Crysis is a great game, but besides its beautiful graphics and engaging gameplay, it is not a revolution for the genre
So, let me start with the graphics. They are absolutely mesmerizing. Sadly, this means you must have a true powerhouse of a computer to run the game 100% and a very good computer to run it to acceptable conditions. Nevertheless, with some of the settings turned down, the game still looks and feels amazing. The amount of detail poured into this game is something that has to be seen and played to really appreciate it at its full level: the nano suit, the weapons, the animations, the models, the incredible jungle, all of them are truly great technical and artistic accomplishments. A screenshot will never do justice. The game must be played to really see how beautiful this game is, from the motion blur to dynamic shadows and depth of field, this game is truly immersive and at times can feel photorealistic.
The controls are top notch. From a technical perspective, the controls feel very realistic. The guns have recoil and shooting and hitting things at a distance is difficult. I particularly loved the way you can switch between different modes of your nano suit, it feel intuitively and can be done easily and fast in the heat of battle. It all flows right and feels great for a FPS.
AI is really good in this game. The North Koreans act according to your position and will generally attack in groups to take you down more easily. They also run for cover when shoot at and are very accurate (at least in hard and delta difficulty). Again, the game feels very realistic. Depending on where you shoot them they will react. If they do not know where they are being shoot from, they will look around looking for you. If they know where you are, they will close in quietly to take you down. Nevertheless, sometimes the AI fails, as if it didn't know what to do. While I was playing a scene in which you use a tank, some of the Koreans would only stand there waiting to be killed. Also, they can have supersonic enhanced vision, because they can spot you from very long distances and alert an entire patrol that comes after you. Nevertheless, this are minor issues. The game plays great most of the time.
Now, some of my complaints with Crysis are that the story is not really original. You are sent along with another people on a mission to retrieve someone from a Island of Unkown location were a discovery has been made that can change the course of humanity, and for some reason, North Korea knows and invades the island, taking hostage the scientists that make the discovery and planning to take over this secret for their advantage. So, turns out the discovery was aliens. So, they basically f'ed up by digging them out, because now they will destroy earth. Guess what, now you gotta stop them form doing that. Wait... this sounds a little bit familiar... aside from the Cliched aliens, and most of it not being explained at all, the story has a resemblance to... Contra! That's right, remember that game? You start off killing some random people and then discover that aliens want to destroy earth, so you in the end save the world. So, yeah, not particularly original, but good enough to keep you playing.
My second complain is how the game is played. Basically, you will have plenty of hours of killing Koreans in the beginning. And thats it. Get to point A, get to Point B, download data from a computer in point A, destroy some AAA in point B, but while you travel between points, you will have to pass many Korean outposts and many Koreans too. So basically, you will spend a lot of time shooting Koreans while you travel all around the island. In the beginning, this is very entertaining, specially because there are many ways to attack the outposts and ways to do it. And this is where the nano suit comes in. Is is the most important feature of the game, because it is what makes the game so fun to play. So basically, you become some sort of demigod, because you can run fast, have power armor, have super strength or even cloak. You are a one man army, literally, since you will face sometimes 30 enemies or more. So, you can decide to enter the enemy base through the water for example, or just blast your way through with a car get out and shoot and run, or you can snipe your foes from a distance, or you can go stealthy and use your cloak and take them out one by one. Or you can combine many of these (which is what happens most of the time), because most of the time brute force grants you a ticket to the underworld, nevertheless, there is nothing more gratifying than going Rambo and actually annihilating your enemy. The battles are exciting, fast paced and really gratifying. But, back to my complain, after a while, this becomes a little bit... repetitive. Even though you can engage battles in many ways, it will feel sometimes as if you were only ultimately shooting Koreans.
Also, the gameplay is what makes the game not very original. Even though there is lot of freedom to do whatever you want, it is basically the same objectives thought the game. Go here, go there, get this, destroy that, while you shoot Koreans and more Koreans. It's what FPS's have done for a long time and this is what I meant when I say that Crysis doesn't really try to change the genre, even though it definitely sets new standards. Now, my final complaint is that after a while, you will stop shooting Koreans and will actually shoot aliens... the aliens are these flying things that... do not have lots of AI. After a while, it becomes a little bit boring, and even though initially it is fresh air from the Koreans, in the end you wish you were shooting Koreans instead.
Finally, we have the multiplayer. All the nano suit features can be used and it makes great for a multiplayer game. There are two modes, deathmatch and power struggle. Deathmatch is what we all know but with Crysis weapons and nano suit modes. What is interesting is Power Struggle and it is really fun, but can be exceedingly frustrating. The objective is to capture energy sites and a powe plant to accumulate the energy up to 100% and then be able to fabricate weapons of mass destruction to blow up the enemy's HQ. And it is really fun. The maps are huge for this mode and you will need the vehicles from the game to get to the different sites. You can also capture bunkers to use them as spawn points and places where you can buy weapons. You can also capture have weapon factories to get access to tanks. You can purchase weapons and this special vehicles and weapons, such as helicopters or even the portable nukes, with prestige points, which are acquired by killing enemy forces and capturing different sites. It is war in this mode. Opposing teams will fight for a long time to maintain control of everything to be the first to be able to purchase nukes or singularity tanks (alien technology) to blow up the other HQ. It takes more than one nuke to destroy the HQ, which adds strategy to the game, since you must take the nuke from the factory all the way to the enemy HQ w/o dying. The game is fun and keeps you busy at all times, since you wanna nukes those suns of a guns! The nano suit makes it especially cool, because you can cloak and do other stuff to defeat your enemies. Now, the frustration part of this mode is that sometimes is is difficult to do anything at all. If some player from the other team get a advanced heli you can be killed with one missile even with your nano suit. if they know how to use it, you are doomed, because it is really hard to hit them. Snipers are another problem. You might be running and all of a sudden die because of someone camping on a distant mountain while cloaked. What is really infuriating is when you finally get a tank and while you are getting out, someone kills you instantly with missiles or bazookas. Prestige points are hard to get sometimes, specially because it takes a long time to get from one point o another, and you can get killed very easily. So, sometimes you do not have prestige points and do not have access to any of the cool stuff, and when you actually have them and spend the, you are killed instantly and all of it was vain. So yeah, the concept was very good, but it is very hard not to be frustrated at some point. It a good mode and can be enjoyed, but don't be surprised if you get annoyed quickly, especially the first time you play and have no idea where anything is and get killed every time.
In conclusion, Crysis is a good game, a very good game. Even though it might be repetitive from time to time, the experience is hard to describe and definitely worth checking. The graphics alone are something that should be seen and played in fullmotion at least once. The game rocks. I cannot see it other way, and this may be truly a game in all of its splendor of this current gen. The game looks great, feels great, plays great, sounds great and it actually very fun. You should get this game if you own a good pc. The game is truly amazing.