Crysis 2, how does it compare?
Maximum gameplay!
I'm stood in the upper floors of a ruined house, observing the highly guarded military courtyard parallel to me with my visor mode while cloaked. I've finished tagging vital points of interest such as ammo caches and enemies, but I spot a two man patrol walking beneath me on a path surrounded by shrubbery, perfect. This was my opportunity to test out the Air stomp upgrade I had invested in, as they walk directly underneath me I hear one say: "he could be cloaked watching us right now!" I smile sadistically before I leap into the air like Spiderman, only less flamboyant. A warp sound echoes as I clench my fist in mid-air and slam it into the earth below, landing in between them and completely annihilating their pathetic, nano-less selves. I walk backwards until my vision is filled with leaves, I'm hidden in vegetation ready to plan my next move.
Allowing the player to deal with any situation how they want to deal with it is what makes the Crysis 2 such a unique experience. You're sure to have a blast whether you choose to go the Rambo route: whacking on armour mode and blasting anything that moves with your light machine gun while kicking cars effortlessly into enemies, or maybe the Splinter Cell route, picking off hostiles with silenced weapons or a knife to the throat, all the while being completely invisible.
The weapon upgrades allow you to increase your power and abilities on the move… You might be sniping with an assault rifle, equipped with a scope, shooting a single bullet to weaken your target before switching to full-auto and a reflex scope to mop up any pesky stragglers - and if I'm honest there are more stragglers than you'll expect due to the AI. The AI isn't brilliant, I have often encountered enemies that do nothing but walk into a corner or just stand there as I gun down their soldier-boy lover. I never found these issues present with the Koreans in the first Crysis who, and I hate to admit it, were also a lot smarter than their human counterparts in this game. You find yourself pitted against two factions in the Crysis 2: a private military company hunting you down by the name of CELL, and the Ceph, the Aliens. After all… it wouldn't be a Crytek game without aliens.
The Ceph are by far the most entertaining and rewarding enemies throughout the game, unlike the first Crysis these are bipedal and extremely athletic, meaning you are constantly on your toes as they leap from one lorry to another planning their charge. They come in your typical grunt, stealth, commander and tank units, as you'd expect, meaning you need to change your tactics and think strategically when dealing with a wide variety of them in large numbers, as for example, your puny assault rifle won't be as effective against a tank as it would be when fighting a grunt.
Nannysuit
Players of the first Crysis will notice that the suit no longer comes packaged with Maximum Speed or Strength, instead these are combined to create Maximum Power, alongside maximum armour and stealth. Although this does streamline the game, I can't help but feel that it is a step back from the Nanosuit 1.
I felt the 'streamlining' was unnecessary, the radial menu of Crysis 1 worked just fine and as a result of the added modes made for a more varied style of gameplay. The speed mode is now only just faster than the typical sprint you'd find in any shooter, and the lack of fists as a weapon is disappointing. I miss cloaking behind a Korean and punching his little military cap off of his head as I break his skull with my fist, oh, and the jump feels slightly weaker than the first Crysis to me resulting in me feeling less God-like. Despite this, there are some much welcomed improvements to the suit, like the ability to upgrade it by collecting dead alien tissue that can result in deflecting bullets or increasing your stealth capabilities allowing for a more personalised play style, the best part is you retain these upgrades through multiple playthroughs, giving an incentive to play through again, knowing that you'd keep the abilities only unlocked towards the end of your first playthrough.
Story Module
The story was pleasantly surprising, it shocked me right from the start, it was a nice break from the CoD-ish storylines of other games, offering freedom but retaining a high level of immersion and cinematic experience. This was no doubt due to the more linear path of the game compared to the first, it just felt more focused, and yes, it did come at a cost of the sandbox environment of the first Crysis, but it's still there in Crysis 2 to a degree so it shouldn't be too disappointing. Throughout the story you are hunted by a Private Military Company which to me kind of seems stupid, given humanity's future is at risk and all, it doesn't make much sense - other than to add more variation to the bad guys.
There are a few plot holes throughout the story, and the protagonists of Crysis and Crysis Warhead are never even mentioned, which is extremely odd considering the ending of the first game for those of you who have played it.
The cinematic experiences are mind blowing, frequent enough to be interesting but at the same time not so frequent that it's more watching than gaming, due to brilliant pacing you aren't overwhelmed with flashy pretty sequences *cough* Call of Duty *cough*. I literally sat at my desk with my mouth wide open at some of the cinematics, I was completely immersed, and while the first game did contain decent cinematic pieces, they were nowhere near as good as those featured in Crysis 2.
The story on average is between 8-15 hours long, which is a decent length compared to some shooters. The pacing of the game is excellent, which emphasizes the drama and intensity of the game, and prevents it from becoming stale and repetitive. While the plot isn't the most concrete and by far not the best aspect of Crysis 2, it's still rewarding and incredibly fun.
Multiplayer
The multiplayer is good in Crysis 2, it might not be as fleshed out as Battlefield: Bad Company 2, or Call of Duty, but it stands firmly on its own two feet. While there are clearly some CoD influenced features, such as kill streaks and unlocks, the nanosuit gives the multiplayer enough to make it stand out from the rest. And goddamn, It's incredibly satisfying to jump down from a great height, air stomp two opponents, rip a turret from it's hinges and spray like Rambo.
This is all well and good if you manage to get into a server, but I've found there are some issues with connectivity. On the first day of playing the game, ranked servers weren't working and even with the unranked matches I was only able to get into 1 of every 5 games I tried to join. I also found the hitboxes were a bit off, I sometimes found myself aiming at the head of an opponent and never actually scoring a headshot, and other times I'd be aiming at their chest and be scoring a headshot - bizarre, but nothing game breaking.
It's fast paced and doesn't allow much room for mistakes, but when does competitive multiplayer allow for mistakes really? It can be unforgiving if you're new to shooters, but if you've played through the campaign for a while you should be acquainted enough not to suck major ass.
Graphics King?
Okay, so without a doubt and unsurprisingly this one of the best looking games I have ever played, and is easily the best looking game on consoles, but how does it compare to the original Crysis? I don't think it's as technically impressive in terms of the size of environments or textures, however, the lighting and effects in Crysis 2 far surpass the first for me. I often found myself just staring at a ruined building for a few seconds, I found the environment to be incredibly attractive and detailed, I was completely amazed by the level of detail. Not only does it look great though, it runs great, too, I was playing on a 9800GT with a Quad core on "High" and it looked and ran amazingly.
Less impressively however, in fact this just downright pissed me off: there are only 3 graphical presets to choose from, no advanced options, so if you find you aren't getting good enough framerates on the middle setting, and you know turning down some AA would drastically help… You can't do that. You have to tone down the graphics on everything! It's just a good thing the game is optimised so it runs superbly and looks awesome.
In conclusion, I was highly impressed with Crysis 2, it exceeded all my expectations and I feel it put a lot of haters during hype in their place. While it does remove some of the freedom found in the first game, and though it clearly made cutbacks in terms of visuals and story for the consoles, it barely bothered me. As well as being the most attractive game I have ever played, with it's strong multiplayer and incredible single player, the variety the game provides means it definitely deserves a place in my all time favourite shooters list, as well as looking to be one of my favourite games of 2011.
Score: 90/100, Superb.