Crysis 2 [PS3 Review]

Occasionally I may come across as the type of gamer who doesn’t like big AAA action games from mainstream developers or publishers.  While I may not be a big fan of franchises like Halo or Call of Duty, I’m not a snooty gamer who will turn their head away in disgust upon seeing a game that on the surface is an otherwise derivative product that really doesn’t do much need in the genre or as the industry as a whole.  In fact I sometimes relish the opportunity to play a game in which I know what I’m going to receive and I know that while it’ll lack the substance of smaller games or pale in comparison to games that are the industry standard within that particular genre, I’m still going to have a fun time playing it. So with that being said, I’m still trying to figure out why I didn’t exactly have a merry time playing Crysis 2.  Looking at the general DNA of Crysis 2 the game has all the makings to be a huge hit, not only in my eyes but those of the millions of gamers out there.  But in the end, Crysis 2 ends up being a game that is the perfect epitome of a big Hollywood Summer action flick, you may enjoy it the first time but upon watching it again you realize just how one note the thing really is.

I’ll say right off the bat that I never played the first Crysis on the PC.  Seeing as how I’m one of the folks out there that isn’t really big into PC gaming and that I also own a relatively average laptop, I didn’t have the immediate drive to go out and buy a massive gaming rig so I could play the game that I heard gamers constantly rave about.  My interest was piqued about Crysis seeing as how the game looked gorgeous and I even found myself watching gameplay videos on YouTube so I could see what the fuss was about. Though I must admit that the final boss battle was a bit meh, but that’s neither here or there.  Anyway, going into Crysis 2 was a relatively fresh experience for me since I hadn’t played the original and I purposely didn’t play the multiplayer beta since I wanted to go into things with a fresh perspective.  So as someone who wasn’t expecting the second coming in the form of Crysis 2 I was still a bit letdown by the end product, who in all its glory doesn’t live up to the hype it’s received thus far.

Compared to the plot of the first Crysis, Crysis 2 is almost a piece of fine literature in how its plot is handled.  As has been hammered down in the various promo videos, Crysis 2 finds gamers in the beautiful city of New York. But instead of casually taking a stroll through New York and perhaps taking a walk through the lawn chair infested locale that is Times Square, New York is a massive battle zone thanks to the combo of a mysterious virus hitting it and the invading alien forces that have otherwise laid waste to the city. And by New York being a wasteland I really mean that as the city isn’t some overgrown land like it was in the film “I Am Legend” and instead looks like a complete warzone as buildings are demolished and the city is occasionally rocked by earthquakes.  After giving gamers the low-down on the basic set up of the plot, developer Crytek does a good job of doling out info and intriguing details while still being easy to assimilate as it’s nothing we haven’t seen before in a big action movie.  I was never expecting a big tale to be woven in Crysis 2 that would be hard hitting emotionally or have me gasping all the time, but the flow of the narrative just seems odd and the build up to some major events is paid off with a climax that wasn’t worth the time contributed by the player.

At this point I think we as gamers have all seen games in which there are “evil” corporations vying for technology and it’s up to the silent Spec Ops dude and the average joe tech guy to save the day and Crysis 2 basically lives up to all the stories we’ve seen in the past with little or no originality added.  Ultimately the direct and almost banal but never dudebro-esque story of Crysis 2 isn’t that much of a downer considering Crytek doesn’t have a reputation as adept or extremely talented story tellers. So I don’t think gamers will necessarily be angry with the story of Crysis 2 as they’re likely to be a bit bored if not entirely uninterested about it. Instead, I think the real issue gamers will have will be with how Crysis 2 plays compared to its predecessor.

One of the main things that was highly original about the first Crysis game was that it was set in a jungle and gamers could literally do whatever they wanted.  With an entire island to play with, one that was sadly missing hatches adorned with the Dharma logo, Crysis was essentially the first major sand box shooter, or at least it was a huge step up compared to what Crytek did with Far Cry.  Swapping out a tropical jungle for the streets of New York definitely has its benefits but to me the negatives far outweighed the positives in the end.  So before I fulfill my prophecy as the jaded gamer on Shogun Gamer let me elaborate on some of the cool stuff Crysis 2 does. While we may have seen New York in dozen of games over the past decade, I must commend Crytek on doing an incredible job with translating the most recognized city in the U.S.A. as New York looks amazing.  I may not have been blown away by the graphics of Crysis 2, I’ll elaborate on that later, but seeing things like a half destroyed Statue of Liberty or walking down the streets of New York’s business district really had a feeling of it being a real place, albeit one that’s scared by the constant wages of war and is barren aside from the presence of human soldiers and aliens.  The key thing that really sets the mood of New York in Crysis 2 is the lighting which surprisingly is bright all the time. There are definitely some moody moments in the game like when I found myself walking around a destroyed subway station or through an otherwise dark apartment building, but Crysis 2 is all about putting the player in the battle during the daytime with rays of light coming through trees or bouncing off of buildings, all of which looks extremely good.

