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Crysis Collector's Edition Review (continued)
More User Submitted Crysis Collector's Edition Reviews
Date: 2007-12-21
Fun but buggy
I have enjoyed the game quite a bit and have finally completed it after about 12 hours on easy. (I am not very good at FPS games). I will say that there are graphic issues occasionally, and found that later in the game the voice synching is way off, (almost a minute in some cases). I have a decent gaming set up, by no means top of the line, but it pushes the game well. I will hope a patch comes out soon to take care of a significant number of bugs I encountered in the game. It does look pretty but if you want a polished product wait for a patch or two to come out.
Also I have not removed the DVD from the drive since I installed it, but I frequently get a disc not found error when starting up the game. I end up having to cycle the DVD drive drawer in and out.
Date: 2007-12-18
A very impressive effort from Crytek.
Having loved Far Cry I was well looking forward to Crysis coming out, but I knew that it would need a strong PC. Crysis is the game that I upgraded my machine for and it was well worth it. Having previously played the demo on my older PC (P4 2.8 Prescott w/7800GS, 2GB RAM & Vista32) I could only play on medium settings, and thought that the game was so so. Having now upgraded to a Q6600, 4GB RAM and 2x 8800GT in SLI on Vista64 I can play the game with all settings on Very High and the game is amazing. Easily one of the best games that I ever played.
Stability: Stable, did not experience any crashes. Only hickup was getting SLI to work which required a beta nVidia driver, otherwise it is a stable piece of software (at least running on my new PC with Vista64).
Graphics: The best available - not much more to really say, sets the bar.
Sound: Well done with a sound track included in collectors edition. Gun sounds give the approriate feel of weightedness and the jungle effects are realistic enough.
Gameplay: Very well balanced, the suit's powerups work for the appropriate level of time (any longer and the game would be too easy). These powerups let you play the game from a multitude of perspectives and aids in replayability. The enemy AI is terrific and you will need to think about how you are going to fight. A head shot almost always results in a kill, but mostly I found myself able to take them down in a few shots on strength mode and crouched, but there are numerous ways of achieving it. The weapon upgrades are also a nice addition and you will find yourself using all of them at some stage or another. In a similar vein to FarCry you get to use multiple vehicles and the like, however there is far less time in boats compared to the original and far less time in the water, but it is a different game.
Length: I finished the single player over the course of about two weeks, which I think is reasonable - especially compared to COD4 which I finished in about 4 hours on hardened level. All in all, the length of Crysis seems comparative to similar titles.
Crytek has clearly put a ton of work into this and it shows. My only concern is that it become like FarCry and there are no other games using its engine, or any expansions - because a game of this quality begs for one.
Verdict: Outstanding, sell the family car and upgrade - its worth it and easily deserving of its five stars.
My current FPS Ranking (of recent shooters that I have played):
1: Crysis
2: Rainbow Six Vegas
3: F.E.A.R.
4: Halflife 2
5: Bioshock
6: Call of Duty 4
Date: 2007-12-06
Forget the hype...
This game really is as good as advertised. Well, almost...
It's not perfect. Don't expect a deep story. Don't expect superb voice acting, scripting or characters you can relate to. This is a gamer's game; it's meant to be played again and again, not so much experienced as a storytelling masterpiece. Throughout the game, I used one main gun and a few other guns here and there, but the emphasis in this game is on planning and survival.
But holy butter, Batman, the gameplay is something else. The super suit is an awesome device, and how you prefer to use it will entirely change your strategy. The weapon attatchments are a nice addition, but don't do much to change the way you play as the suit does. The human enemies are very intelligent, but the aliens are dumb as rocks. Still, it was a lot of fun to fight in zero-G.
The reason I give it four stars and not five is because I found it slightly buggy. The last level in particular was frustrating, as I kept falling through one specific part of the level. This may be particular to my video card (nVidia 8600m), but it did detract from the fun during the final battle. The screenshots speak for the graphics far better than words can, so I'll leave that to your own eyes.
All in all, this is one of those games that makes you glad to be a PC gamer.
Date: 2007-11-25
Great Gpraphics, but
Lets all face it; Crysis has the best graphics. But I learned the graphics aren't everything. The level design is very similiar to Far Cry and the story is dull.
Graphics: Beautiful. But only when you play it max or high settings. if you don't have a good graphics card, don't bother, because it looks like crap at medium and low sttings.
