Crysis

When Crytek released their second debut title, Crysis, late last year amongst some of the biggest titles such as Call of Duty 4, Bioshock and Halo 3, it is difficult to measure the worth of this shooter within a genre that is already very crowded. Despite the steep hardware requirements keeping the masses absent from the beast that is a Crysis, those who have been enjoying this amazing title under the best circumstances can attest to it easily being best-in-breed PC gaming with the amazing graphics, unique gameplay mechanics and a well-rounded single player campaign.

Basic Run-Down

Some of the essentials that you would need to know about Crysis, like story, are pretty basic as far as shooters go. You play as a Lieutenant for the US Special Forces, code-named 'NOMAD', infiltrating a tiny island off the coast of North Korea to investigate the kidnapping of a research team captured by the NK Army who had taken over the island. While skydiving to the landing zone with your 5 man team, an unidentified object hits you in mid-air scattering you and your team throughout the island. As everyone tries to find each other, you hear strange noises on the island telling you that something 'other-worldly' does not want to be disturbed. Your mission is to rescue the research team and find out what's happening on the island. Everything else is just video game magic.

Your Nano-vantage

One of the best aspects of the game, which really sets this apart from most shooters out there is your uber-cool Nanosuit which has a variety of enhancements to your abilities such as speed, strength, cloak and amour. These options are available to you via a slick menu which allows you to access the suit's features on the fly. Also within the menu is the ability to customize your in-use weapon with a variety of add-ons such as flashlight, silencer and various sights that allows you to customize every gun in your arsenal (More on this later). The suit has its own energy meter, alongside your health, which limits the length of whichever feature you're using. The default setting is Armour Mode where you can take a little more damage than what you're accustomed to taking and it can also help you heal faster. Speed is great for conquering long distances quickly either by short bursts of speed or by walking at the speed of running normally. Strength is an interesting feature as it allows you to punch harder, jump higher and launch large and heavy objects with the greatest of ease. Cloak, a likely favorite amongst fans, is the ability to make yourself invisible, a la Predator, and sneak around undetected. Each of the suit's functions have their strengths and weaknesses with the right amount of balance. The use of the Nanosuit really puts a unique edge on the game as you can mix-and-match various abilities, though one at a time. For example, the cloak feature is great for going into a place undetected but it is limited in that when you fire a shot, throw a punch or toss an object, the suit immediately losses energy and you lose cloak - so you have to be careful how you use cover when sneaking around during an assualt. An advantage to the strength feature is the ability to not only exercise super-human power but also help steady your shot and limit recoil.

Weapons System

While a lot of shooters do many different things with weapons and HUD-related elements of gameplay, the fact that you can attach various add-ons on the fly quickens the action and make you more effective on the battlefield. In terms of numbers, there are only 4 core weapons - Pistol, SCAR, AK-47 and the Shotgun - that you're going to be mostly using for the majority of the time. The bigger weapons are just simply big guns that do lots of damage like the Rocket Launcher, Gauss Rifle (think of Arnie's Eraser) and others I won't spoil. Rounding out the last of the weapons are of course things like grenades that come in a variety of flavours such as FRAG, Flashbang and Smoke along with Remote Explosives which are great for taking out large stationary objects or for clearing a building full of bad guys. The shooting game itself is pretty good considering how much of a factor the Nanosuit and in-game physics plays. Mastering combination tactics between the suit's features and your weapons takes a great deal of finesse and can be quite satistifying. It is nice to be able to use the enemy's weapons and ammo when you run out of ammo for your SCAR but I wished I was able to use it more because I feel it's the best weapon to play the majority of the time. Lastly, melee attacks are heightened with the strength feature and can even make guys fly with a well placed punch. It could also break obstacles and destroy small structures though the trailer did feature NOMAD punching a roof of a building to make an opening to jump through that, for some reason, doesn't work at all in the game. But the very fact that you could jump on the roof in battle is wildly entertaining once you get the hang of it.  And if you want to take the battle beyond guns, you can pick up virtually any object in the envivronment use them on your enemies including the animals. 

Visuals

Of course, you can't talk about Crysis without talking about the visuals. Crysis scores major points in both technical and artistic visual style and given that there are very few systems on earth at this point that could actually play the game maxed out, the results can vary for most people. For many who are barely playing the game, it is frustrating to forego some graphical features to enable some decent gameplay. The creators proclaim that the game will eventually look better over time as newer hardware will allow a more complete experience for the visuals. It is nonetheless a practice in finding the graphical sweet spot which could be disappointing and irritating for some. Regardless, there is very much a cinematic feel to the game as the combination of advanced lighting, physics, motion blur and the complexity and density of the environments definitely give the big players a run for their money. Even playing in low-resolution with some features cautiously maxed and others muted, Crysis still manages to look good if you run multi-core processors, have lots of RAM and at least a 256MB DX10-compatible card. Cranking the resolution can bring any system to it's knees - as does applying Anti-Aliasing - but that is meant for those who have larger monitors or playing on their HDTV. Eventually, people will have systems powerful enough to enjoy the game in it's full glory and at which time the game will be rediscovered in many forms for years to come.

