Crysis 2 Review

How do you like your shooters?

Do you like to think about strategy in battle? Do you like to have a lot of options? Do you want your characters to move with weight? Do you like having the ability to hide and play with your enemies?

Or would you rather just kill everything and move on?

Crysis 2 is a game with options. Play how you want. It's one of the few non-rpg games I can think of that gives back how much you put in.

Some of the greatest games I've ever played are shooters (see my never ending love affair with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay or Singularity) and while Crysis 2 is an excellent game I did have some problems with it.

Like:

Graphics: Just get this one out of the way early. It looks amazing. Not the best looking console game ever, but it's definitely up there. It's a very impressive engine that runs amazing lighting and large environments with almost no drop in framerate. I can't ever recall slow down.

Maps: The levels are still pretty much Point A to Point B, but Crytek did a great job with making you feel like you were in a larger world than you are. There are many many areas where you just look out and see all the enemies and realize how many options you have. It's a breath of fresh air for this gamer that's grown tired of corridor shooters (Doom 3, Prey and Quake 4 get passes because I love them). CoD and Dead Space 2 are some examples of how to make a straight forward game.

Weapons: There are lots of them and they all can be customized to fit a style. Since you can only carry two weapons I primarily only used a handful of guns that I felt really comfortable with that were good in varying situations. Customization is pretty awesome at how "on-the-fly" it is. Hold down the "Select" button and your character will hold the gun in such a way that you can see the whole thing. Hitting certain buttons will add a silencer or a different scope or a different part such as a shotgun or grenade launcher. It takes a little time to learn to do it quick, but once you do it really opens up that many more options for "play time" with the enemy.

Suit Design: You don't really get to see the suit much (besides your arms), but holy hell that thing looks awesome. It looks organic and mean and futuristic yet "this could be the future" all at once.

Suit: I wish I could do this thing justice in this review. It's an absolute blast and because of this suit Crysis 2 is the ONLY game I've ever played, that featured a super suit, that actually made me feel...well...super! In Halo you feel like you're just another grunt, but with better armor. In Crysis the suit makes you into a temporary Superman.

In one section of the game you get a diagnostics done to yourself and the suit and you see just how badly damaged and near dead you are in the game (broken back and ribs, ruptured organs...you know....kid stuff), but the suit is keeping you alive. It's literally growing into your wounds to keep you alive. It creates an almost silent attachment to the suit because without it you can't beat these enemies and still without it with no enemies you'd probably just die.

They never really point that out in the game, but it's something I noticed and appreciated.

Suit Voice: It's awesome. It has the sound you hope it would. It's definitely robotic and "man" and it alerts you of all the right things at the right times.

Powers: They aren't tacked on and must be used to survive and win. There are 3 powers: Cloak, Armor and Power. Cloak and armor are turned on or off with the L2 and R2 buttons while power is activated anytime you run, use power jump, grab ledges or rip turrets off of their bases.

Preparation: This is where the game shines. When you enter a new area the suit will tell you that you have some tactical options. This is where I would activate cloak and turn on my scan visor. In the visor mode you can see all enemies (up to a certain distance) and I highlight them all. Next I look for enemy vehicles. Then I look for ammo drops and crates. I look for flanking areas and spots where I can climb for a height advantage.

After I've viewed all I can see and look at my options for amount of enemies and their locations and the size of the map. Then I weigh all my options and I decide to attack either head on, avoid them completely or take them out one by one in stealth.

I personally am a huge OLD SCHOOL Splinter Cell fan and Riddick worked well with stealth so I almost always went stealth. Cloak and use a silenced weapon. With a silenced gun you can get away with one or two shots and stay cloaked.

Ironically some of the most fun I had was when I screwed up my own plan. If I was seen by someone and my cover was blown and had to improvise.

It's a frigging blast to drop from a very high point and activate armor at the last second to absorb the impact so you don't get hurt and head shot a guy on a turret in a vehicle. Jump into the back of the vehicle and rip out the turret and rain hell on the enemy.

On Normal difficulty the game had some challenging areas, but I'm really looking forward to playing it again on Supersoldier where I'll be forced to use the suit well....or fail epically.

