Developer: Crytek
Publisher: EA
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Players: 1, 2-12 (online)
Console: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
Hours Played: 16
Progress: Completed campaign on “Veteran”
When posing the question “Does it run Crysis?” to console owners, considering it was a PC-only title, the answer would always be unequivocally, “no”. But now PS3 and Xbox 360 owners need no longer feel left out as the sequel to 2007’s Crysis is finally here and available on consoles. This time around gamers will run through the crumbling city of New York instead of Asian jungles, however the frenetic FPS action along with the power of the “Nanosuit” make a welcome return. Is Crysis 2 relevant enough in this console environment populated with top notch FPS titles? Read on to find out…
Neither the back of the box nor the manual inside utter but a line about Crysis 2‘s story and sadly, there is little reason to. The story centers around the conflict between the alien Ceph and US military with the private military organization known as Cell thrown in for good measure. The game takes place in New York City, mostly Manhattan, a long way from the jungles found in the first Crysis, yet a pleasing battleground for the game’s proceedings nonetheless. Most of the time the player is sent from one location of the city to another while having the image of someone in the right hand corner of your screen yakking at you about what to do and how to do it. It is not all that interesting and there is very little in the way of likable or interesting characters for the player to care about.
You will take the role of the US Marine known as “Alcatraz” who is unwittingly endowed by “Prophet, the original owner, with the “Nanosuit”, a character very much in its own right and the centerpiece of the game. The Nanosuit marries human engineering with alien technology to form mankind’s most potent weapon against this alien invasion. As the game progresses more will become known about the powers of the Nanosuit and how it interacts with the Ceph, the virus they’ve unleashed on New York and the strange spires that have sprung up all over the city.
At its core, Crysis 2 is just like all the other FPS games you have played. The player is sent from location to location in turn trading fire with human and alien opponents, while a power struggle surrounding the Nanosuit plays out throughout. It is barely enough to keep one interested, whatever excuse Crytek felt like giving us for taking us from one great looking environment to the next, we will take it.
“The Crysis series has finally arrived on consoles and is the best looking game ever!” Or so the pundits are screaming and although you would not blame them for believing so, considering how great the first game looked on PC, it is a bit of an exaggeration, Crysis 2 does not boast the fantastic lighting filters found in Killzone 3 or the lush and colorful environments which populated Uncharted 2. We do get detailed levels with sharp textures and interactive objects, often to an extent not seen in many other games.
Since the majority of the game is set in the urban setting of Manhattan, it is important to see the environments dressed up in a detailed and realistic manner. Crytek has payed close attention to populating the environments with many types of objects, from mailboxes to newspaper stands. Nearly all of those can be interacted with, or are destructible, this looks especially impressive when standing next to a concrete pillar and pieces of stucco fly off as bullets hammer into it. The texture work is very solid, you can walk up to nearly any object and the textures remain sharp and detailed.
Lighting effects are a little less impressive in Crysis 2, real time lighting is very arbitrary as some lights can be shot, resulting in the immediate surroundings being darkened, while others are not even phased by a rocket launcher. On the whole, the visuals are very solid, the detailed environments and sharp textures stand out the most, however Crysis 2 lacks a distinctive visual style as well as more dynamic lighting filters. This, of course, is true more so for the console versions, which we based our review on, than the PC iteration. For those who want the ultimate visual experience and have the appropriate computer horsepower, the PC version is the one to go for, the game is also 3D compatible on all platforms.
The impressive presentation values continue with the sound design, Crysis 2 has very cinematic score that adds weight and importance to the proceedings of the game. The voice acting is solid and includes some great performances, especially the one that brings Crynet director, Jacob Hargreave, to life.
Most notable however, are the visceral sound effects. Surround sound implementation is expertly done and the way you can hear bullets impact and ricochet off objects immerses you like no other. Unfortunately consistency can be an issue. Many objects in Crysis 2 can be picked up and thrown around for example, however the sound effects that accompany throwing a metal mailbox into a concrete wall, devolve into a simple “thud”. We’ve also experienced sound effects being loaded late, such as the crashing of a helicopter minutes after it actually came down. Such instances detract from the experience a tad, however the overall sound presentation is strong enough to keep the game looking and sounding great.
The controls in Crysis 2 are pretty standard for an FPS and similar to what is found in Call of Duty’s scheme, clicking the right thumb stick performs the melee attack while clicking the left one allows the player to sprint. The Nanosuit’s powers are a big part of the game and are intuitively mapped to the left bumper- (armor ability) and right bumper (cloaking ability) buttons. Character responsiveness more than adequately conveys the freedom of movement offered by the Nanosuit and the controls allow the player to control Alcatraz easily enough.
