Crysis Warhead Review

BY Mohammed Al-Balushi | POSTED: 30 September 2008

Does it fill the original Crysis gaps or does it go beyond that?



Though the original Crysis garnered much critical acclaim, there was still a lot to be desired from it. Starting off well with a huge open world it became a bit too linear near the end, it was short, the multiplayer was lackluster and the biggest complaint was of the poor performance even on the mightiest of the setups.

Crysis Warhead was then announced and the development rein was handed over to Crytek's Budapest studio to address these issues and try to offer a far better experience. It was going to improve the AI, add a better single player design, offer an enhanced multiplayer experience in the form of Crysis Wars, optimize the engine so that it runs better than Crysis and allows you to play as Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes, the more action savvy member of the raptor team. It can't go wrong, can it?

The story plays in a parallel path to the original Crysis story and shows what happened on the other side of the island from Psycho's perspective. Unlike Nomad, Psycho has more character and is well developed which can be evident during the story mode. There are a few new characters but they hardly add anything to the story and there is nothing new to the story itself. The game features a lot of cut scenes that aren't viewed from a first person perspective which helps in adding substance to the story and a great way to show off the graphics.

The nano suit has become pretty useful this time around thanks to the many situations presented that require the use of the various functions to an extent that changing suit modes becomes second nature. A personal favorite update is the ability to automatically pick up ammo which wasn't possible in the Crysis that made you stop after a gun fight and go around searching for ammo and manually picking them up. The highest difficulty level removes this feature which in a weird way will make the game slightly more difficult.

The levels are now tighter than before but with that comes a chain of events and variety in action sequences that are tightly packed to deliver little room for wandering without doing anything. You still get the freedom of tackling threats by the various means available and there are multiple paths to certain goals. The levels themselves are hardly similar and feature a lot of new and interesting settings that offer changes in pacing but doesn't slow it down at all. Even the vehicular stages are great and also provide that degree of freedom to reach your goal. One cool design concept during playing the levels is the interchanging between fighting humans and aliens and sometimes both at the same time; it is just very well done.

The human soldiers are the same as they were in Crysis which is a good thing. They flank, call for support and take cover. Yes they are easy to deal with but then you wouldn't want them to always outsmart you now do you? The alien enemies got themselves injected with some of the tactics that the human soldiers have, such as flanking, and hence provide a better challenge than before. Add to that some new alien variants that spice the fights against them such as the one which adds protective shields to its mates and can only be disabled by killing him first.

New weapons join the original Crysis weapon list such as the Grenade launcher and SMGs that can be duel wielded. Weapon customization is still great and easy, allowing great flexibility to tune the weapons to your style. It is hard to stick to one weapon throughout the game since depending on the situation, some weapons become better suited than others yet at the same time you are given the choice of using other weapons that can do the same job. It is always fun to run to a tank, cloaked or in speed mode and plant that explosive then detonate it instead of using the rocket launcher from a distance.

Crysis had the best first person shooter graphics at the time, and still does, and Warhead continues the trend. No game to date can come close to such graphical fidelity which shows how advanced CryEngine 2 is in terms of graphical prowess. Both the tropical and icy settings of the island are jaw dropping and a marvel to watch. Even indoor areas are interesting thanks to the sharp textures and clever use of shaders and lighting. The human models are very well detailed and their animation is incredibly smooth and so are the aliens as they float with their tentacles waving about and the cold effect they produce.

But with so much eye candy, comes the price. Running Warhead on a duel core CPU with 2 GB Ram and a Geforce 8800 GT (pretty close to the 600$ Crysis PC) becomes a fight to stay on top of the last line of playable frame rate which is 20 FPS at 1680x1050 resolution and Gamer setting, leave alone Enthusiast setting. The Crysis PC was touted to run the game at 30 FPS on Enthusiast setting which is true, at 1024x768 resolution but still some of the intensive levels will make the game dip below 20 FPS easily, especially one of the later levels.

The sound effects are great and there is always something going on in, from radio chatter to huge explosions and gun fire which really removes the many mute areas present in the first game. The accompanying score is a big highlight in the Crysis Warhead and fits the various experiences present in each level. It is one of those scores that make the action more enjoyable.

Warhead story mode is pretty short, almost Call of Duty 4 short. You can go through the single player missions in about five to six hours. You can still have a lot of fun playing through the missions again, though. Warhead offers enough freedom to make every play a unique experience. And we also have the multiplayer, which is much better than what was offered in the original.

Multiplayer comes in the form of Crysis Wars. You have a selection of the following modes: Instant Action which is your basic deathmatch mode, Team Instant Action which is Team Deathmatch and Power Struggle. The last mode, Power Struggle, is Crysis's main multiplayer mode where you have to capture power plants to accumulate power sufficient enough for the prototype building to grant access to the suit case nuke that can be carried by the player and fired onto the enemy’s base. During play, you gain points which allow you to purchase weapons and other gear but you are limited by a cap which increases when you move to a higher rank allowing you to buy new weapons and buy more items at a time. Power Struggle has been more streamlined and improved in Crysis Wars, things from the HUD to the objectives have undergone simplification to provide faster and less confusing matches.

Most of the multiplayer maps are updated versions found in the original Crysis with seven new ones: six for both Instant Action modes and one for Power Struggle with a total of 21 multiplayer maps spread between the three different modes. Some of these maps are really big, especially the Power Struggle map. A couple of new vehicles have also been added for good measure. There is the ASV Anti-Vehicle which is more armored that the humvee and has a more powerful mounted gun and the Hovercraft which allows transport over both land and water surfaces that join the existing roster of humvees, tanks and aircrafts.

Thanks to the nano suit's faster regeneration and longer duration, you get to use it more often during multiplayer which really moves the suit from being a gimmick to a means of survival. So much that Crysis multiplayer becomes a unique experience due to both the Power Struggle mode and the improved nano suit.

Crysis Warhead has indeed addressed the many issues that bothered the original. With tighter, more intense and action packed levels, a series of other improvements and an excellent multiplayer campaign, Crytek has managed an excellent product. Though Warhead feels a bit linear and fails to reach the epic scale set by the original Crysis, it does not change the fact that Warhead is a fantastic standalone expansion and definitely worth your money. Only make sure you have a decent rig to run it!