The trilogy ends...thankfully.
The first Crysis was a technical accomplishment, becoming a benchmark for PC gamers for years. Crysis 2 was a more linear adventure, that seemed to focus more on telling a story..with less then great results.
Now we have Crysis 3, a game that tries to tell an even more epic story, but not only fails at that, it fails at being anything but a forgettable shooter with nothing new. (Except a BOW!!)
One of the biggest surprises of Crysis 3 is how hard Crytek tries to tie all 3 games together. Its a fun idea, but if you have never played the first two games, good luck understanding anything. Hell, I have played all the games and I had trouble keeping up with what was going on. All I knew was to shoot everything that was not me or the 2 characters I was told were my "friends". Its being nice to call this games storyline a mess, its more like train wreck.
Outside the story the games does little to keep your attention. Bland level design is the first thing I noticed. The levels might look nice, sometimes amazing, but they are nothing more then linear paths towards another fight. Occasionally the game will offer you a open area, with a vehicle or two to drive. These parts are very reminiscent of Halo: Combat Evolved's larger open areas. Throughout these levels the game offers secondary objectives, some of these will give the player a benefit, like a tank or a rocket launcher. But Crysis 3 does a terrible job at keeping the player updated on whats going in the world, leaving me to miss objectives sometimes.
But the worst part of Crysis 3 is the gameplay. Gun fights are just as fluid and fast paced as before, and I generally had fun firing weapons in this game. The problem is simply put: everything else. Picking up weapons feels delayed and I found myself constantly trying to pick up a weapon and instead I would reload or just run over it. Sometimes this was annoying, other times it was rage quit worthy as I was killed by a enemy. Aiming down the sights feels sticky and lagging, I never felt like the gun was doing what I wanted. This becomes worse when the game's framerate drops.
A new wrinkle added to the Crysis formula is "Nanosuit Modules" which work like perks in Call of Duty. Your able to create 3 presets of these and can unlock new modules and upgrade them after completing a challenge. They are interesting idea, but I never felt they were anything more then a small boost to my character. Once I found the 3 or so that worked for me I felt no desire to switch things up. When I did, I found nothing really changed.
Before we wrap this up, I should talk about Multiplayer. It feels nearly identical to Crysis 2's multiplayer offerings. The much advertised bow appears in multiplayer, and while it is satisfying to get a kill with the weapon it never feels like a suitable alternative to a rifle.
(Though in single player it does have its uses, the game seems to forget it exists as ammo becomes non existent towards the latter half of the shot campaign.)
The problem with Crysis 3 multiplayer is that all it feels like is another 1st person online shooter, and that just isn't enough these days to keep people playing. Plus there aren't really any maps I found particularly excited or interesting, aside from a Crysis 2 map which has been turned into a broken down heap compared to its pristine version in the previous game. The last thing I want to mention about multiplayer is the current player count. I was on Xbox 360 and found a total of 84 players online.
Crysis 3 is a fantastic looking game, one of the best looking games I have seen on current gen, but its gameplay never becomes more then a below average shooter. A lack of enemy variety, lackluster AI and a convoluted mess of a story help make this a forgettable shooter. But more depressingly this game strikes me as purely a money making product. It lacks any real soul or creative direction.
Now, who's excited about RYSE?
