Crysis Review

BY Kalidh Mohamed | POSTED: 13 November 2007

An enthrallingly beautiful ‘Crysis’ is at hand!



The day has finally come and after months of eager anticipation, a game has come out that has shook up the very foundations of visual simplicity we’ve become accustomed to. So much that ‘Crysis’ is more scary than fun when it shoves beautiful lush sceneries, kilometers of rain forests, miles upon miles of open ocean and “near everything” destructible environments on an unsuspecting gamer. There wasn’t a single moment during the length of the campaign where the thought, “Is this humanly possible?” didn’t fail to cross our mind while being in what can be considered a gaming ecstasy. Every object in Crysis is so intricately detailed and furnished that this is the closest a game has come to reality and please save me the whining on ‘teh alienz are not real’ talk. The ultimate benchmark for PC’s worldwide comes nothing short of a bang. Is Crysis the beginning of a new era in video-games? Read on to find out why this chlorophyllic shooter surpasses all gaming standards set by other titles. But before that, be sure to slap on your gimp suit (errrrrr…nanosuit) and let it echo “MAXIMUM CRYSIS” while you’re on the biggest mission for mankind’s ultimate survival.

The nanosuit is the focal point of Crysis’ success and it otherwise accelerates your forest venture exponentially. It gives you the ability of super strength, super speed, enhanced body armor and a predator’esque cloak on a radial menu summoned by pressing the middle mouse button. The nanosuit defines your playing style and throughout the game, it gives you the option of tactical combat, classic run-and-gun, coordinated assault, stealth assassinations or a totally unique way of approach suited to your taste. This single most addition of a pimped out exoskeleton is an innovation of gameplay elements that leaves all other sci-fi suits in the dust. The nanosuit will make Marcus Fenix look like Mickey Mouse in all its pumped up galore.

Crysis kicks off with your character on a plane above a remote island on the South China Sea along with other nanosuited super-soldiers. You’re part of an elite Delta Squad deployed by the U.S Army, off the radar, to investigate hostage scientists being held captive by North Korean soldiers. The moment you dive off the plane, you’ll be greeted by a heart pounding free-fall that feels astonishingly realistic and your arms flail in mid-air just like it would in real life sky diving. You’d be spooned with a view of several broken islands and luscious waters and we didn’t know what made us soil our pants more – The breathtaking free-fall or the photo-realistic vistas.

Crysis is more than just a pretty face. The biggest advantage in the game is the amount of customization that it offers and a truly open-ended way of approaching objectives. You could device ‘n’ number of ways to complete a target and unlike other games where you’d be boxed into a corridor of linear gameplay, Crysis lets the player control the situation. As if all that wasn’t enough, Crysis lands the ultimate smack-down by allowing you to fully customize your weapons on the fly with a plethora of attachments from silencers, scopes, laser pointers to flashlights and even customized ammo for your weapon. Armor piercing rifle rounds are awesome but, the same rounds customized to explode on contact as incendiary bullets are just wicked cool! Then there’s the long list of equipments ranging from lock-picking tools for stealing an enemy vehicle to portable radar kits for highlighting enemy infantry. The combination of ammo, attachments and equipments are just a staggering permutation.
At one point in the game, we carried out an assault on an NK camp in several different ways producing different results on each attempt. Firstly, going loud-and-clear, Rambo-style didn’t work out so well and we ended up in a body bag instead. Next we tried driving a burning jeep into the heart of this digital chaos to wreak some havoc and ummmmm…that didn’t work either. After several attempts, I pulled my pistol, clicked in the silencer and stealthily took out one NK soldier at a time before finally stopping to stare at one of them busily waxing his jeep! And so, we decided to let this poor sap keep his life.

In-game A.I is the most splendid feature in Crysis. When enemies are not bent on shooting at your face, they’d be busy doing their random acts of yawning, saluting superior officers, taking a leak or washing their vehicles. These enemies are smart foes of modern electronic warfare and when threatened, act accordingly to real world situations and take cover as needed. In the light of battle, it’s common sight to see them trip over fences and other obstacles in derived frenzy to add your head to their trophy collection, or run away when defeated to return with backup fire while you’re engrossed in your immediate pride. Flares will go up into the sky signaling for more support if you give them a tough time and the game becomes increasingly hard if you don’t plan your attack strategy accordingly. The A.I is eons more advanced than anything we’ve seen in a video-game before and we thought F.E.A.R’s A.I was outstanding!

Moreover, the sheer amount of destructible environments that this game packs is staggering and there’s nothing more fulfilling that whacking an NK soldier with a stack of banana’s or the splinter from a tree. Extra brownie points are awarded for killing your enemy using those chickens as ‘feather missiles’. Yes! You can actually grab those critters and chuck them at the NKs or use a sea turtle as a shield against incoming fire. Wonder where those National Geographic dudes are?

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