Unlike most FPS games, Crysis 2 is not all about grabbing the biggest gun and shooting up the place, although that is definitely a component of the game, rather your suit is the biggest weapon. The abilities provided by the Nanosuit offer tactical options, which can be exercised according to what the circumstances require. Need to stay hidden and take out enemies from a distance? -Grab a sniper rifle, activate your cloak ability watch as your enemies mull about in confusion. Need to run into a fortified enemy position? -Enable your suit’s armor ability and soak up incoming fire as you blow away enemies up close with a shotgun.
Crytek has done a good job of designing the environments as a playground to utilize your suit’s abilities in different ways. A good example of this is early on in the game where the player enters a particular section of city block in Manhattan and has the option to cloak and make his way to the rooftops and attack from a distance or go into armor mode and control a mounted machine gun to attack Cell forces head on. Yet another option is to jump in the sewers just underneath the street to navigate the environment without being seen and to escape undetected when things get too hot. Although significantly smaller than the environments in the first Crysis, the surroundings in the sequel are still bigger and less linear than most other FPS games and make experimenting with the Nanosuit tremendous fun.
Unfortunately the game stays a bit from this formula in later parts and devolves into basic shooter gameplay. A sense of repetition is not helped any by a very limited selection of enemies, human Cell mercenaries and a few types of Ceph aliens. This sense of repetition along with a very ho-hum story made me long for the end a bit before the game was actually over though.
We had a great time with the multiplayer mode, similar in set up to the recent Call of Duty games, the player earns experience to upgrade weapons and abilities. Not counting side-arms, there are four different weapon types (assault rifle, sniper rifle, shotgun and machine gun) with three different versions for each. New weapons are unlocked by leveling up, which also allows the player to earn new weapon attachments. Crysis 2‘s version of “perks” are the suit modules with seven abilities for each type of module (armor-, stealth- and power modules). Kill streak rewards, called strategic tools, range from scrambling enemy radar to calling in a Ceph airstrike, with a modest total of six different types available.
Readers may notice that there do not seem to be a lot of different multiplayer weapons and customization rewards, we found that because of this, the matches were a lot more close as players have to rely on their own skills, rather than the superior load out. Maps look great, typically are not too big and incorporate settings from the single player experience very well. Although there is, in theory, the potential for players to rely on their Nanosuit powers, especially the cloak ability, everyone has access to it and a quickly depleting energy bar ensures that it can not be overused.
The game community at the time of review was solid and because of good balancing and an absence of major bugs, this is one multiplayer experience that does not need to be fixed by a plethora of patches *coughkillzone3cough*.
The single player campaign is reasonably long, between eight and ten hours, however, as previously mentioned, due to the relatively pedestrian gameplay and uninspired story I felt myself wanting the end to come a bit before it actually did. The game is quite easy on the “normal” difficulty setting, and even on “veteran” (hard) I found that repeating the pattern of cloaking myself, using a sniper rifle to take out enemies from a distance and then cloaking again, was so effective that it allowed me to coast through most of the game.
For those of us who never had the opportunity to play the original, PC-only Crysis, the sequel offers reprieve in the form of a great looking first-person shooter with the Nanosuit abilities thrown in as a slight twist. When the environment allows you to take down your opponents by experimenting with the different abilities you have available, the game really shines, the rest of the time it is pretty standard FPS fare.
Crysis 2 is here and the series is finally available on consoles! It does little to change the FPS landscape though, instead it simply offers a great looking experience with interesting environments and Nanosuit abilities. The multiplayer is pretty polished and overall this game is recommended to any FPS fan, just don’t expect anything too revolutionary.
Story:
– Yes there is a story here but it mainly involves being sent from one place to the next by a rotating cast of characters
Graphics:
+ Large and detailed environments
+ Very high-res textures
– Lighting effects are nothing impressive
Sound:
+ Solid score and voice acting
– Audio glitches and inconsistensies
Gameplay:
+ Environments offer different tactical options to take down enemies
+ Suit abilities are fun to use and can be upgraded
– Towards the end it devolves into basic FPS combat
Multiplayer:
+ Great looking maps
+ Nicely balanced combat
– Limited customization options
Usagi Factor:
+ Campaign is a decent length
– Difficulty is fairly easy and the sniping/cloaking combo is too easy to abuse
