Crysis - Best FPS of this Year

Author's Rating:

Pros: amazing graphics, great production values, lots of varied gameplay, weapons customization

Cons: you need a rocket launcher a lot...

The Bottom Line: 
Crysis is without a doubt the best FPS game of 2007.

Author's Review
Crysis developed by Crytek, the same guys who brought us the amazing Far Cry (*that I must mention came out before Doom 3 and Halo 2), truly brings the FPS gaming scene up an entire notch. Even though they mostly raise the bar on the graphical end, there are still a lot of wholesome things to say about Crysis. If you have a state-of-the-art PC with at least an 8800 GT, then get ready for the ride of your life. If not, expect something sort of in the lines of Far Cry graphically. It’s hot, but not nearly as great as you’d expect from the screenshots featured online.

Graphics

If you haven’t seen the Crysis trailers at Gametrailers.com you are missing out. Crysis represents something way past Half Life 2 Episodes, which are still based on a now older HL game engine. Crysis revises everything top down, making use of all the new weather effects, lightning and water effects that work well in vastly thick terrain replete with jungle foliage. Finally there is just heaps of draw distance that allows you to snipe guys from miles away without losing any detail.

Crysis gets you with the sheer amount of stuff it packs on a mysterious island with alien technology somewhere in North Korea where the game takes place. When you think you’ve seen it all, and it starts to feel too familiar to the jungles in Far Cry, the game takes you on a ride, from having you exploring the ruins of an alien ship from the inside out, to wacky Lost-like moments where you find the jungle terrain mysteriously transformed into snowy plains. Crysis is full of surprises, giving you a variety of huge locales to wander through and a lot of enemies to face off against.

Gameplay

Crysis is slightly different from your Rainbow Six FPS or Doom 3. Rather than giving you tight corridors and a limited amount of enemies waiting for you in each room, it gives you instead a huge island with dozens of guys patrolling army camps and bloody helicopters, boats and tanks that roam the island in search of you. It’s a different type of game, probably closer to Call of Duty, but still on a slightly larger scale.

One thing you’ll notice about Crysis is that this is not a game you can rush through like in most FPS shooters. You have to take things very slowly, picking off one enemy hoard at a time. You do have your choice in how you kill enemies, you can do this by piloting a jeep with a gun turret, a boat, or taking things to the ground and using sniper rifles and grenades, but you still have to pick off most of the enemies to proceed. If you don’t you’ll die, because unlike some games where enemies will get alerted but then leave you alone after you’ve run some distance, in Crysis, the helicopters and bad guys will follow you for quite some time relentlessly, forcing you to kill them before they’ve massed up an army that you simply cannot take on.

What makes Crysis interesting is that you have a nano-suit that lets you switch between different modes. You get a standard Health meter that recharges itself, and then another meter, a blue energy bar that gives you the ability to do things. You can go into speed mode, using the blue bar as a sprint meter, strength mode, allowing you to jump higher and throw things farther, or armor mode, which lets you use the blue meter as another health bar. It’s nothing too amazing, but you will find yourself switching between different modes depending on your circumstances.

With the weapons selection, you get your standard fare of sub-machine guns to shotguns, rocket launchers, pistols, and so forth. The nice thing about Crysis is that you can swap attachments for each gun, customizing them so they play the way you want them to. For example, I like to add laser pointers and a sniper scope attachment to my guns so I can use them to pick off people. Whatever your preference is, you can almost make any weapon to fit the style FPS you play.

One annoying bit to this game is the almost mandatory need for a rocket launcher always. As you wander some parts of the island you’ll come in contact with a tank or a helicopter that you simply have to kill. If you forgot to grab a rocket launcher from before or you simply don’t know where it is, you might have to backtrack or wander around frustrated until you find one because quite simply, you cannot proceed without it. All the heavy armor vehicles are immune, and without a rocket launcher to blow them up, they can easily kill you and prevent you from proceeding. Worse yet, if you choose to run past the helicopters, you’ll find them still following you (except now in packs) making it virtually impossible to proceed. Take them out or face the consequences.

Sounds

Crysis has movie-like production values with dramatic riveting battle music to accompany the game. Weapon sounds pack a lot of punch, and enemy voices are frequent. The North Korean troops you’ll be facing have a lot to say, though they really shouldn’t be speaking in English...but whatever.

Storyline

Crysis’ plot while it does end up being a, “oh no, alien technology, I’m part of US Special Forces, let’s stop the evil North Koreans” is at least a well-done attempt at an already cliché premise. Like Far Cry, it is based on a research project on a remote island gone wrong, and even though cut scenes are few and don’t add much to the plot, the overall atmosphere is enough to keep you moving. The game escalates well though, starting from a simple extraction mission to a full-out alien invasion. Each chapter will surprise you and keep you guessing, so even if there isn’t too much to say about the story, the production values are certainly high and make the experience fun.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer consists of large sandbox environments, lots of sniping, vehicle usage and a lot of players. It requires large numbers of players to be fun and folks who can shoot with extreme precision. I’ve never been a fan of FPS multiplayer in general so I can’t say much more than that, but like Far Cry, I expect some patches will fine-tune the experience in the future.

Conclusion

Get Crysis. It’s probably the best FPS to come out in a while and takes things easily to the next level. If you’re a fan of Far Cry or the Call of Duty series, this game is definitely one to pick up on. While it would have been nice to see a co-op mode, it still represents some of the best single-player FPS shooting out there, is most certainly a game to show folks your rig off too, and offers a solid 15-20 hours of gameplay to boot. Highly recommended.