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This review is coming from a guy who after playing the demo for 6 hours still wanted more
The good:
*Campaign is big, and took about 11 hours with a fair amount of graphics ogling and exploring (to put this into perspective, I beat modern warfare 2 in about 4.5-5)
*The levels that take place directly in the heart of the city have this sandbox feel to them that I haven't felt since metal gear solid 4, you really feel like you have freedom to approach the situations as you see fit.
*Just finished my play through on the hardest difficulty. You can get through 16 of the 19 levels without firing a bullet if you're stealthy enough, and the other 3 only have one required firefight in each. Very impressive for an fps.
*Slipping in and out of cloak for stealth kills on the humans is badass, especially when they are aware something is wrong
*TONS of weapon and suit customization, you wont get all of it in one play through.
*Graphics(HD tv, probably the best I've seen all year)
*The musical score is absolutely amazing, Hans Zimmer working on this project is just awesome
*Didn't know this, but apparently it supports 3d, for the 8 of you out there who that applies to
The Bad:
*Multiplayer matchmaking is still kind of wonky
*Complaints from the demo are still present(Stealth kill animations don't work right occasionally, host migration sometimes fails and ends the match, etc)
* As usual the writing suffers at a few points, but show me a game that doesn't
I would put it as a contender for game of the year, but with Skyrim, mass effect 3, Arkham ciy, uncharted, portal 2, La noire, witcher 2 and sooooo many other high profile games to come, crysis 2 sets the bar high, very high, for this years video game entertainment along with the likes of killzone 3 and dead space 2. 2011 is off to a great start but Crysis 2 is definitely leading the way.
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I got Homefront and Crysis 2 on the same day but I'll leave my Homefront review for another day because since Crysis 2 went into my 360 it hasn't left it.Graphically really nothing comes close to Crysis 2. Now let me clarify that statement from the angle from a retired video game programmer : there are other games currently available such as Halo Reach or Mass Effect 2 which do seem to offer equivalent next gen visuals but they're fudging a lot of what you see. In many cases the lighting may not be dynamic or the reflections aren't really true, the game engine instead falls back on pre-rendered shadow maps and refmaps to use the geeky jargon. The Crysis 3 engine does it all and seemingly for real. A good example would be at the beginning of the game I came across a blue flashlight just laying around. I thought it was important and picked it up thinking it would come in handy later. But no, it's just there to show off the realtime shadows that EVERYTHING in the environment casts. It was toy the devs put there for you to play around with. And your onscreen character also casts shadows everywhere not just where the programmers thought it would look cool in the level.
But graphically there's so much more the water effects, the smoke, the mist, the ultra realistic fire, the in-game rendered cut scenes and of course the massive NY buildings are all a step above what any other game offers. I could ramble all day about the visuals but really you should download the multi-player demo to get a tiny taste of it.
Of course, visuals alone do not a good game make, and the gameplay has to be equally as good. Thankfully Crytek learned from their other 360 outing (FarCry) which was rather lacking in the things-to-do department, and with Crysis 2 they added a slew of entertaining ways and unique tools to approach any situation. Sure, what we have here is a glorified corridor shooter where your direction is preset due to the commands barked at you from a static intercom. But most of the action is in huge open areas with distinct hints depending on your choice of play want to stealth it out and take out the bad guys silently? No problem. Want to go in guns blazing? Again that's no problem. Want to do a bit of both, heck that's covered too. I never felt rushed even on levels that were applying pressure to get to the end and I completed the missions at my own pace. The tension is real, caused by the intense on-screen action, and not because of some fake clock timing down in the corner of the screen. This game deserves to be savored at your leisure and let's you do so.
I really don't have anything negative to say about the single player campaign even though the game has a couple of my ultimate pet hates. One, you will lose all of your weapons and powers at some point and there's nothing you can do about it and two, boss battles. Boss battles can destroy a game for me turning what could be a fun experience into an exercise in repetitively learning the correct way to kill the boss but not here. It all felt flowing and natural and not forced or repetitive.
I completed single player on the easiest setting in 9 hours and 45 minutes. It felt long and these days that's a good thing. I immediately started a new campaign from the beginning on the hardest setting. I want to get some of the collectibles that I missed but also relive the game's finer moments. You can tell it's a good game when despite needing sleep you decide to do one more mission.