Continuing my praise of Crysis 2, I’ll say that the game can at times be fun thanks to the Nano Suit.  You see, in Crysis 2 you aren’t some standard marine grunt or a dude with a skull mask on as you’re equipped with a high-end suit of armor with enough special tech in it to make both Sony, Apple and Norman Osborne (if he was real at least) jealous since the thing is filled with tech that is the stuff dreams are made of. Who wouldn’t want to wear a Nano Suit that allows you to become invisible for brief moments, increases your strength and enables you to see things of interest on the battlefield whether it be enemy soldiers or weapon caches?  Having the suit is a cool feature and it’s fun to either do a boost slide across the battlefield or being able to jump to reach a high ledge as opposed to having lead feet like in other FPS games. 

An early segment from the single-player campaign.

The Nano Suit is more than a convenient gameplay gimmick as its front and center at somewhat dull conflict of Crysis 2 and it’s the reason why fellow human soldiers want you dead as the suit holds a valuable secret in the conflict that’s at hand.
So to be honest, that’s the stuff I liked the most about Crysis 2; the Nano Suit is cool and the design and feel of New York looks good and doesn’t feel overly artificial, at least by game design standards. But moving on from the goodness it’s time for me to fulfill my reputation as being a negative bastard.  For all the stuff that was said which left us to believe that Crysis 2 would be an amazing game, I’m honestly not that impressed by things.  Sure, Crysis 2 is a competently made game but there are times when I played the game that I couldn’t help but wonder if Crytek was merely trying to please themselves instead of offering a game that would be enjoyed by all.

One gripe I had concerned the levels, which we all know is a very important aspect in any game.  The level themselves may not be connected directly to one another (you can’t move from zone to zone like in a sandbox game) and instead are sprawling linear levels that we’re so familiar with from other games (Killzone 3, Modern Warfare: Black Ops). But there’s so much added space in the levels that it seems like Crytek wanted the player to do more or at least were trying to give us an authentic version of N.Y., which doesn’t necessarily mean the game is awesome. There is something to be enjoyed from the linearity of the levels but often the wide reach of the levels almost feel like a wasted opportunity of sorts since there’s nothing to drive the player forward.  The abilities of the Nano Suit does offer the player to do some cool stuff (leap of off rooftops or take a 50ft drop from a building) but none of it really plays into the game.  Yeah, doing a power kick to a car so it hits some soldiers is cool but it’s not like Crysis 2 is a game like Infamous, Crackdown or even Prototype in which playing with the world feels natural or even encouraged. It was cool to tackle some levels with either a stealth or action approach, but in a few occasions when I was trying to be sneaky and stealth kill people while cloaked a massive fire fight erupted nonetheless.  So what gives, am I not being stealthy enough or does the game only reward players for going the stealth route in specific scenarios?

Speaking of the fire fights and the general gunplay of Crysis 2, I kind of find myself in tough spot since on one hand I did dig some of the battles but other times I found them to be an absolute drag.  Using the abilities of the Nano Suit by going into armor mode and unleashing fifty bullets from a standard gun or in a rare occasion grab a .50 Cal gun is definitely one of those “Holy Shit” moments in how cool and empowering it is. But when I found myself just running around and using regular guns that I could pick up from enemies or weapon caches, I wasn’t that excited by the combat.  Perhaps I didn’t push things far enough, but going up to a dude and shooting him only to proceed to grab him and throw his body a good 40ft sounds like an extreme scenario that ought to be fun. The only problem is that during such enemy tossing occasions the game still isn’t overly fun.  Unleashing such a side in Crysis 2 is fun at the start, but the fire fights themselves just have this slightly schizophrenic nature to them in how they play out. On one side it seems like Crytek wanted the players to be tactical to a degree and not immediately go guns ablazing, a tactic that despite my heavy trigger finger I can understand during certain scenarios. But at the same time, going the tactical route often takes out some of the fun out of the game, whether it be seeing how many guys you can kill back-to-back or doing the extreme stuff like car kicking.  Also, I couldn’t help but feel like a complete chump as I sat across a rooftop trying to snipe a group of enemies as I’m supposed to be a soldier wearing a god damn Nano Suit that makes me an nearly unstoppable badass.  Like what gives? Am I supposed to go the Sam Fisher route or simply go the Rambo route as I fight eight aliens all of whom are tearing me up?

