Where to begin? You would think that a game that lets you be invisible would accommodate stealthy gameplay right? No. If you are not a sizeable distance away, lying belly down, absolutely still, every enemy within a mile will instantly zero in on your position. Forget hiding in those fancy bushes, they don’t work too well for hiding. You have to be invisible. By the way, you also can’t run more than 20 feet at a time invisible without having your suit run out of power. Oh, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a quarter mile away from a group of enemies, if you’re standing erect and all you can see is their silhouette, they will instantly see you and open fire, somehow knowing by only your silhouette that you are an enemy. They must have bionic eyes.
Forget trying to just run and gun the enemies either, with several of them scattered in all directions of the island, behind trees and in vehicles with .50 caliber machine guns, this results in a quick death. You are mostly forced to lots of slowly crawling past enemies in the jungle gameplay if you don’t want to die 20 times in a row, on NORMAL difficulty. It feels like you are sneaking around enemies for miles at some points for fear that if you actually use your gun, even if it has the silencer on, you will somehow alert every enemy for miles. It has a frustrating effect to say the least. Some of this frustration gets relieved by the time you start getting towards the middle of the game and you unlock long distance scopes for weapons.
So what about the amazing foliage? The gimmick that got everyone so interested in this game to begin with…is it as good as it looked in the videos and screenshots? Well, not really. Once you are in the game you quickly start to notice that the plants are still for the most part cleverly put together 2D foliage pieces that we’ve seen in games before. Sure, you can shoot down some trees, and you can sort of interact with some objects, but all feels too gimmicky and unnatural still. Not how I feel it was let on.
Ultimately, Crysis feels like Far Cry with pretty graphics. The claims from Crytek that it’s a totally different game from Far Cry were bogus, unless you’re only counting the storyline. I’m not sure how the game achieved the exceptionally high ratings and game of the year awards that it did to be honest. While the graphics are undeniably beautiful, amazing graphics, while always welcome, a good game they do not make. The AI is not as good as was touted by many reviewers, unless you consider bionic eagle vision, omniscience, and ridiculous weapon accuracy good AI traits. To say the least, Crysis is an exercise in frustration that you will only be obliged to continue enduring in order to see what the next visual treat is.
So for those out there still wondering if Crysis alone is worth the upgrade, especially now that video cards are more affordable than ever (8800 GT and 9600 GT can be had for less than $180), the answer is a resounding no. I’m waiting next to see what Age of Conan is going to bring to the table in terms of pushing graphics to the next level combined with gameplay, but I think the best choice at this time would be just to keep holding out now that we’re starting to see hints of what’s around the corner in terms of PC hardware.
[See also: Crysis gallery]
