The scene is NYC and it is being devastated by the Ceph,an alien race bent on the takeover of Earth.A cryo/nano suit was developed to create an army of superior soldiers,the only ones capable of really doing any damage to the creatures.As one soldier by the name of Prophet is nearing his end,he passes on his DNA and subsequently his suit to a dying grunt by the name of Alcatraz.Alcatraz takes over where Prophet left off,with the same protocols and mission,to stop the Ceph.
The game takes you from one "crisis"(Crysis)to another.You(as Alacatraz)not only are battling the aliens but our own ground troops.Eventually you are welcomed and assist the troops but there are interfering generals,scientists and others who want a piece of you,in more ways than one.There is an ultimate secret to your development that will be revealed,but to get there you will battle through the war torn streets of NYC,fall and jump several stories,be under falling debris and collapsing buildings,swim in the filthy rivers and sewers and all in order to save humanity.Your nano suit is fully customizable all the way through and in fact you will collect nano particles,or the life essence of the aliens,in order to better upgrade your suit.Weapons and accompanying ammo are plentiful and there are many,many collectibles along the way which increases your game cred.
The graphics are utterly amazing,and if you have a high end system this should not be a problem for you.I found not so much as a slight slow down at any juncture of the game,no glitches/crashes and it usually loaded up within 10 seconds of finishing a level(going on to the next).I ran the game with a 1920X1080 pixeled screen(maxed)and ALL elements from sound to graphics on high all the way.Flawless.Every step through NYC was a jaw dropping experience as far as looks go.I would even stop mid battle just to view my surroundings more closely.Amazing.
The only game I have played lately that comes close is Bulletstorm in the look and feel,but this game goes beyond that game by quite a stretch.
I bought the limited Edition Crysis 2 which comes with free bonus experience points and level up,a unique dog tag,a weapon attachment and scar weapon skin.In order to get this content and play in multi player mode,remember you must first register an account with EA games.To assist in that,before the game starts there is a login screen which,if you have not created an account before,will take you directly to where you need to go to create one.Once created an email will be sent with a link to both activate your account and,if you have bought the limited edition,give you instructions on how to access your free stuff.A slight annoyance but all pretty simple.
In conclusion,Crysis 2 is a class act all the way.The game's story and graphics suck you in almost from the moment the first frames unfold before you.The game is as smooth as silk with no crashes,glitches or frame flutter of any kind.It loads in seconds and it guarantees an enjoyable and wild playing experience.
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You can tell when developers have really put their efforts and creativity into a game. This game is one of those kinds of games. I'll replay a game IF two things apply:1. you can replay the game using what you've earned in your first playthrough.
2. the game rocks.
Not only have I played this game though like 4 times, I was playing two different games at the same time (one game on normal, the other using the HD pack on hard setting). I would play through it again. The game is a blast and very well made.
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I walked away from the original Crysis fairly impressed and eagerly looking forward to jumping into the sequel to see what else developer Crytek could come up with. What I found was a game that had nearly everything I loved about Crysis either removed or changed in a way that took enjoyment out of the experience. This was once a fairly unique shooter now feels like a run of the mill FPS experience with some minor nanosuit abilities tacked on to give it a "Crysis-like-feel". Honestly this is the first time I've felt like consoles being tossed into the mix for development actually held a project back from achieving something far better.Again I'll start with the visuals, which were pretty good but I didn't quite get hit with the wow factor from the original. Trading in the island paradise we find ourselves in a half destroyed New York City which makes for some impressive sights but overall I felt like I wasn't experiencing anything new. Playing on DX9 with everything set at Ultra was still a treat but I didn't find myself stopping to marvel at things. DX11 offered a far better visual treat but due to poor resource management on Crytek's part which often resulted in random slow down due to the over use of tessellation on objects you could see, I opted to go with DX9 for majority of the game. I never got the sense that this game was designed to push the limits in terms of visuals the way the original did. While the visuals were great it just wasn't what I was expecting after playing through Crysis from 2007.
As I stated earlier this time we're playing in New York City shortly after the events of Crysis, which finds Prophet handing off his nanosuit to new comer Alcatraz. This poor guy is having a string of bad luck, after nearly dying when the submarine he is on is sunk in the Hudson River he's then blasted by the Ceph before being found by Prophet. After being infected by a virus that has wiped out most of New York's inhabitants Prophet puts the barely alive Alcatraz in the nanosuit then offs himself before he can explain anything. When Alcatraz awakens he finds that everyone hates Prophet and wants him dead; what's worse is that now everyone thinks he is Prophet. Now Alcatraz must take up Prophet's mission and finish what he started.
