm happy.

To be fair, I do usually try to run games at 1280x960.  I find on a 17" CRT you can really notice the difference between 1024x768 and 1280x960.  It will not, however, make or break a game, and 5 min into it I probably won't notice at all.  Anything higher than that and I don't even know if there's any benefit to a higher resolution. 

[Xessive]

I'm not as bothered by res issues either. 1024x768 is still fine for me on 4:3 too. I generally stick to the optimal proportions of the screen I'm using, not necesarily the native. For the 17" or 19" flat panels the proportions are 5:4 which is 1280x1024. However with my 22" Samsung, the Nvidia drivers suddenly stopped supporting the 16:10 resolution lower than the native 1680x1050, so I was pretty much tied to that although I sued to be able to use 1280x800 and 1440x900 before the 163 drivers. Fortunately I got my older 17" LCD and now I have a dual-screen set up with my 17" as primary for gaming and my 22" for movies and extra.

[Pugnate]

That's weird as I can use all sorts of 16:10 resolutions. I am using those very drivers.

edit:

Maybe it is the games that don't provide the option or something?

[scottws]

Well I guess I can say I'm guilty of wanting to run everything at my monitor's native resolution (1680 x 1050).  Everything looks blurry if I run it at anything else, even if I use driver scaling to sort of upconvert it to native res.  Sue me.

[Xessive]

That's weird as I can use all sorts of 16:10 resolutions. I am using those very drivers.

edit:

Maybe it is the games that don't provide the option or something?

No they used to work. The last time they did was with 162.18 driver, then after I updated to the 163.71 and 163.75 I have been unable to use any 16:10 resolution other than the native. In fact the only resolutions that were selectable in all games as well as the desktop were 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768. 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1280x720, and 1680x1050. So basically 4 in 4:3, 1 in 5:4, 1 in 16:9, and the native being 16:10. That is still the case. So as I said I added on my other monitor.

With Bioshock, for example, it ran beautifully at 1680x1050. But one little thing bothered me: 1) Bioshock's Widescreen is actually cropped.

Anyway if I play Crysis I doubt I'll exceed 1280x1024.

[scottws]

Maybe see if you can install/upgrade your monitor drivers or use the Generic PnP Monitor driver.

[Xessive]

Maybe see if you can install/upgrade your monitor drivers or use the Generic PnP Monitor driver.

That was my suspicion, I had never installed my monitor drivers before, so I gave it a shot and all I it really accomplished was that it reset all my display colour settings. Kind of a bitch after I had worked so tediously to get the monitors to match And it didn't affect the resolution options.

To test I reverted back to the 162.18 driver, and voila it's fine. I contact Nvidia directly, and they asked me to send my dxdiag and my monitor profile. After reviewing my files they said they hope they'll be able to address the issue in future drivers. Yay.

[Cobra951]

I sued to be able to use 1280x800 and 1440x900 before the 163 drivers.

I can see the headlines now:  "Irate customer sues Nvidia for proper resolution support."    Some typos are more fun than others.

I understand the issue of native resolutions on fixed-pixel displays.  I have one myself now, but it's only 1366x768 (16:9).  That means that in the 4:3 mode, it's natively 1024x768, and everything looks peachy when I use that mode for games.  Most newer games support 1360x768, and even some older ones (like Psychonauts).  But that comes with a performance hit.  I can see how you'd be unhappy if you have a 1920x1200 (16:10) 24" PC monitor.  You have to choose between the game running right and direct pixel mapping.  Such is life.  My Samsung does a fine job of scaling other resolutions, and even NTSC looks good at the proper distance.  I have no complaints at all about 800x600 displays in the 4:3 mode. even close up.

[idolminds]

This is why I heart my CRT. Its big and warm and displays whatever I tell it to.

[Cobra951]

There's no reason why a digital monitor can't scale correctly.  Filtering and error diffusion software technology have been perfected over decades.  This gets incorporated into the monitor's display processing.  I know some of them don't do the job well.   When it is done well, it looks better than a CRT spreading out the scan lines.

There's also the anal factor.  I think a lot of those people mentioned higher up, those who spend a lot of money to have the best-benchmarking PCs on Earth, simply won't hear of using anything other than the crisp native res, even if the scaling job is perfect.  I have no sympathy, sorry.

[MysterD]

1Up's Review
8.0 from 1Up

According to Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli, Crysis is like the gal that guys love to look at, only her Mensa score complements her measurements. While neither beauty and brains nor graphics and gameplay are negatively related --where the one necessarily suffers if the other soars -- Yerli's point is plain: "Don't hate our game because it's gorgeous." It is a bit messier than that, though not by much.

...

