Maximum "Flame" Armor Activated
Alright, let's get my feelings on the first Crysis out of the way: I enjoyed most of it.
Let me clarify that statement a bit. I actually played Crysis 2 on the 360 first. I enjoyed it immensely, and wasn't terribly bugged by the hitching framerate and texture pop-in mostly because it looked so darn nice that I didn't notice all that much.
Then I got my new PC, and decided to try out the first Crysis. It looked amazing, though of course the lack of focus and an ending almost as bad as Halo 2's kind of turned me off to it. I think I was disappointed in the first game more by playing the second one first (mostly because I thought that it would cover events at Lingshan shown in 2). This also led me to get 2 for my new PC...
After playing both Crysis and Crysis 2, I feel that Crysis 2's added focus, not-completely-garbage ending and (in my opinion) WAY better graphics made it an immensely superior game, and definitely one of the best shooters I've played in a long time.
Now that statement about graphics is where the title of this review comes in, since I know that's a touchy subject when comparing the two games.
Here are my PC specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 3.0 Ghz
3328 MB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 1Gb DDR3 Memory
This PC setup could play the first Crysis with everything set on it's "High" setting, and Crysis 2 on it's "Very High" setting, so don't say I didn't see Crysis at it's best. In fact, several moments in that game made me stop to look at stuff for so long that it got me killed (these of course were all in the alien spaceship). The thing is that Crysis 2 delivered more of these moments much more consistently, and less moments of ugly or broken. I also found 2's artistic design elements to be much more unique and interesting than the first's. but that's enough about graphics.
About the story: the story of Crysis 2 resonated with me more than most other shooters I've played (right up there with Bioshock and Half-Life 2). It was most certainly not the smartest, but I definitely felt engaged and compelled to see it through. Now, I will say, for good or ill, that the setting definitely toyed with my patriotism (much in the way of DC in MW2 -arguably, the best part of that game- did). I couldn't help but get a feeling of "America, F**k Yeah!" as I kicked the invaders out of our town.
I will say that this is the first review I've ever written for anything, so I hope I did okay job, and also IF YOU PC PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COMPLAIN SO MUCH ABOUT LOSING FEATURES, THEN STOP PIRATING THE DAMN GAME!!!
That is all...
