Crysis 2
Publisher: EA
Developer: Crytek
Systems it’s available on: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
ESRB rating: Mature
System reviewed on: Xbox 360
The original Crysis set an altogether new level of expectation as to how detailed and graphically impressive a video game could look like. “Can it play Crysis?” became shorthand for how robust a computer’s graphics, video computing components were. For all the imprint the title left on fans, the game design of that first-person shooter didn’t really wow players in any lasting way. Worse still, not even the most hardcore fan of Crysis 1 could tell you what the story was about.
Going into Crysis 2, the respected Crytek development studio knew the game had to do more than just look good. The plot had to compel players to plow though the visually rich world and the gameplay had to do more than just give them many things to shoot at with many guns. So, sci-fi novelist Richard Morgan comes aboard to provide story expertise and the design to the sequel shows an inspired level of variability and flexibility.
The set-up to the sequel concerns a peculiar alien virus killing citizens of New York City in 2023. The mysterious illness spreads so quickly that the island of Manhattan gets placed under a no-exit quarantine, with martial law declared on top of that to enforce containment. Players fight two kinds of enemy in Crysis 2: the Ceph alien invaders who’re blowing up some of the most expensive real estate in the world and soldiers from the C.E.L.L. private military corporation who are brutally enforcing martial law. You control a soldier codenamed Alcatraz, part of an elite Marines squad sent to extract a scientist who works at CryNet, the biochem corporation where the viral outbreak supposedly began. In a great opening sequence, the submarine carrying your squad gets attacked and you come to the surface to find a one-man army holding off an alien attack. The mysterious figure–who you later find out is Prophet, a squad leader from previous Crysis games– gives you the Nanosuit 2.0. From there, you’re caught up in finding out how the illness, the aliens and Crynet are all linked.
Straight of the bat, Crysis 2 will impress you with its graphical polish. The details, textures and dynamic lighting can’t be dismissed, even by those who claim not to care about how a game looks. The blockbuster movie aesthetic is well on display here. The widescreen canvases chock full of chaos, the steely hero types with clenched jaws and the evocative, orchestral score by Hans Zimmer all testify to what Crytek is trying to achieve. You’re not just shooting bad guys in a virtual Manhattan; you’re doing it in one that’s been devastated, with only broken lives and heartbreak left. The gameworld’s filled with environmental storytelling–political protest graffiti and flyers for missing loved ones, for example–that creates what Crytek calls ‘catatstrophic beauty.’ That catastrophic beauty does look impressive but many of the would-be heart-wrenching moments in the script feel stiff, undone by flat voicework.
The Nanosuit’s more than just the video game fetish wear responsible for your superpowers. It’s a guide, a plot point and a quasi-character that hold memories of Prophet, the last person to wear it. The abilities of the Nanosuit 2.0 make it possible to play Crysis 2 with a mix of styles, all of which you’ll need to survive its balls-hard difficulty. The form-fitting get-up gives you super-vision, super-strength, super-speed, super-durability and super-stealth to play around with. Those last two–the Armor and Cloak features–make the axis around which the gameplay’s centered. In scenario after scenario, you’ll be able to either make yourself temporarily invisible or invulnerable. Then, you can run at high speed, vault to great heights or slide under cars or obstacles. It sounds simple but there’s a lot of depth to be had with figuring out what skill to use at what moment. On top of that, you can use the suit’s tactical visor to pick out threats and parts of the environment you can use to your advantage.
The intense visuals only tell half the story of the tech powering Crysis 2. A torrent of visual information hints just how much data’s being streamed and parsed in the game’s code. That dead person over there? The visor tells you how the poor soul died, just like it can with dozens of bodies. Hundreds of objects exist to be lifted, thrown, touched and interacted with in Crysis 2. Serving a gameplay purpose is one thing but a lot of this stuff–water fountains that you drink from at your own risk–just exists to add weight and density to the gameworld.
Moving through that world, a pattern soon emerges: get to a new area, scan with visor to tag assets and enemies, figure out a strategy and have at it. It’s in that pattern, however, that you’ll start to see the game’s flaws emerge. For one, the tactical visor is great but the HUD gets way too busy. And other bugs and balance issues crop up: lost instances of enemies running into walls, a few where they spontaneously got yanked way up in the air, objects vibrating or moving unnaturally in the environment. The enemies themselves seem to have superpowers, too, like being able to shoot at you when there’s not way they have a sightline or magically knowing when you’ve uncloaked. And no matter how much you scan, it often seems like enemies are constantly re-spawning and coming after you. The creates tension, yes, but makes a lot of the strategy you have to come up with feel futile. Futilty’s another enemy that you need to face down, as Crysis 2 is pretty goddamn challenging.
Still, the core design elements–balancing stealth, invulnerability and super-movement on the fly–makes the game compelling enough to want to stick with. The level designs’ smart use of verticality and path-branching creates great cat-and-mouse battles. I’d love to be able to talk about how all of this holds up in multiplayer but these modes weren’t available to check out before the game launched. (I’ll try to get some impressions up once the servers get populated with other players.)
Despite being the console debut of Crytek’s CryEngine 3 on the PS3 and the Xbox 360, Crysis 2 isn’t exactly beckoning n00bs to come try it out. It’s still for the hardest of the hardcore with brutal difficulty that takes dedication to master. But the game, for the most part, achieves what Crytek (and presumably its fans) seem to have wanted: better story, deeper gameplay and a presence on non-PC gaming platforms. Being only March, it’s early yet but it’s safe to say that Crysis 2 will wind up a contender for Shooter of the Year.
Official Techland Score: 8.9 out of 10