Energy: The way the game keeps you from totally crushing the enemy is by allowing your powers to work only as long as your energy bar will allow.

Half Life 2 has a similar setup. Your suit allows you to power your flashlight and sprint, but only as long as the power holds out. In Crysis 2 your suit recharges quickly, but it will run out on you in some of the worst times.

It's implemented well too because it drains faster in accordance with how you're using it. In cloak it drains very slowly if you're holding still or crouched and walking, but if you sprint that thing is going to drain fast. With armor on there is a constant drain as well, but as long as you aren't being shot it'll last a lot longer.

Running and Jumping and Ledge Grabbing, OH MY!: What the hell?! A super jump that feels like you have weight?! Bungie must marvel at the design! There are two jumps. A simple non-suit powered jump and the uber jump that you accomplish by holding down the jump button for a little longer (it uses energy). It is awesome! You move with gravity and never feel floaty.

Add sprinting and jumping and you'll be flying across the map! The game even sports a very novel idea in a shooter where you can actually grab and heave yourself up onto a ledge. This allows for much more freedom of movement around the environment.

Dislike:

Silent Hero: When the hell is this going to stop? I'm so tired of a voiceless main character! I'm looking at you Gordon Freeman and the Doom guy! What's wrong with a little voice or character with my character? Tommy from Prey was made much enjoyable to play when I realized he had struggles and problems and a *gasp* personality! Sev from Killzone 2 has a voice and while that's not a character driven game it lets me care about him some as opposed to not at all.

Voice Acting: I think that the guys that made the game are from Sweden, but the voice actors they got for the English version suck. With a game with as big a budget as this had and with as big a market as the US is you'd think they'd hire some decent talent. Hargreave is the only character that doesn't suck.

A.I.: I still think that the original FEAR had some of the best AI I've ever seen with an enemy. They'd use everything they could to kill you and they did it non-scripted and believably. These guys are retards and more than once I saw them continually running into a wall.....just waiting to die.

Seemingly Random Energy Depletion: I swear sometimes my guy would take a freaking beating in armor mode and I would be good for a while and a bunch of other times I'd be at 100% and activate armor and then it would be at 0% and flashing red! I still can't tell you if that's because of a special enemy gun or something that kills shields instantly or what, but frequently I'd be puzzled as to why my energy was gone.

When your energy is gone you can't run because running requires power so you're forced to "walk" to cover. It's a good and bad thing in the game and will def make you bite your nails more than once.

No Inherent Powers in the Suit: This became more of an annoyance than anything, but I'm sorry. I have a super badass 1 Billion Dollar Super Suit and apparently it can't do jack unless it's eating up my energy. It can't even power my thermal visor (which you depend on heavily in some areas) without eating energy. It's not a huge deal, but to always have to deactivate and activate powers so that you can recharge just gets annoying.

I also thought that the weapon swap between weapons and reloads were way too slow. They were at normal dumb soldier speed. Why shouldn't I have some advantages inherent to the suit? Like a faster reload or a faster weapon swap?

The suit is stellar, but flawed that it offers no advantages without eating power.

Story: What story? I guess there's something there, but it's so poorly explained that you don't really know what's going on.

There's a virus killing people in New York City and you're fighting humans and aliens and somehow your suit is building an antidote to it all. It's dumb.

Aliens: I thought that fighting the aliens would be fun, but in the mid-section of the game you stop fighting humans and fight almost only aliens. They aren't as fun to fight as humans because they just run around like crazy people, but they do create a lot more of the "holy crap I'm getting owned moments" of the game.

Bottom Line:

This game owns. I loved it. I did have some frustrating moments fighting The Pingers at times with randomly depleting energy, but seeing as to how they are the biggest and baddest guys in the game I assume they have special weapons. I just wish the game would've let me know.

Running around the maps and using running, jumping and grabbing opens up the maps in ways no other shooter has.

It's a game that lets you play how you want and rewards careful planning and optimizing the proper use of the suit. It's one of the few shooters I've played that lets you be creative in your play style and I commend it for doing such a great job.

I'm restarting the game on the hardest difficulty to see if I've mastered the suit.

Do what you know in your heart to be right.....buy this game.