Crysis Reviews

• Crysis...a good FPS but distant runner up for Game of the Year

  
  By AUX9KZUUB3YCE on 2007-11-13
  This game is the long awaited follow up to 'Farcry' (one of the best FPSs of 2004). We now finally get a look at this newest offering.
  
  Here are some of the things that I've liked in the single player mode...
  
  1.)This is a FPS in which your nano armor gives you special 'skills"; these 'skills' include enhanced speed, strength, armor and invisibility; and you'll need them all to survive.
  
  2.)Graphics that are smooth and flowing...plus excellent audio; both add a spooky, creepy ambiance to this jungle based horror game.
  
  3.)The ability to use and control vehicles (on land, at sea and in the air), as well as the mounted weapons on these units.
  
  4.)Generally good (but not great) enemy AI! Although some will just stand out in the open, there are some that will sneak up on you or hide behind cover; also they must reload empty weapons. Due to their larger numbers and the fact they're usually spread out, will necessitate your using your special 'skills' and the surrounding environment to defeat them. This is the basic, reoccurring challenge for this game.
  
  5.)Easy, anytime save/loads with F5/F9 respectively, as well as game generated checkpoint saves.
  
  6.)If your taking a beating (or find it too easy), you can change the degree of game difficulty anytime, as you play; you don't have to start a new game. This is a nice feature!
  
  Cons:
  
  1.)I've had a couple freeze ups, requiring reboot; also some minor video fragmentation (after extended periods of play).
  
  2.)I found the controls on flying the VTOL (vertical take-off & landing) craft were difficult to operate (the plane just didn't seem to respond to commands quickly) with the result of frequent crashes.
  
  3.)There was one extended section where you were floating (in either space or water), that I found confusing, tedious and boring. I was lucky it was very linear, or I might never have gotten out of there.
  
  4.)A high end system is preferable. Although playable on XP, Vista can use Dx10, and combined with good hardware and a high end video card, it does make a difference in being able to run a lot of the 'extra' graphic details.
  
  
  Conclusion:
  All the pre-release hype made it sound as if this game would easily qualify for Game of the Year honors; I don't think so. Graphically it is beautiful and it is a good game, but it's not a great game! If you liked 'Farcry' then you'll probably like 'Crysis'. Was it worth the wait...probably, but somehow I was expecting something more. Over all, I liked 'Farcry' and its gameplay a little more. However, still worth a 4 1/2-5 Star rating.
  
  
  
  

• Your PC better have some power!

  
  By A32DAIXG32QOCP on 2007-11-27
  This is a comment and not a review. Here are my specs: 2.66 DuoCore2, 4gb ram, and 8600gt running overclocked with nTune. My video card is my weak link on my system no doubt, but I'm shocked I can only run this game on medium at the next to lowest screen resolution. Thats the only setting I can run the game smoothly with NO fullscreen AA or particles on. This game is a system beast so you better have a better card than mine to take advantage of the great effects and graphics because I don't see it. This is getting ridiculous that you have to have a $400 video card to fully enjoy playing a $50 game....crazy!
  
  

• Almost, But Not Quite a Great Game

  
  By ALOI9G09H87IW on 2007-11-24
  System: Dell XPS 410
  Duel Core E6600
  2gb RAM
  Nvidia 640 mb 8800 GTS
  
  I was actually somewhat disappointed in this game, I hate to say. I looked forward to this for over a year.
  
  First the good. Graphics are very good even with the low to medium settings I was required to use because of my system. Audio, for the most part, was excellent. AI was a slight step up from other games in the genre, but not as much as I had expected. The game-play was engaging - at least for most of the game.
  
  The only negative aspect in the graphics and sound department was the tremendous amount of computer power that must be needed to run higher settings. Although I have a mid to high computer system, I was required to run the game at a low resolution with advanced settings set to either low or medium. I couldn't come anywhere close to my monitor's native resolution of 1920 x 1200, even with all settings on the lowest setting.
  
  What was odd is that if I let the game detect and set "optimal" settings, it would select a a medium resolution and high advanced settings. But playing at that, I could only get maybe 12-15 fps. So, the detection system was useless. I had to tweak manually to get the framerate to acceptable levels.
  
  I finally was able to get the framerate at an average of 35-40 fps - which is very acceptable, however, every few minutes, I would hit a "bump" and my framerate would briefly drop to 0 and then bounce back up to the 35-40. Because this was happening so often, I had to take another step back in the graphics department and play on DX9 mode instead of DX10.
  