Despite being given the nanosuit from Prophet who was the team leader in the original Crysis the suit is quite different for this outing. In fact I'm going to use the term dumb downed to describe it because that is the best I can come up with. Gone is Power mode, instead activating automatically when you need it. Hold down any action you want to do in order to activate Power mode though it mainly seems to be used for jumping and the occasional power kick to move a car or something else blocking your path. Speed is also gone which is now simply activated by holding down the sprint key. Honestly it feels like a normal sprint and there's no sense of incredible speed that Crysis had. Even though it is slower it still drains your energy supply fairly quickly, majority of the time when I truly needed it my energy was already low and I lacked any other form of increased movement. Cloak is still the same with some minor tweaks to how quickly it drains your energy and Armor mode is still the same as well. So in short you've lost Power and Speed mode while keeping Cloak and Armor. Gone is the satisfaction of using this abilities to together as everything is either activated automatically or doesn't serve much of a purpose.
Moving past that minor complaint I found the game riddled with more changes or things simply being kicked out entirely. While the game still allows you to tackle objectives using whatever means you deem necessary the area size you play in is far smaller and extremely linear. Crysis 2 would try to be helpful by pointing out different "tactical options" though I wonder how tactical it is to run out in the open and grab a ledge to get to higher ground where everyone will see me. It didn't take long before I started ignoring that little voice in favor of doing it my way which usually revolved around the concept of start at point A and kill everything in my path on my way to point B. It doesn't allow you to branch off much as you are often limited to city streets or roof tops, the occasional shop being open for you to duck into though rarely would they have a way around back or anything like that. Again this felt like a huge drawback from the original and left me wondering why they thought this was a better design choice. I loved it when I would fail in Crysis because that meant I'd be trying out something entirely new by taking a completely different path and trying to find a weakness in my enemy to exploit. This time dying meant I was pretty much going to replay that same section in the same manner. Very rarely does Crysis 2 give you a good sized area to play in that allows you to experiment and explore.
Crysis 2 also features some of the worst AI I've ever encountered. Enemies/squadmates would get hung up on walls, would throw grenades against barriers they were hiding behind then stand there until it exploded, often my squadmates would ignore blatant danger while attempting to relocate for some reason. Plenty of times I found myself stopping to marvel at the stupidity going on around me. Other times it was easy to get enemies caught in a loop for animations. This means I would shoot one of the Ceph or Cell soldiers and it would send them sprawling to the ground then pop back up in the same spot a split second later. So I would keep my cross hairs in one spot, firing every other second to keep hitting them for an easy kill. Not very often did I feel challenged by the AI. Most of the time the challenge came from having to deal with a boss like creature using limited supplies (you need four rocket launchers to blow up the walking tank, you only have three) while an endless amount of Ceph spawn in the area. Even then it wasn't so much challenging as it was time consuming. One example of this would be in Times Square where you are defending a location while civilians are being evacuated. The Ceph arrive to attack and eventually they drop in one of their walking tanks. By this point your squadmates have blown themselves up so it is just you attempting to take this thing down while Ceph continuously spawn off to the side. So after hitting the walking tank with my three rockets I detached a mounted .50 in order to finish the job but had to constantly put it down to kill the two or three Ceph that had spawned in. What made this process even slower was the walking tank would send out a blast that drains my suit energy completely making it impossible for me to stand there firing at it. This felt like an exercise in patience more so than it did testing my skills.
The story line here was a fair bit better than the original, letting you interact with key characters more often and keeping you in the loop about what was going on. Alcatraz's nanosuit is basically mankind's last hope against the Ceph and is the key to undoing the plague unleashed upon New York. As you play through you find out a fair amount about the Ceph and the war that is unfolding in New York, how they are here to claim Earth and wipe out every last human. It's not the best story I've experienced but still was entertaining enough to keep me chugging through a mediocre game.
Gun play is tight and the weapons feel just right. Again the sound quality here is excellent and helps draw you into the world. Your weapons take center stage with it comes to audio as you hear shell casings hitting the ground, the click of the bolt feeding another round into the chamber, the clang when your clip is empty, the sound echoing off the buildings around you. This was one area I was truly impressed and Crytek raised the bar here over Crysis. The soundtrack was fitting, the voice acting was great, and there isn't much I can think of to complain about here.
Another major change was the Ceph, as they are no longer anything like what you saw in Crysis. Gone are the tentacled half alien half machine monsters which proved quite challenging to battle as they could fly, move quickly, and were quite deadly up close. What we have in their place are humanoid versions of the Ceph which are half alien half machines, running around on two legs like all the other enemies in the game. Why this was changed again I cannot make heads or tails about. There wasn't much of a difference between fighting the Cell or fighting the Ceph beyond the weapons they were firing at you and enemy type. It came off as lazy in my opinion since the Ceph from Crysis were new and original this time around it just felt like a reskinned human soldier with some better weapons.
