Just Better
Let's start off with the value, you get a 30 dollar game with two very well put together components. Yes, it is important that the multiplayer aspect of Crysis Warhead, Crysis Wars, is separate. Since it's a separate application it means that the team can more easily patch the multiplayer component without having to worry about messing with the single player portion itself. Obviously Wars is going to be updated a lot more frequently than Warhead so this alone makes it a lot more efficient for everyone. The best part is that both components are better than their last incarnation.
Warhead has been significantly improved since Crysis. For all those reviews out there that say Warhead does not cater to the Nanosuits abilities I would have to strongly disagree. It's understandable though, the amount of fun you get out of any version of Crysis is really dependant on your play style and there are a number to choose from. For me I've always been a stealth aficianado and I snuck around quite a lot in the original Crysis, it just allowed for it many more times. In Warhead though, I feel the level design is closer together and more frantic, and even though I could cloak myself it just wasn't proving very effective. The amount of enemies this game throws at you on the harder difficulties is akin to that of the likes of Serious Sam. It's quite overwhelming at times and this is a pretty unforgiving game to begin with, especially on Delta but it's certainly more fun too.
So basically I found myself using the other functions of the nanosuit much more often. I used speed mode to zip around huge open fields surrounded by countless enemies and take them out with a swift vengeance. I used strength mode to quickly make do of the very bullet-resistant Korean Nanosuit enemies by throwing hulking objects at them and watch them crumble under the blow. I found myself using Cloak mode a lot less just because the enemies were so tightly packed together but it still definitely comes in handy from time to time. Armor mode of course is always indredibly useful.
The story is better this time around too. It still takes a back seat to the action but I find it pretty interesting and if they continue it I could see it getting even better than it is. I think they've found a good level of story to gameplay here. Also, the addition of Psycho as the main character is immensely more helpful. As cliche as this Jason Stathom sounding Brit is, it's hard not to like him. They even go as far as to make him seem more human and not just some crazy war driven guy as you're lead to believe by his name. He's even more human than Nomad. I'd like to add that I'm glad Crytek justified the most cliche part of his whole persona, his name, by saying that his real name is Michael Sykes and that "Psycho" would be an obvious play on his name.
Now yes, you could do all of this in the original Crysis but the thing is, the level design in Warhead just makes theses options more frequently available. As a whole, I just find Warhead to be more well designed, especially in the multiplayer Crysis Wars aspect of the game. In an interview a Crytek employee talked about how their approach this time around was to make design buildings and objects closer together and not so spread out. That the fun of using speed mode was zipping from point a to point b really quickly and making it there before your suit power ran out. In the original Crysis, both single player and multiplaye aspects, the buildings were so spaced out with nothing in between but empty fields so you'd be taking a good couple of mintues even in speed mode to get from point a to point b. Which meant you'd be taking a vehicle instead and while the vehicles are great fun, it's more fun to have the option to choose between both. Either have the added benefit of having more protection and a mobile turret in a vehicle or just switch to speed mode and remain more agile and versatile. In my opinion, Crytek nailed it completely and it has been the first time I've really seen a developers intentions come to fruition like they have said.
Real quick on the visuals. Crysis Warhead looks better and plays better than it's predecessor which is a feat in and of itself. However don't expect some monumental leap in performance here. There's a certain point where performance just simply can't be improved and X number of polygons, shader effects, and so on just means you're going to need some good hardware to run it and I'm quite certain that's the case here. I don't understand all the complaining about the Crysis system requirements, the game looks trulty breathtaking when you're running it at Enthusiast settings even at 1440x900 like I did and it's very possible to turn the settings down and play this on some very old hardware by todays standards.
Crysis Warhead is a great value.You get an action packed single player experience with many reasons to replay because there are definitely multiple ways to approach every situation and you also get an extremely well designed multiplayer game too. For 30 dollars it's hard not to recommend Crysis Warhead for any PC gamer.