  It was disappointing to have upgraded my computer to a duel core, 2gb or RAM and a 640mb Nvidia 8800 GTS DX10 graphics card only to run a game on DX9 with low settings and a low resolution. And this was after reading tweak guides, turning off background programs, downloading the latest drivers from Nvidia, etc. Very odd, and I suspect Crysis was rushed out and not optimized correctly.
  
  The story and the characterization were weak in my opinion - characterization more so than the story. This is a fairly straightforward FPS with not a lot happening with character development.
  
  Levels early in the game were much more interesting with more openness and options. As the game progressed, it became more and more linear - to the point of being very limiting.
  
  There were a lot of glitches in the game - items floating around, things spinning. There was a lot of clipping. Some problems became quite a nuisance. For example, getting an objective to clear an area and after doing so just standing there for additional directions. None came and I spent the next ten minutes searching around until I found a hostile in a boxcar just spinning around. He wouldn't die by gunshot, so I had to grab him and throw him to the side. Once he died, it triggered the next script and I got an updated objective.
  
  The last few levels were excruciatingly glitchy. On the ship, I kept falling through the floor to the point that it was extremely hard to complete the objectives. The boss battles were lame. It appeared to me that the game was rushed toward the end and they just threw some things together. The ending was a let down. And the thing is, the game itself was very short - maybe 9 hours or so, I would guess. You'd think they could develop something a little better in a few year's time.
  
  I enjoyed the game, but it just wasn't as good as I had expected. High expectation can do that. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give Crysis a solid 8. If it were optimized to run better and without the glitches (which could be possible with some patches in the future) I would up that score to 8.5.
  
  
  

• Crytek HITS ANOTHER HOMERUN - AND IT'S OUT OF THE PARK!!!!

  
  By A74TA8X5YQ7NE on 2007-11-13
  FAR CRY was one of the best FPS games ever sold. It created such a following that can only be compared to that of UNREAL and the original HALF-LIFE. CRYTEK, the developer of both FAR CRY and CRYSIS, clearly did not rest on its laurels. CRYSIS is an *EVEN BETTER GAME* in many aspects.
  And toping FAR CRY is NOT an easy task...
  
  Graphically the game is GORGEOUS! (Both DX10 and DX9 compatible). Moving in the jungle is just unbelievable: the natural foliage, the game of light and shadow, the clear flowing water...The weapons are exceptionally well designed (familiar shapes but mostly futuristic) and their muzzle flashes add to the game realism. Replenishing your ammo is almost never a problem, provided you are frugal with your snipper bullets. A nice cross-genre touch: most weapons are enhanceable with targeting-lasers, sniper-sights and silencers.
  The "weapon" you will enjoy more is, of course, the nanite-muscle-suit, a kind of augmenting exoskeleton that serves as both armor and turning you into a super-human. Throwing your enemies over the tree tops can be really fun - and their limp movements and shouted insults are totally realistic! Speaking of realism, wait to reach the zero-gravity levels: the weapons' kick will propel you backwards - as it should! And, very important, all these great graphics with steep yet not exorbitant system requirements! CRYSIS is much more stable than, say, FEAR-PERSEUS MANDATE or BIOSHOCK, although graphically clearly superior.
  
  The sound has also been well worked on. There are a number of moments where sound clues are the warning you will get. The sound of an enemy crawling towards you is not a good omen...So get rid of those old headphones and plug in a good set of speakers.
  
  The levels are beautifully designed and the AI PHENOMENAL! I had a group of enemies flank me as I was engaged with their comrade who was left as bait! Shoot an enemy from cover only to watch him seek cover as well - until he or one of his comrades spot your position!
  Overall, the gameplay controls is very similar to that of FAR CRY (and most FPS nowadays). I do have to point out that movement is precise and effective. Running is fast whereas crouching is stealthy. For longer distances, vehicles become available.
  The game also sports a multiplayer - although it may require lowering the video specs to avoid lagging.
  
  Now, this game (being an EA release) sports ...SecuROM. Usually I subtract at least two stars from games burdening us with such dangerous security routines. However, I liked the game so much I felt torn - and decided to make an exception. So, if you are boycotting SecuROM games, be warned, otherwise:
  
  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
  
  

• Dirty little secret . . .

