More on the Subject of Crysis

Maria Ozawa

Finished it. Tried not to rush it because you can only play a game for the first time once. I played it on the default difficulty because unlike a lot of people, I don't treat SP campaigns as another way to demonstrate my elite gaming skills. I prefer to just play through and enjoy it without the frustrations that usually arise when you play a game that was essentially designed for the default difficulty and then made artificially difficult on the higher levels. Maximum difficulty in FPS's often ends up requiring you to exploit map or AI bugs to win, which really defeats the purpose.
But I digress. Visually Crysis is, of course, absolutely stunning. Even if no one on earth can run it maxed-out, there are plenty of regions where I just had to create a save game so that I could go back and admire them again later. The tank battle through the valley is a good example, as is the retreat from the island by land and air.
The story is, also of course, balls. North Vietnamese discover alien artifacts, chaos insues. Not really in the same league as The Witcher when it comes to labyrinthine plot twists.
Crysis follows the current trend for games being quite short, with the developers attempting to justify the lack of content by designing the game as the first part of a trilogy. Yawn. The most disappointing aspect is how the bulk of the action is squashed into perhaps the last third of the game, so just when you think it's shaping up to be impressively epic, it's all over in a flash.
In terms of gameplay it's simply Far Cry + nano suit. Some driving, some boats, some stealth, some big firefights. Nothing really new, but nothing to complain about either. Well, except the pointless and dull alien section. The novelty of zero-gravity wears off pretty quickly, and then it's just another alien corridor shooter which you push through as quickly as possible in order to return to the outdoor goodness.
Still, overall the game is very, very good looking and apart from (or maybe even despite) the impossible hardware requirements it really does deliver graphically.

On the Subject of Limited Editions

Krista Allen

I have to admit I'm a sucker for a Limited Edition. The promise of extra, exclusive shiny things is too much for me to resist, even if it's stuff I'll ultimately never end up using like a "making of" dvd.
On the other hand, the quality of "limited" or "special" editions can be highly variable. My copy of the Crysis special edition arrived yesterday and frankly it's piss-poor. Just a normal fat dvd case, with a half-arsed art book that I initially mistook for the game manual and three discs, including what looks like a copy of the sound track. Although I generally like soundtrack albums so at least it wasn't a total write-off.


Compare that with the Tabula Rasa collector's edition. Now, Richard Garriot comes from a golden age of PC game packaging in the 80's when game boxes routinely contained all manner of promotional junk (often in attempt to disguise the crappy game quality). Garriot's own Ultima games were notorious for their extravagant presentation so I was looking forward to the TR edition and wasn't disappointed. From the cover letter to the intricate construction of the box, from the id card with the serial number to the dog tags, it feels like they've put a lot of love into the design and makes you want to be a part of the game.


Bioshock didn't offer much in it's LE and doesn't come close to TR's presentation, but the miniature Big Daddy model alone makes up for the lack of quantity.


Guild Wars has also offered some excellent LE boxes. As a fan of Jeremy Soule's soundtrack work they're worth the extra cost for the additional soundtrack album alone, and the substantial artwork books are always worth a second look (not to mention the in-game mini pets can be worth serious virtual money if you choose to sell them).



The Witcher offers a similar LE experience to Guild Wars. Slightly sparse, but at least it's in a nice big box and basically well-presented.


And bonus points for including a porn mag (not really, but the art book is great).


Neverwinter Nights 2 was a let-down. A cloth map, a couple of cheapo rings and a half-hearted attempt at an interesting box.


Vanguard offered a nice big box, but not much else. Pretty much like the game itself, in fact.



So Crysis get's a lowly 2/10 for it's Special Edition box set. Still to come is the Unreal Tournament 3 special edition which comes in a tin box or something, although it sounds like that might be overshadowed by all the extra stuff Gamestop are adding to preorders.

Update: Apparently the Crysis SE comes in a proper tin case in other parts of the world, but not in the US or Canada for some reason. Still, that wouldn't be enough to make up for the sad lack of content.

On the Subject of DirectX 10

Sophie Marceau

Playing the superb Crysis demo has reminded me that DirectX 10 exists. It's easy to forget, what with it being Vista-only. I recall prior to Vista's release, our friends the forum idiots were declaring DX10 would be the Saviour of PC gaming and "OMG if it looks this good in DX9, DX10 will be amazing!!!!111!1". Ignorant bollocks, of course.
Predictably, all we've seen in practice are a few gimmicky graphical flourishes in the handful of games that support DX10. Not to mention the main feature of the API, increased graphics pipeline efficiency, hasn't resulted in effortless performance gains. In fact thanks to Vista being a fat version of XP games generally run slower.
I haven't actually tried Crysis under Vista yet, on account of Creative's shitty X-Fi drivers rendering my sound card useless and also because I simply can't be arsed. I believe the "Very High" graphics settings are only available under DX10, but given that my 8800GTX can barely scrape by on "High" I'm not particularly tempted to push it any further.

On the Subject of Crysis

Denise Milani

It's terribly unfashionable to be enthusiastic about a big-name game these days. Fortunately I don't give a rat's arse what all the smug, self-righteous, needlessly contrary kiddie-fiddlers think and I can say without hesitation that on the basis of the recently-released SP demo, Crysis is the dog's bollocks.
If only there was a graphics card on earth that could run it maxed-out, which brings us to the subject of optimisation. Just as with the Bioshock widescreen fiasco, Crysis is bringing out the armchair pundits claiming that Crytek have done a poor job of optimisation because the demo doesn't run at a million fps on their antiquated, bargain-basement systems. If that was true, every monkey with a knocked-off copy of Visual Studio would be banging out games that look as rich and pretty as Crysis, but of course they're not. This game is breaking new ground in visual complexity and that comes at a hefty performance cost. If you can't afford a computer that can at least run it in a playable form that's not Crytek's fault, it's yours for being a talentless, penniless wastrel.
The other classic I've noticed on forums is the ever-popular "the release version will be optimised" suggestion. Bless. As if Crytek have purposely coded the engine to be slow, and will hit a magic optimisation switch before the retail game goes gold and suddenly it will run ten times faster. Of course that never happens, and you can be sure that the release version will be 99% identical to the demo in terms of performance. Maybe future patches, and more likely revised graphics drivers, will squeeze out a little more but if you think your piece-of-shit, circa 1999 graphics card will ever do this game justice then you're only fooling yourself.