One of the most astonishing aspects of the visuals is, of course, the setting. Far Cry was a good indication of how well Jungle settings can be for shooters but Crysis takes it to the next level. It's more than just foliage, massive rock-formations and white sandy beaches, it's also the minute details with rocks, rivers, trees which are react to wind, reflect sunlight, cast beautiful soft-shadows and can even be shot down with a few well placed shots. Other times, explosions from FRAG's and vehicles can also up-root and topple palm trees which could kill anyone who's unfortunate enough to be under them as they're falling. Environments work off some nifty lighting tricks such as a consistent sun that both rises and sets in the distance while distributing the appropriately coloured light over the environment. And no one has made water look this good as there is almost a surreal ambience with running onto to the beach and just swimming out into the depths of the seabed complete with marine life and coral. As you progress later on in the game, you play in an alien ship with a rather impressive creative design aspect along with small parts of the jungle frozen. The great thing is that the environments aren't just eye candy, there is a vastness to the island itself along with the minute details of every square foot. With so much attention to detail especially with how convincing the environments are to a real jungle, it's easy to get caught up runnning aimlessly around the jungle hopping massive cliffs and swimming through wide rivers. Of course, you're brought back into the game when you realize that there are enemies that wear camoflauge surrounding you. Eventually you do get a sense of where you are and how to spot enemies but there is a little bit of real-world instincts you have to put in to properly engage people shooting at you from a distance. And let's not forget, vehicles and helicopters can uncover you just as easily so you have to adapt your suit's ability to the cover in the environments.

Vehicles

While Crysis is not really a game that prominently features all that many vehicles until closer to the end, they do serve their own purpose. In the first half of the game, you're pretty much limited to whatever is around like pick-up trucks, HUMVEE's, and Gunboats. You can also drive bigger trucks but they are just available to use for just having fun as enemies can easily detect that one of their own isn't driving them. Some of the vehicles have turrets which is a nice addition towards taking out little annoyances easily but you have to become accustomed to the game's physics and the steering mechanics which takes some practice to get down-pat. Honestly, I felt a contrast between the control you have with your character compared to the vehicles. Getting better in the game doesn't necessarily require you to operate vehicles when taking out encampments, but it is worthwhile to know how to drive around to get places faster. They also showcase the game's great physics by making them destructible via shooting the gas-tank or tires. This is actually quite good as you don't necessarily need a rocket launcher or half your ammo trying to bring them down. Enemies can also be quite effective in this manner as well. Later on in the game you get to ride bigger vehicles that aren't necessarily worth mentioning here but instead need to be experienced firsthand. I do regret that players aren't able to fly the helicopter but when one shows up during a battle, they can be quite challenging - and that's always a good thing. 

AI

Considering the work that has been done to the environments and gameplay elements, I could imagine that it was quite a challenge programming AI in Crysis. I could understand why the AI was programmed to do half the things in the game that would otherwise be abnormal in other games. The good thing is that the enemies are challenging as they provide some intense firefights and are always actively seeking cover. Since you encounter enemies in small groups, they also work together by taking offensive positions. You will find that fighting a lot of enemies at once can be quite challenging seeming that enemies are constantly trying to get the best angle of attack while trying to flank you from any available position. Of course, with so many variables in getting AI to successfully defend their positions, the AI can surprise you with some of the dumb things they do from time to time in an attempt to ramp up the difficulty. For one, enemies seem to spawn dynamically as you're playing. For instance, if you disturb a section where two enemies are located, more enemies start spawn around you when things get heated - sometimes even when you make some noise.

Also, there are times when you will see multiple enemies spawning in the same area that groups them in such a way that it's too easy to take them all out. In some respects, it's not always easy to take on a ton of enemies at once so you're best bet is to refine your aim and adopt a more efficient way of killing the AI or use explosives and grenades in creative ways. For the most part, the game mostly compliments those who take extra care in infiltrating bases using precise shooting and stealth tactics and therefore the AI will tune itself appropriately depending on how noisily you approach a situation.  Otherwise, you might find yourself detracted by some of the AI quirks like enemies maintaining positions even though one of their own was killed right in front of them. You would expect them to investigate but they often times don't if you manage to stay out of sight. Other times you could distrub a whole swarm of enemies and as they're gathering, they seem to happen upon immediate position trying to find you.  The worst of all is definitely when enemies look at where your bullets land if you miss trying to shoot them. In other words, if you start shooting at someone in the distance and they see you, if you miss one shot and it hits somewhere behind them, they'll turn around completely and take aim at where you shot. Crytek has changed the AI throughout the two patches so if you're turn out to be a purist with fighting with the original AI, note that the patches will yeild slightly different gameplay.

Playing Crysis since it's release, I haven't been able to unhinge myself from it because it's just that great. Aside from the campaign being of average length and fulfilling in terms of variety, I feel that the meat of it is the first half where you're putting advanced tactics to the test. You can approach any situation any way you like and it really makes for a great-replay value. Over time, I've come to understand some of the finer gameplay elements of Crysis that I feel are part of the true nature of why it's so great. Crysis covers its bases when compared to most shooters if you scale-back far enough but the combat supercedes anything that's out there right now given the player's ability set, use of physics and stunningly photo-realistic visuals.