  
  By A1FOEPGLITYCOV on 2007-11-20
  I love this game, and mostly I agree with the high rating that the game has received. The other reviews have pretty much touched on all of the things I love about it and normally I wouldn't think of chiming in just to pile on more of the same, but I feel there are a few points that were missed . . . points that I think others should know before buying this game.
  I have a dual boot computer that runs both Windows XP and Windows Vista Home Premium. (2 SLI linked Nvidia 8800 Ultras, 4GBs of RAM and an AMD Athlon 64 FX-62) I have run the game on both OS's and have found that, all things being equal--using the exact same settings on the same computer with only the OS being different--that the game runs significantly better on XP. I've tried this comparison with quite a few recent titles--titles that run both DX 9 and DX 10--and Crysis shows, by far, the biggest slow down when switching between the two OS's. (I've checked around and it seems that I'm not alone in this discovery) This seems a shame. I kind of expect some problems with Vista--that's the reason I kept XP on my system . . . But I guess I'm willing to cut Crysis a little slack because it IS such an ambitious game.
  But then there's another bit of hanky-panky that isn't so forgivable: This is the fact that the game won't let you turn the video settings to "Very High" on XP. At first everyone thought, quite naturally, that this was due to some difference between the relative abilities of DirectX 9 on XP and DirectX 10 on Vista. But it turns out that the limitation is purely artificial. (For those who want to circumvent this, it's an easy fix; simply cutting and pasting a few lines in some config files allows those higher settings on XP. Look around on Google, it's out there . . . ) This isn't to say that there IS no difference between DX 9 and DX 10, only that someone tried to make the difference seem even greater than it really is by inserting an artificial limitation.
  
  All is not lost, the Crysis people are coming out with their first patch in a week or so and I have no doubt that they'll have the game running well on Vista in no time. Maybe they'll even give up on the artificial limit in XP . . . but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Still, I give it four stars.
  
  
• Ignore Mike Powell
  By AR0THZ6HEVW4V on 2007-11-15
  The rater with 3 stars is an idiot, ignore him.
  
  Who cares about multi-monitor, get a nice 21 or 24 inch and you're set. The dialog is pretty good, especially the part where the Koreans speak, you know, Korean (but you can set them to English if you want).
  
  The story is a mix of a special ops kind of game and something Cthulu-inspired, I'll leave it at that.
  
  The suit and its powers are kind of the key to the whole thing. They are sci-fi extensions of what we see now, brief bursts of strength, healing, etc. A little fantastic, yes, but this is a GAME, you know, something where you pick up health packs and what not. Why anybody who picks up a GAME is surprised says something about their intelligence.
  
  The kills are finally difficult. I have always wondered why the hero can take a bunch of rounds, wear all kinds of armor, yet the baddies are cut down in droves. Mr. Mike Powell is just a bad shot. Pump a bunch of sub-sonic rounds into the torso of a Korean soldier wearing body armor, and yes, it's a tough kill. On the other hand, sneak up behind one and put a couple pistol rounds in the back of their head, and that's it. The kills aren't hard, they are realistic.
  
  The AI is very good, but not perfect. Once in a while they seem oblivious, other times they all scurry over to see what the noise is all about. They use a semblance of squad tactics. They try to flank you. And, something very rare, they may even run away if you lay waste to enough of their fellows.
  
  I have a quad-core Intel CPU, 7800 GT card, 2 gigs RAM.....and Windows Vista. It runs like a dream at the highest settings. Mr. Powell apparently failed to read that Crysis is designed for DirectX 10 and Windows Vista. Ooops for him. Trust me, with a good gamer system built in the last 6 months, you will see every leaf and branch moving and reacting, getting brushed aside by your gun barrel, getting shot or blown off, etc.
  
  CoD 4 is nice, but it's just the same old rat maze every other CoD has had. I get tired of having to move along one path and fight endlessly spawning bad guys until I move past a checkpoint. THAT is hokey. Crysis is more like the Rainbow Six games, where there are set numbers of enemies and it's up to you how you want to pick them off. Personally, I just like driving a truck into their camps full bore and leap out guns blazing, but you can snipe them too.
  
  So don't be a Mike Powell - get you a top of the line Vista machine and enjoy Crysis, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed....
  