Sound: Meh. Nothing new
Gameplay: Just like FarCry, except you get powers from your suit. You can have stealth mode, speed mode, strength mode or the default shield mode. But they don't last long. The environments are comepletely destructable, which is cool. For example: I had a huge fight against some of the enemy soldiers at a camp. After about Five minutes, everything was destroyed. Houses, garages and cars. The physics were beautiful abd worked perfectly.
Overall, it was an OK game, but the only thing that is keeping this game from a 3 star to a 4 star is its graphics. By the way, don't get the collector's edition. Collector editions are crap that only contain a documentary and a soundtrack, which sucks.
P.S: If you don't have at least a Quad-Core, or 4gs of RAM, or an 8800 graphics card, DONT BUY IT!!!!
Date: 2007-11-21
Eye Candy Galore, But Far Too Short
The Collector's Edition of Crysis comes with a nice game case sleeve, three (3) discs and a Special Edition art booklet. The first disc is the game disc. The second is the game soundtrack (which is probably worth the extra ten bucks alone), and the third disc is the bonus features disc. The bonus features are the "Making of Crysis", Storyboards, Screenshots, Concept Artwork and Videos. It is not a standard DVD, so unfortunately, it won't work on a regular DVD player. You'll need to run it in Windows.
This game feels more like a long demo rather than a complete title. Just when you think the game is going to move onto the next chapter, the soundtrack builds to a crescendo and the credits start rolling. The game abruptly ends after a few hours of gameplay. It seems to me that this game was more of an experiment with the new CryEngine 2 and DirectX 10 support rather than an actual game. As in "The Empire Strikes Back", the storyline in Crysis leaves you hanging. It does not end when the game does! The game ends with your squad leader going AWOL and you have to find him. You know they're going to charge you more money later on to find out what happens when you meet up with him. If people pay the full retail price for a game, shouldn't they get the full game all at once up front? Pay $50 now and wait a year to spend another $40 on an "expansion pack" just to finish the game. That should have happened in the first place! What kind of underhanded garbage is that?! If it's not finished, don't sell it!
The audio is atrocious. It's just bad. The audio alone may be a good reason to wait on buying the game until they release a patch for it. I mean, the audio in this game is so unsynchronized with the rest of the game that during an in-game movie, the computer *appeared* to freeze, but was just trying to sync the game up with the dialogue. It took about 30 long seconds of waiting to see if the problem was with my computer or not. This is a recurring problem on many other peoples' computers, even with the latest Sound Blaster cards. There have been many times during an intense battle where the sound of the guns has dropped out altogether, and the dialogue is extremely choppy. EA needs to work on a patch for this audio problem. I ran the game with the -DX9 command line parameter to play the game in DirectX 9 mode, and the audio was *STILL* choppy and full of delays.
Please, please wait until the price on this game has gone down. I know you want to see how the game looks with DirectX 10 graphics, but there is a demo of this game available for free online. Crysis is yet another expensive big-name game you can complete over the weekend on the most difficult setting without any cheating (which I did - unless you consider using the quicksave and quickload feature cheating).
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[Now onto the good stuff - yes, there are good things about this game....]
I really liked the motion blur, and the shading in DX10 is out of this world. I have not seen a more beautifully rendered computer or video game on the market. Even BioShock, which is supposed to support DirectX 10, doesn't come close to the realism of the graphics in this game. The close-ups with the enemy are breathtaking. If you have all the video settings to "Very High" and are running on DX10, when you go toe-to-toe with a bad guy in the middle of the day while on the beach, and decide to melee attack him, it looks so incredibly real that you might forget you are playing a game. The facial expressions are very detailed and well put together. It's just scary real. There was a time in computer/video gaming where you were doing a great job if you used three triangles to make a nose. This is by far light years ahead of those days (and the rest of the competition, for that matter).
The gameplay is good. I love the quick save/quick load feature. I hate when games don't have it. The different abilities of the character's suit are fun, too. Too many bad guys flanking you? Turn the cloak on and retreat. Can't jump high enough to reach that ledge? Use the maximum strength setting and try it now. Need more info on gameplay? Download the demo.
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All in all, a very good half of a game, but we'll have to wait a while to pick up where this game leaves off. Good gameplay, engaging storyline, outstanding graphics, way too short. It'll be a while before we see a Crysis 2. The big wigs are going to milk Crysis by putting out expansion packs, when they should have just made the complete product and sold it all at once. I guess the days of buying a complete game are over (as are the days of getting gas for 89 cents a gallon).
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