Multiplayer is where I'm holding off. It can take weeks, months sometimes to get enough experience in an MP game such as this to decide just how really good it is. Frankly I consider MP to be a bonus and would easily have paid the full price for the SP alone.
If you read my other game reviews you'll see I'm quite harsh on games. It's rare, although not unprecedented, that I consider a game worthy of all stars. This is one and it should be in your game collection immediately.
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I had been playing Halo Reach and Black Ops since release and got burned out on them so I switched over to Crysis 2. I have had the game for a couple weeks now and I have really enjoyed the game. In my Opinion the Campaign is much better than Black Ops and if there was an inclusion of Coop it would have been on Par with Reach. Multiplayer is also fun but for me is slightly behind both Reach and Black Ops for multiplayer.Maybe as I progress through the multi more it will get better. And one thing it does MUCH better than Black Ops is pairing you up with opponents that are at an equal playing level to yourself. In Black Ops you were almost always completely over matched or completely dominating. There was no middle road in the matchmaking and Crysis does a GREAT job with this.
The Campaign has an AWESOME open fell to the levels and the aspect of the Nanosuit are great for gameplay. The storyline is also very well written and played out. The campaign also does a great job with the difficulty levels in the campaign allows new FPS players to get there feet wet but also making the very difficult for experienced FPS players.
The best part of the game in the GRAPHICS, they are INCREDIBLE!! The Cry Engine from game one (Far Cry) has been spectacular and the new CryEngine3 is the absolute best yet.
Pros:
Campaign
Graphics
Matchmaking in Multiplayer
Nanosuit
Cons:
Multiplayer as whole not as good as COD or Reach
A few bugs in the game but will be fixed soon!
Lack of Coop in campaign (single person story line i know but inclusion of another twist with Coop would have been AWESOME!!!)
Honest reviews on Crysis 2 - Xbox 360
this was a day one buy for me. i was fairly confident from my research into this game and my time playing and watching the demo, that this was going to be something special...understatement...since i had played the demo and no other previous crysis games, i decided to engulf myself in the campaign. i watched my buddy play multiplayer a bit. it looked like it had a few changes. otherwise i've only experimented with the customization a bit. so let me just get to the good stuff..
graphics-10/10 this is the most beautiful game i've ever seen on the 360. it is amazing! installed on my old school jasper xbox it runs with no issues. fast, beautiful, nutts...and i don't own a flatscreen tv either. this game has 3d options, which i think would be even more gorgeous.
gameplay-9.7/10 controls are very solid. one of the complaints that you might get is that you have to double tap y for grenades. but come on! this game utilizes the back button for multiple things!? yes, the back button. so the controls take some getting use to, but are very solid like i said. it more about honing your skill as this super ninja, then the controls...and when i mean honing your skills; it looks like the more you kill and through the different difficulties your suit abilities stack. not for sure but it looks like it. also i'd recommend trying out tactics in campaign, because most of the suit abilities that are in multiplayer. (also try all the guns..try all the guns while on the move..etc)
story(campaign)-9.5/10 i promise, no spoilers.. i thought the story was pretty good. everything together with the story is awesome. but i can't compare to the other crysis games because i haven't played them. i watched all the cut scenes on my first playthrough and i thought it great.
music-10/10 hanz zimmmer did an amazing job with his music for this game. i tried listening to my own music while playing, but it didn't feel the same. the zimmer music is amazing with the game. like i said, overall as one package its well done.
multiplayer9.0/10 i believe theres 12 maps and 4 game modes. 6 vs 6. amazing and fast paced. to me it felt more like battlefield than cod. some halo. i felt i really needed to us this pimped out ninja suit to my advantage. situational classes. lol. (i'm a geek) controls are similar to campaign, same for abilities. you have 3 stats; strength, speed, stealth. by using those you can gain abilities from there tree of "perks". the customization is pretty indepth. not black ops, but doesn't fall too much short of that. from the abilities and guns that i've tried i really think they did a good job of balancing things. considering that everyone has a nanosuit... just like cod by using abilities they can get better and theres all these other "assessments" that are similar to cods challenges. multiplayer really take some insight into your strengths and weaknesses to figure out what your good at. like i said, use single player to figure that out.
overall this is well worth the 60 bucks. multiple playthroughs for sheer awesome-ness and collectibles, furious multiplayer, and an overall very well done and polished product. i said to my friends this was going to be my filler till BRINK came. well....i feel silly for calling something as amazing as this filler...buy it. trust me on this one...