  
• Eye Candy Galore, But Way Too Short
  By A37YK2LHU1LA4Y on 2007-11-20
  This game feels more like a long demo rather than a complete title. Just when you think the game is going to move onto the next chapter, the soundtrack builds to a crescendo and the credits start rolling. The game abruptly ends after a few hours of gameplay. It seems to me that this game was more of an experiment with the new CryEngine 2 and DirectX 10 support rather than an actual game. As in "The Empire Strikes Back", the storyline in Crysis leaves you hanging. It does not end when the game does! The game ends with your squad leader going AWOL and you have to find him. You know they're going to charge you more money later on to find out what happens when you meet up with him. If people pay the full retail price for a game, shouldn't they get the full game all at once up front? Pay $50 now and wait a year to spend another $40 on an "expansion pack" just to finish the game. What kind of underhanded garbage is that? That should have happened in the first place! If it's not finished, don't sell it!
  
  The audio is atrocious. It's just bad. I mean, the audio in this game is so unsynchronized with the rest of the game that during an in-game movie, the computer *appeared* to freeze, but was just trying to sync the game up with the dialogue. It took about 30 long seconds of waiting to see if the problem was with my computer or not. This is a recurring problem on many other peoples' computers, even with the latest Sound Blaster cards. There have been many times during an intense battle where the sound of the guns has dropped out altogether, and the dialogue is extremely choppy. EA needs to work on a patch for this audio problem. I ran the game with the -DX9 command line parameter to play the game in DirectX 9 mode, and the audio was *STILL* choppy and full of delays.
  
  Please, please wait until the price on this game has gone down. I know you want to see how the game looks with DirectX 10 graphics, but there is a demo of this game available for free online. Crysis is yet another expensive big-name game you can complete over the weekend on the most difficult setting without any cheating (which I did - unless you consider using the quicksave and quickload feature cheating).
  
  *************************************************************************
  
  [Now onto the good stuff - yes, there are good things about this game....]
  
  I really liked the motion blur, and the shading in DX10 is out of this world. I have not seen a more beautifully rendered computer or video game on the market. Even BioShock, which is supposed to support DirectX 10, doesn't come close to the realism of the graphics in this game. The close-ups with the enemy are breathtaking. If you have all the video settings to "Very High" and are running on DX10, when you go toe-to-toe with a bad guy in the middle of the day while on the beach, and decide to melee attack him, it looks so incredibly real that you might forget you are playing a game. The facial expressions are very detailed and well put together. It's just scary real. There was a time in computer/video gaming where you were doing a great job if you used three triangles to make a nose. This is by far light years ahead of those days (and the rest of the competition, for that matter).
  
  The gameplay is good. I love the quick save/quick load feature. I hate when games don't have it. The different abilities of the character's suit are fun, too. Too many bad guys flanking you? Turn the cloak on and retreat. Can't jump high enough to reach that ledge? Use the maximum strength setting and try it now. Need more info on gameplay? Download the demo.
  
  There is no way to upgrade your suit or your character's attributes. This is not one of those kinds of games. One major beef I have with the AI is that they can see me through the thick vegetation that is all throughout the game, but I can't see them. Yes, there are more of them, but even when I move around, they keep shooting at me perfectly, regardless of how many trees there are between me and them. The only real way to hide in this game when you're close to the enemy is to use the stealth mode. When you so much as throw a grenade at them, the stealth mode is deactivated and you are exposed. I can understand the stealth mode deactivating itself when I open fire, but lobbing a grenade? Shouldn't there be a distinction?
  
  The stealth mode is so incredibly useful when you're floating around in the alien ship. The faster you move, the quicker the stealth mode will expire, so when you remain still, it will last much longer than if you are sprinting. Using the stealth mode, I sneak up to the aliens and get close enough to grab them, then I blast them into smithereens, turn the stealth mode back on and do it again.
  
  All in all, a very good half of a game, but we'll have to wait a while to pick up where this game leaves off. Good gameplay, engaging storyline, outstanding graphics, way too short. It'll be a while before we see a Crysis 2. The big wigs are going to milk Crysis by putting out expansion packs, when they should have just made the complete product and sold it all at once. I guess the days of buying a complete game are over (as are the days of getting gas for 89 cents a gallon).
  
