*NOTE* DON'T BOTHER WITH THE IGN PREVIEW OF THE DEMO. THEY'RE BIASED TOWARDS CALL OF DUTY, AND JUST POINT OUT THINGS THAT AREN'T IN LINE WITH CALL OF DUTY AND MAKE THEM SEEM BAD. IT'S NOT AS BAD AS THEY SAY. TRY IT OUT FOR YOURSELF.

I downloaded it. All 1.8 GB of it. Sure took up quite a bit on my hard drive, but I think it was worth it. I mean, this is Crysis 2 after all. I've been waiting a while to see what CryEngine on the consoles would look like, and here's my chance.

Starting off: the graphics. Are they any good? In a single word: yes. PS3 fanboys have attempted to compare Crysis 2 to Killzone 3, just because they can't bicker about anything else. I assure you, IT LOOKS MUCH BETTER. But all hate aside, Crysis 2 is possibly one of the most beautiful console games out there, and I can't even imagine PC with max settings. The textures are pure awesome, the lighting effects are great, the colors are saturated, guns are detailed, and shadows are just amazing. However, I feel that the explosions and smoke effects aren't as great as say Bad Company 2. I feel that game just excels with the smoke effects and explosions.

Okay, now down to gameplay. It's basically a mix between Call of Duty and Halo. You have armor abilities similar to Halo, in that you have Speed mode (sprinting and jumping), Armor mode (suit energy is converted to extra health), and Stealth mode (invisibility). There's a Power mode, but I'm not exactly sure what that is. You also have shields, health, suit modules, which are basically upgrades to your suit ala perks. The rest is nearly similar to Call of Duty. You get four primary classes and five custom classes. Custom classes can swap out weapons, side arms, grenades, and suit modules. Also, weapons can also be attached up to three attachments. These include scopes (red dot, ACOG, or laser), barrel attachments (suppressor), and under-barrel attachments (grenade launcher, gauss, shotgun, extended mags, or hologram).

You also get kill streaks, which right now range from Maximum Radar (UAV, 3 kills), Orbital Strike (laser that sweeps a designated path, 5 kills) and lastly Ceph Airstrike (calls in a gunship, 7 kills). Very reminiscent of Call of Duty 4. Of course, there's more, such as Radar Jammer (jams radar, presumably), Nanosuit Jammer (jams suit abilities, presumably), and Maximum Nanosuit (?). There's also 22 weapons FOR NOW. The final number may change in the final game.

But, quality wise? It's not something you'd remember. Whereas Halo features intense team work, even in casual matches, Crysis 2 is like a clusterf**k of people running around. No teamwork in sight. Of course, I had my mic turned off, but even in Bad Company 2, there was more teamwork with even less actual talk. It could've gone to the other end of the spectrum and had lightning quick gameplay like Call of Duty. But it doesn't, it's still rather slow. It's also not memorable in the fact that a lot of the game isn't balanced. People tend to run around and just punch each other in the face, the assault rifle (SCAR) takes waaaay too long to kill, and Stealth mode seems to be the only option. Hopefully, it gets ironed out before launch, but as of now, it doesn't seem very memorable. Of course, Crysis was never known for multiplayer. But in order to succeed in the console market, it needs a memorable multiplayer.

However, one thing they DID nail down was that CryEngine DOES work on consoles. I see no stutters in framerate, and it overall seems quite well integrated. Let's see how well the campaign fares and if they include the Sandbox, how well that transitions to consoles.