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Crysis 2 reminded me heavily of Avatar. The two are dissimilar in almost every way except the one that matters most. In both I was left feeling like despite the amazing visuals, neither connected with me because everything contained within them felt contrived and unbelievable. I could not relate to anyone or anything going on because it was all so one-dimensional.How could you relate to the events of the game, it's about an alien invasion, right? Well, yes. But that isn't the issue. The real problem with the game is that things happen that are so illogical you can't even suspend your disbelief to enjoy the game, even as fun popcorn schlock.
So I'm just going to say it: I don't know what the big deal is about the graphics.Obviously this aspect is a lot more important to some people than it is to me. But to me, graphics in video games are much the same as looks are when evaluating attraction in another person. Good looks aren't everything, but they aren't nothing either. However the greatest looks in history don't stop some people from being rotten and horrible people. The same is true for good graphics. They aren't nothing, but if it is all you have, you don't have very much. Not to me, anyways. I have an HDTV and I was underwhelmed by he graphics. Probably because it is common now. Metal Gear Solid 4 probably still has the best graphics I personally have ever seen, and that is just my objective opinion. But my point is, you can't just make things shiny and smooth and have that make it a great game. That's not how it works. I suppose that might be the easiest way to appeal to the most people, but for people like me, who appreciate even decent storytelling, I just spend the game looking at the plot inconsistencies instead of immersed in the action.
With such high production quality focused on the detail of the game environment, it is very unfortunate that seemingly so little attention was paid to the fluidity and cohesion of the story -what little of that there is. The whole game you are ordered around like a mindless grunt. Crysis 2 also uses one of my least favorite game techniques, and that is playing a main character that never speaks. I assume this is so that the player can imagine the character having whatever voice they want. But to me, it just gets irritating, especially when another character calls you over the radio and asks you a question, and then continues talking even though you have not made any indication that you can hear them. Voiceless main characters should be used in RPG's only, if it must be done at all, because typically in an RPG there are multiple variables depending on how you make choices. Crysis 2 is not that. It is linear storytelling. And there is nothing wrong with that, except that your character essentially has no personality whatsoever because he never speaks and never makes decisions on his own.
The last big problem I have with the game is the AI. Crysis 2 is unique to me only in that it is an FPS stealth game. Especially on the hardest difficulty, you really can't have an out-and-out firefight with enemies, you die after just a few hits. So what that means is you will spend a good portion of the game cloaked. Which is actually interesting to me. However, being cloaked from enemies and having to sneak by them is only tenuous when the AI is decent enough to detect you. And they aren't in Crysis 2. I played the game the second time through on the hardest difficulty, and it is actually really boring. I spent most of the game cloaked, and the rest of the times were "boss" battles where you have to fight in order to progress to the next area. Considering that cloaking is one of the two main abilities of the Nano-Suit, the developers really didn't make it very exciting to be cloaked.
I really cannot talk about what plot inconsistencies there are because they involve spoilers in the game. But they are there, if you pay attention.
However, I couldn't do a fair review without also talking a bit about what Crysis 2 did well. The levels are big, and there is quite a bit to explore if you have the inclination. Weapon models are good, and the graphics are very well done. The game is also very smooth, considering the on-screen action, explosions, and everything else. It is also a fairly lengthy game, considering that it's a shooter.
In the end, I felt Crysis 2 was a game I could have lived my whole life without playing and I would not be sad to have missed it. I am glad that there seems to be a highly positive response to the game, but I just cannot agree with it because of so many blatant problems in the final product. If you enjoy good shooters regardless of plot, or if you like good multi-player FPS games, buy this, it is definitely for you. But if you're looking for something with any sort of complexity or originality, look elsewhere.
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