  
• Incredible but short
  By A2I22GFX3U9YFE on 2007-11-18
  In spite of having to run the game on med-low resolution settings I found the game to be excellent. The story flows very well and you never get bored with it. The graphics are excellent, characters are well played for the most part, and the final battle is epic. Even the escort mission (the achillies heal of most games) felt realistic and worked well.
  
  So why 3 stars? I'm taking off .5 because for some reason it won't allow me to map the flight functions to my joystick (wingman extreme). Not that big of a deal since the mouse keyboard does actually work in the game but not very well.
  
  Now for the big hit. I'm taking off 1.5 stars because of the length. I just don't get games these days. They make them with flashy graphics, hopefully a good story, and if it's a really good game it feels epic. However, they make them so short that it just leaves you feeling empty. After the final battle in Crysis I was sitting there waiting for the next section to load when the credits came up. I sat looking confused for a few minutes before I turned the monitor off in disgust.
  
  It's like if they had released Deus Ex and it ended the game after you retrieved the virus or System Shock after you got to the second level of the station or Far Cry after find out about trigens. I brought the game home Friday, played from about 7pm-11pm. Got up the next morning and played from about noon-11PM. I finished the game just after 11PM and I was playing on the hardest difficulty level, took breaks for meals, and ran out to the store to pick up snacks.
  
  It used to be that when you bought a game, you expected to get at least a week of play out of it. Are we now reduced to less than 24 hours? Personally, I'd give up the years worth of work on graphics flash that they spend, for more game time in the story. The multi-player doesn't make up for this either as that's a common excuse.
  
  I loved the game (what little of it there was), but I can't go any higher than 3 stars.
  
  
  
  
• Lackluster
  By A126NFOEDMGWJS on 2007-11-14
  I had eagerly anticipated Crysis after Far Cry won my respect.
  
  Sadly, Crysis disappoints.
  
  The game does not cooperate with multi monitor systems, forcing me to operate it in windowed mode in order to play on my favorite monitor (or to totally reconfigure my multimonitor system).
  
  The dialog is unimpressive and rather infantile. The story, from what I have seen of it, is rather uninspiring.
  
  The suit is an annoyance... in every respect. Constantly managing the suit to turn on different superhero powers is just so comicbook. I felt like I was switching between the invisible woman, the hulk, captain america, the flash, and superman. If I wanted a comic book fantasy, I would have spent a few bucks on a... well... a comic book.
  
  The kills are far too difficult and unrealistic. Pumping lead into Koreans point blank, and they just stand there and fire back. Are they all on drugs or something?
  
  The AI has issues: I was spotted creeping in the bushes high on a mountainside, overlooking the waters... by men in a boat, who of course fired on me. First, no way I could have been seen. Next, the AI guys that they fired PAST (eg: they were between me and the firing boat), did not respond to the action.
  
  My system is pretty high performance, not extreme, but no slouch. All settings for Crysis had to be set to low, and even then, I have a crappy frame rate. (Athlon 64 2.41GHz, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX, 2G Ram, Win XP)
  
  I compare this to Call of Duty 4, also recently released. CoD4 is ASTOUNGING by comparison. Excellent missions, wonderful maps, good story, supreme frame rates on modest hardware (xbox 360).
  
  I think I will try to sell my Crysis SE, and go back to CoD 4
  
  
• I'll stick with FarCry
  By AB2S3N9EWVMNS on 2007-12-02
  When you do something right, and then later do something wrong, it demands comparison, and requires criticism.
  
  I love FarCry. It was for me near FPS perfection. For many, it had it's weaknesses, but I have played it through sooo many times, maybe too many. I definitely got my money's worth. Many of us love the FPS "duke nukem" style one against the impossible to beat invasion by "whatever" scenario.
  
  So with such a challenging success in Far Cry, we were really looking forward to Crysis, but with this new one Crytek falls down hard. The big picture planning (plot) was great, but the top dogs should have followed through with the details. Minor examples: all of the voiced parts were weak; the video glitches were extreme; play style was inconsistent and too variable, and the end of the game is downright boooooooring. You finish with a "who cares" attitude.
  
  The download-demo makes you think your getting FarCry "plus". Yea!!! But then with the one you pay for, the plot goes goofy and somebody begins to make this thing into their very poorly scripted "video project". With FarCry you have control over the action; with Crysis you're manipulated at the most inopportune times and to the nth degree and therefore feel depressingly bored. About two thirds of the way through I stopped liking what I was doing, and began feeling like I was playing something by/for girlie-men. So I guess subjectively, the last half of Crysis seemed pointless; in fact, objectively this phase is a huge step ... backward in time ... it reminded me of those old quarter eating "tetris?" video machine games we played in bars in the 70's, now it's just in 3d.
  