Bloody leaves, broken branches
Maybe someone, somewhere in America happens to have Crysis and the computer required to run it and yet somehow hasn't heard the hype. Mr. X in this improbable scenario is a stranger to game magazines and bars gaming terms from his browser. He's also in for a fine time. Everyone else expects an experience that the game delivers only in doses. A.I. stalkers "see" blood on leaves and broken branches, Yerli insisted a year ago. Maybe not so much. Instead, the sense is that invisibility throws some switch that tells foes to stop firing and to pantomime one-size-fits-all search patterns. Sometimes the effect is the same; other times the charade is see-through...especially in instances where choppers clearly bird-dog cloaked and evasive players and resume attacking the split-second that nanosuit camouflage power peters out.

What was to be proof positive that Crytek's range encompasses more than Far Cry's merc in the wilderness becomes history repeating itself. Dumb monster apes and indoor drudgery dragged down the finale of the developer's last FPS. In Crysis, it's dull aliens and a direct reversal of design logic. The wintry jungle is just a white hallway that we escort another nanosuited soldier through. Now and then, flying things land to attack with tentacles -- no huts to hide in (would aliens strip shingles from the roof to shoot inside?), no shattering cover, and no three-way mix-ups with wandering Koreans. The order to protect our partner, I suspect, is a tension-inducing device there to distract us from the unfinished framework of a big plan that fizzled but couldn't be cut.

Afterward, we sit in a truck turret. Although they're there, we're unable to take another vehicle (doors don't open) or to switch seats. Before this, we've both fired while driving and flipped back and forth between driving and firing. What this means -- and what makes this stretch seem as though a different studio developed it -- is that Crysis teaches us to fish and then drops us in bone-dry desert.

And on it goes. Stints in motorized air-defense systems...that don't move. Low altitude flight in a leaden VTOL, where defeating drones dissolves invisible barriers no one intends to notice, allowing us to fly forward, fight off another three drones, dissolve another invisible barrier, fly forward....

Fast forward through scraps of miserable story and melodramatic dialogue, along with a "boss battle" inherited from the coin-op class of '88 (see: Contra), and the ordeal is done -- beautiful throughout, mostly amazing, but vegetative by the end.

[scottws]

Wow, even though it got an 8, those are some pretty scathing words.

[MysterD]

I was wondering how it got a 8.0 myself, despite the ton of a barrage of nasty words. There wasn't very much that was said that was in praise of the game, actually.

[gpw11]

That pretty much just convinced me not to buy it until it's cheap.

[Quemaqua]

I heartily disagreed with 1UP's review of Jericho, but I think a lot of that is just stuff that doesn't bother me if I enjoy the game at heart.  But this pretty much smacks of the kind of thing I was suspecting from Crysis all along.  Again, I don't know why.  I liked Far Cry, but it just struck me that this was going to be the same thing, only maybe showing its age a bit more mechanically despite all the pretty things.

Eh, I don't know.  I'm not going to fight it.  I mean the last thing I need is another game to want, right?  I should be happy to have one off my list.

[Xessive]

I can see the headlines now:  "Irate customer sues Nvidia for proper resolution support."    Some typos are more fun than others.

I understand the issue of native resolutions on fixed-pixel displays.  I have one myself now, but it's only 1366x768 (16:9).  That means that in the 4:3 mode, it's natively 1024x768, and everything looks peachy when I use that mode for games.  Most newer games support 1360x768, and even some older ones (like Psychonauts).  But that comes with a performance hit.  I can see how you'd be unhappy if you have a 1920x1200 (16:10) 24" PC monitor.  You have to choose between the game running right and direct pixel mapping.  Such is life.  My Samsung does a fine job of scaling other resolutions, and even NTSC looks good at the proper distance.  I have no complaints at all about 800x600 displays in the 4:3 mode. even close up.

Haha that's one word I keep mistyping!

[Pugnate]

Ughh... well when the game comes I will post my impressions.

I have to admit, I didn't understand half the review. Was it translated to English from another language?

Anyway I am not too bothered as of yet. It is one semi negative review after a string of positive ones. But yea Que, I have been suspecting that as well. Same mechanics prettier picture. Let's hope it turns out to not be true.

The reviews honestly haven't swayed me that it really does anything so amazing.  It just looks dull and uninspired to me, as it has from the moment it was announced.

I've quoted you from an other topic Que.

I have to tell you, I read that gamespot review and it didn't excite me. Neither did the IGN review.

You know like Bioshock's IGN review made me want the game badly.

edit:

I have to say from 1Up's other reviews. They don't seem to know how to enjoy a game.