Overall I just found that Crysis 2 didn't live up to what I expected and didn't continue building upon the great foundation laid by Crysis. Pointless changes, limited scope, and horrible enemy AI really held this game back from being truly great. Instead we got a middle of the road FPS with some exceptional qualities but issues that mar the experience into the realm of mediocrity. I hope Crytek rethinks their strategy for their next game in the Crysis series because this didn't leave me impressed. Clocking in at just under 8 hours for the campaign as well left me a little let down since the original took me closer to 15+ hours to complete. I'm giving Crysis 2 a 6.5 out of 10.
Honest reviews on Crysis 2 (PC)
Admittedly I'm a little late coming on board with Crysis 2... I've read the previous reviews and noticed a lot of mixed opinions on the game, so far that reason I decided to hold off until it hit the bargain bin. Typically when a game starts getting mixed reviews like that, my experience is that the game will end up being a mixed bag of both good features and areas that need improvement.Actually my experience with this one has been that of being pleasantly surprised. The machine I'm running it on is an AMD FX 8 core processor and Gigabyte GTX 650 Ti Boost, so I was able to take advantage of the DX11 patch and HiRes add-on. That being said, graphics wise the game definitely is a looker... I want to refrain too much from comparing it to the original as this is a completely different environment. Suffice to say that if the player has the ability to run it at maximum settings with the add-ons, I don't think there are many that would honestly claim to be disappointed with the results! :-) Likewise sound and soundtrack are also excellent. Player interface is pretty much standard for the genre, so no great surprises there.
Personally, I think the reason for most of the criticism with this game is that there is a rather large disconnect from the original Crysis. First, there is the storyline. For those who played Crysis 1 (You have played it, haven't you?), Prophet was seen heading back to the island to finish off the job that he started in dealing with the alien threat. Now he shows up in New York as the carrier of an alien virus, handing off his suit to a new protagonist named Alcatraz, and the world seems to be going to hell in a hand-basket around him. What the hell happened in between the two games? Certainly could have been handled better.
The other big disconnect is that this game went from a relatively open-ended game-play style to something much more linear. While I do tend to prefer the former, the fact that this storyline is more focused is not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. Think in terms of the Half-Life series, and that is overall what this game feels like. One thing this game does offer however, and this is a carryover from the other Crysis, is that it still allows plenty of latitude on how to approach a given combat. Do you prefer to be stealthy and take out your opponent with a knife? Sniper on the rooftops? Classic run and gun? Any of these styles are possible.
The suit options have been streamlined such that things before that required manual activation like Strength mode, are now automatic. There really is only the choice between stealth and armor now. It does allow for upgrades however as the player is able to harvest alien biomass for integration into the suit.
Gameplay itself is fun though pretty standard at this point. There was some criticism of the game's AI, but I felt that it was overall pretty typical of the genre. In other words, they are capable of mounting a reasonably competent defense when attacked, but will generally go back to milling around like nothing happened when things quiet down. Another criticism is that the environment isn't breakable... mostly true. Glass and small objects can be broken, and other objects like crates can be tossed around. Does get a little silly however when firing say the main gun from a tank at a search light and all it does is spin around.
Now, I do personally have one major criticism of the game, and for me this is a big one. The version of Crysis 2 that I got was the "EA Classics" release... meaning it was a reissue. The game had NONE of the patches included. Furthermore, I could tell during the install that once again Electronic Arts had released the initial game without sufficient play-testing and as such when this game was originally released it had a lot of bugs. It actually took me three tries to correctly install the game and get it to patch properly. After two years, this really should have been a non-issue and is inexcusably sloppy on the part of EA. If there is one thing that annoys me to no end is to be a "pay-in" beta tester (meaning that the software is released to the public before being fully tested and relies on customer input to resolve problems), and is the primary reason I don't buy initial releases anymore, preferring to wait a few months until they can chase all the bugs out. I don't expect perfection, but I do expect the game to work without major issues (crashing, freezing, failure to patch, etc.) out of the box. EA has become really bad about this in the last few years, and honestly I was about ready to hang it up on them. Fortunately I was able to get everything to work in the end.
If I were to sum up Crysis 2 in a sentence, it would be "been there, done that". Definitely a fun game, and when working correctly a solid first-person shooter that is definitely worth a look at especially since it can be got on the cheap these days. Unfortunately there is nothing about it that really stands out from the genre, and for those looking for the type of bleeding edge innovations and technology that put the Crytek team on the map, don't expect much from this package. In short, it's the sort of game for people like me who are looking for a decent first person shooter "fix" without spending a lot of money or brainpower to get it!
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