By Ben C.
The game has been bashed to hell and back by my fellow PC gamers on GT, on reddit, and on a number of other sites. I wanted to remain neutral. I watched some reviews, took a look at some gameplay footage, and was enticed enough to purchase it on Steam.
Here is how the first hour of gameplay went…
I bought this yesterday, and finally got around to playing it today after it took a good 13 hours to download on my school’s overpopulated connection.
I launched the game. Here’s the first screen. Notice the LACK of the “Press Start” stuff? It clearly says “Press ENTER.”
The one drawback is the lack of detailed graphics options in the game. I had the option to choose “High” “Very High” and “Extreme.” There is, however, a workaround. See this thread [1] for ways to alter specific graphics options.
The following screenshots were taken with “Very High” settings. My PC can run “Extreme” and it looks phenomenal, but it ran it around 25 FPS. I get around 40 FPS on “Very High” so I went with that instead.
The first thing I noticed was the production quality. It’s MUCH higher than Crysis 1 and Warhead. The introduction is nail-biting and the music is spine-tingling. Things go from 0 to 100 in the first 20 seconds of the game.
I won’t spoil anything, but you go from not wearing a Nanosuit…to wearing a Nanosuit… Prophet’s Nanosuit. You’re barraged by plot twists and drama from the very beginning. After some calibration, you get right to the combat.
I’m playing on “Veteran” which is the 2nd hardest difficulty. The hardest is “Post-Human Warrior.”
Right off the bat I notice several things:
It uses a streamlined version of Killzone’s first person cover system. You right click and use the mouse to manipulate which direction you peek around cover, and to what degree you poke your gun/head out. On top of this, players can grab ledges platformer-style and pull themselves up. It feels like Mirror’s Edge in that regard. You can kick things with great force, jump high, slide down slanted ledges, and utilize your surroundings in ways that make Crysis 1 look like a joke.
The Nanosuit is much more natural feeling now, it feels and functions like a second skin. Modes switch instantaneously, and suit energy is utilized better. It makes Crysis 1’s Nanosuit feel clunky.
In addition, the world is incredible. Detail is in surplus. They even model much of New York directly off of the real thing. A friend walked in after hearing all the noise and gunshots and said, ”Hey! I’ve stayed in that hotel before!” pointing at a building in the starting level.
After dispatching a few enemies in a gunfight, I learned how to use cloak. Sneaking around and performing stealth takedowns beats anything the stealth in Crysis 1 had to offer. Stabbing chests, snapping necks, and choking enemies to death all provide a satisfying feeling…as after the takedown you melt back into cloak mode and disappear.
There is actually a rewarding feeling after taking down a whole camp of soldiers without alerting any more than one at a time.
The wealth of options when customizing guns and purchasing Nanosuit upgrades make for sufficient variation in the gunplay.
Now I want to take a moment to bust some rumors about the PC version.
–First off, it looks better than the Beta and the Demo.
–Secondly, there are no “Xbox controller” buttons unless you have a gamepad plugged into your PC.
–Just because you’re in a city doesn’t mean it’s linear. Sure you follow a path…just like in Crysis 1…but you can also take each situation on from a wide number of angles and through a multitude of different methods. They usher you along the main storyline, but how you handle each park, courtyard, intersection, etc is entirely up to you. This is more than enough, considering the game is TWICE as long as Crysis 1, and almost 3 times longer than Warhead.
You might see waypoints on my screen, but those aren’t “GO HERE” waypoints, they’re waypoints I tagged for MYSELF after surveying the battlefield ahead using tactical view.
The screenshots also don’t do it justice. They’re medium/high quality JPEGs with post-processed AA. It looks even better in motion.
If you have any questions, or would like me to do any further rumor-busting, let me know in the comments. So far I’d say the visual presentation, the fluid and fast-paced gameplay, and the outrageously dramatic musical score make this worth the full purchase price.
I haven’t played multiplayer yet, but I can say that the single player alone is far more fun and fulfilling than the single player from Crysis 1 and Warhead.