[Pugnate]

The review from Eurogamer gave it 9.0 out of 10.0 and was probably one of the best I've read so far.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=87423&page=2

he Crysis environments are so naturalistic, so close to realism, that you find yourself thinking: "of course, because that's how things are supposed to look." It takes a few moments to step back and really look. I was in a stretch of a forested valley. The sun was shining down on the rocks across the valley, reflecting light with that certain stony gleam that long-polished rocks have about them. Those same sunbeams were filtering through the trees and casting dappled shadows across the exquisitely detailed forest floor. This is that HDR stuff deployed as it was meant to be - with a slight haze that jungles have about them, with the yellow sun dropping beams of light through the waving branches overhead. The jungle was alive. Ahead of me vegetation flicked and moved: enemies approached.

And that's pretty much where my eyebrows went up and I muttered mild obscenities: I was playing a game where (at least some) vegetation moved as people passed through it. The fronds of a palm tree bent and flicked well before I could see the soldier who approached along the path. In the firefight that followed I levelled a great swathe of greenery as the bullets flew and grenades detonated. Branches fell from trees and saplings collapsed into the undergrowth: it was my own little re-enactment of the minigun scene from Predator. But it got better - thanks to the capacity of the nano-suit to give me a temporary cloaking field - I stopped being Arnie [surely Bill Duke - Predator Ed] and became the Predator in the space of about ten seconds. I reached out and grabbed a soldier by the throat. I took a few moments to examine his horrified, dying face in all its incredible detail before hurling him backwards into the undergrowth.

FINAL WORDS:
This is a game that feels supremely engineered, like a precision machine, or a German automobile. It makes Half-Life 2 seem old and frail, but by the same token it does nothing to diminish the imaginative achievements of that series. Crysis is impressive, but not imaginatively bold. Nor does it engage us like some other great shooters - such as BioShock - have done with their world and their personality. It's far better than Far Cry, and it's clearly going to create a rabid army of fans, many of whom I hope will plug themselves into the absurdly easy-to-us level editor and create us more single-player campaigns. Personally I'd like to see where this astounding world-forging technology will take us. And I can't wait to see what Crytek will do next.

Here is a review from gametap:

http://www.gametap.com/home/read/article/8a25090116349c35011635b746dc1b93

Ultimately, even with the sudden change in design style, and some minor quibbles (suit power, technical horsepower required for the best visuals), Crysis remains a landmark shooter. Yes, it's aggravating that the flat-out brilliance of the early early levels isn't sustained, but even still, the most that change did for me was to turn Crysis from a "so f---ing awesome game" to a mere "awesome game."

Pros: Fantastic open-ended combat; great production values; surprisingly good (for a shooter) story; neat multiplayer mode.
Cons: Turns from sandbox into corridor; hefty system requirements; minor gameplay quibbles

[MysterD]

I liked Far Cry -- liked it a lot, actually. But the checkpoint save system sucked. It is basically what caused me to not continue to finish the game.

From what I know about Crysis, I expect the SP to be like Far Cry (1/2 of the game fight humans in a beautiful tropical land, 1/2 of the game versus monsters) + the Zero-G Suit gimmick + weapon upgrades + I can finally quicksave!

In other words, I don't expect Crysis to be too much different than FC; more like an evolutionary step forward, in some aspects (graphics, upgradeable weapons, finally can quicksave).

I ain't tried FC's MP, but I wonder if it'll be much different than Crysis' MP.

[MysterD]

Looks like Crytek's already at work on another game, which will be a brand new IP

Crysis Developer Working on New IP
Nov 24, 2007 at 3:43 PM - Robert "Apache" Howarth - 16 Comments

InCrysis has the word that Crytek is working on an original new game at its Kiev Studio.

"Crytek GmbH, the leading independent German game developer behind the critically acclaimed game Far Cry and the highly anticipated game Crysis, today announced the elevation of their satellite offices in Kiev to full development studio status as the next strategic step in the growth of the company, and the launch of a new project based on new original IP."

Let me guess, it will have tropical islands and aliens?

[Xessive]

Tropical islands and ZOMBIES! It will be called "Cryogenesis"!

[Pugnate]

Crysis finally came in a few days ago. I will post detailed impressions with screenies soon, but this game is FUN! I was prepared to be a little skeptical after all the overly positive reviews, but this is just awesome fun. It is also a pure action game.... and a bit of a throwback. Well at least when compared to titles like R6:Vegas, CoD4 etc.

It has something for everyone to be honest.

[gpw11]

Yeah, I had a  lot of fun with the demo just screwing around.  Punching the side of a hut, and then when the guard comes over, switching to strength mode and smashing the wall off before punching him so hard he flies 10 feet?  Awesome.

[scottws]

It ran too horribly for me and looked too ugly for me to enjoy it initially when I was trying to run it at 1680x1050.  When I found out you can still make it run/look pretty good with a lower resolution, I was unable to re-install the demo.  It kept giving me errors.

[Pugnate]

Yea I was browsing on the PCG forums and apparently the game has trouble with 64bit Windows.