Another thing that was a major issue for me playing Crysis 2 is that the enemy A.I. is about as mixed a bag as one could get and secondly the game drags a lot in what it gives the player.  Generally speaking the enemy A.I. is rather good as they tend not to stay in one position too long and will change cover points and do things like vaulting over objects if it means they can get an advantage on you.  This does present some good scenarios but at times it can lead to firefights feeling a bit unfocused as I thought I had cleared an area only to have a dude randomly pop out and shoot me from behind, to which I decided to throw the bastard as far as I could.  But as intelligent as the enemy A.I. could be, there are moments when it completely stumbles as I saw enemies stay in the same area for long stretches of time or merely stand there while I was a good 15ft away from them not in stealth mode.

It also takes a long, long time for Crysis 2 to fully hit its stride and become something that doesn’t feel like a standard modern warfare fps game as the first four chapters of the game are about as dull as they could get.  There are a few cool moments in the beginning of the game, but it isn’t until the middle that things finally start to get crazy in a good way only to falter again for the last few chapters. I can understand Crytek wanting to take a slow build-up to when the Ceph (the aliens you battle who are like long lost cousins of Admiral Ackbar adorned in exo-suits) surface but I couldn’t help but feel that the first three or four levels could’ve been condensed a bit.  But even when things finally start to get crazy a bit I still felt an underlying feeling of “This is cool and all but it’s not exactly as amazing as it could be.” Yeah, seeing buildings fall in downtown New York as you walk through a massive park that has an alien device in it gave me a few chills and slightly left me in awe, but compared to the scope of other games and the scenarios that gamers are put in, I almost felt as if Crysis 2 is more window dressing than actual gameplay immersion.

Compared to a few other fps games on the market, Crysis 2 is indeed a good looking game and as I said earlier it definitely shows through the lighting effects in the game.  Going into the console debut of Crysis there was a lot of talk whether the game would live up to what Crytek did on the PC with the first Crysis which was a game that soon became the standard for PC fps games.  The detail in the world and character models in Crysis 2 but I wouldn’t say it’s the best that we’ve seen on the consoles. The game does run smoothly and I really liked some of the motion blur and depth-of-field effects along with some of the environmental touches like how the smoke and fire effects looked. Seeing New York rendered via Cry Engine 3 definitely showed what Crytek’s new engine is capable of and the variety that Crysis 2 has in locales (dark tunnels flooded with water, rain soaked areas, desolate city streets) shows that there’s a nice range in what the engine can pump out. 

Looking at the game I just didn’t quite have that wow feeling like I did with other games like Uncharted, Killzone 3 or even Bulletstorm. That’s not to say that Crysis 2 isn’t a good looking game, but I just wasn’t pleased with it to the point where I’m ready to drink the cool aid like some people are.  There are definitely moments when Crysis 2 shows greatness on the PS3, but I don’t think the Cry Engine 3 will become the soon to be go to engine for developers out there as it doesn’t have a constant wow factor to it and during a few occasions offered visuals that were a tad blurry andugly.

Surprisingly, despite my somewhat tepid attitude towards the single-player campaign of Crysis 2, I found the multiplayer to be rather fun.  Crytek really didn’t set out to reinvent or become the standard when it comes to FPS multiplayer combat with what they did in Crysis 2, but in a way the old-school approach to the mode presents some clear simple fun which while a bit frustrating at times is definitely the highlight of the game for me.  Crytek has all the standard multiplayer modes in Crysis 2 but the level designs (of which many are taken from single-player locations) allows some good fire fights to erupt since dudes are doing power slams, going in stealth mode for quick melee kills or go into Rambo mode and hope for the best like I would do.  I did encounter a few times when it was pure frustration in the multiplayer mode only because of my opponents having better weapons (you need to unlock class types) and Nano Suit stats.  Though in the end, the straight forward level designs of the multiplayer maps and the sheer fun it is to utilize the Nano Suit’s abilities really makes the multiplayer mode the one main redeeming factor of Crysis 2 for me.

The multiplayer mode may be straightforward but it's tons of fun.

For what it was being billed as, Crysis 2 just didn’t deliver the goods compared to what its predecessor did and what else is on the market right now.  Is Crysis 2 a solid FPS game that’s bound to be worth playing at some point? It definitely is but the overall effectiveness of the game fails to be as impressive as the concept is and what Crytek seemingly set out to achieve.  There are shades of greatness throughout Crysis 2 in how it plays, how terrific some of the visuals and art design is and how engaging some of the set piece moments can be. But the ho-hum story (which unlike other games is always at the center of the game) and gameplay that at times can be woefully dull or dreadful to play (somehow driving an armored vehicle isn’t fun in Crysis 2) results in a game that isn’t the triple-A hit it set out to be. Maybe I’m simply being too jaded, but for me Crysis 2 set out to do a lot and it failed to succeed in the core things it tried to do, which honestly is a bit sad.

•  
• 1 of 2
• ››