  Oh and for you parents who are "real" parents, be warned: The language wasn't feminine: it is ridiculously foul and pointlessly so ... don't even think of allowing your teen to play this with the sound on.
  
  So disappointing! After the first half, it was a huge waste of my time and I'm sure it will be - of your money too. So come-on Crytek, get your act together!
  
  
• So much potential, but too many bugs to reach it.
  By A1H4NBF98OLFFO on 2008-01-12
  With as much hype as there was for this game, I was really looking forward to it and I had such high hopes for Crysis. However, I should have known that because the very first thing I encountered after the installation was a bug, that I was going to find the game to be frustrating in the end.
  
  Bugs are very often related to the vast array of hardware and software that make up our computers, so your experience may be different, but here are the specifications of the system I'm playing on so that there is a basis for comparison. I have a 2.4 GHz quad core CPU from Intel, the Q6600. My video card is the NVIDIA 8800 GT with 512 MB of video memory. I have 8 GB of RAM and I'm running Vista 64, so that I can use all of it.
  
  On the initial load, the game chose 1024x768, which is quite different from my 1920x1200 desktop and apparently the makers of the game, Crytek, never considered this possibility, because I couldn't use the mouse to select any of the menu items; the origin of the screen and the origin of the mouse were different. This meant, that in order to click on a button my mouse pointer was somewhere off the lower right of my screen. This was not a good sign and didn't instill a good first impression. I ended up having to change my desktop to 1024x768 in order to click on any of the buttons on the main menu screen. (I retested this after patch 1.1 was released and it is still a problem, which shocked me, because when I first encountered the bug a quick search of the web revealed that I wasn't alone.)
  
  The first two-thirds of the game are fairly fun, though nowhere near as intense, non-stop, or varied as Call of Duty 4. Although, the more open, less linear aspects of the early levels, give the player many opportunities to explore, I failed a couple of missions because I didn't realize that there were time constraints for success. Towards the middle of the game, there is a very linear, zero-gravity, level that is a bit boring, very confusing, and adds little to the game. After this level is where the really annoying bugs begin.
  
  After the zero-g level, another marine has modified for his personal use, one of the alien's weapons. Aside from being nearly ineffectual, the sound produced by this gun introduced a new bug, where all of my speakers started popping and a distorted version of the alien gun sounds would continue without end, even making it impossible to understand what the characters said. Turn on subtitles so you can work through these sorts of bugs. In the same scene, there were some graphical bugs where the aliens legs would stick to one part of the world while the rest of the alien continued on its way to some other part of the world, leave stretched, blue alien parts across my screen. This continued even after installing the patch.
  
  In the last level, on the aircraft carrier, the game really heads south. For the entire game, I'd been playing at 1920x1200, with no antialiasing, and all of the advanced settings on medium. These settings were unplayable on the aircraft carrier. Perhaps Crytek ran out of time to optimize the performance of this level. In my view, they should have delayed the release. This is not really helped by the patch, either.
  
  The next bug involves saving and loading the game. In the early levels, loading a level for the first time would take less than 30 seconds and loading or saving a game that was in progress was nearly instantaneous. However, during the Reckoning level, these actions would take several minutes. I actually used the task manager to kill the game several times when this first started, because the automatic load after death took so long I was sure the game had frozen, but no, this was just how long it took. This was not fixed by patch 1.1. At this point, I'm beginning to wonder what the patch was for.
  
  The final encounter of the game takes place on the aircraft carrier's deck, which due to even more bugs, is not solid. I must have fallen through the "solid" surface to the rooms below or into the ocean a couple of dozen times. This was annoying enough, bug combined with the several minute load times make this last part of the game, not worth playing. I stuck it out to the end and finished the boss, at which point the game says "checkpoint reached" and promptly hangs. Since the game normally automatically saves after a check point, I left my screen frozen there for 20 minutes before giving up and killing the process. As you might have guessed by now, this was not fixed by the patch.
  
  Of course, since it hadn't saved my game, I got to do the final encounter again, but after falling through the deck several more times, I decided that it just wasn't worth the aggravation.
  
  With all of the games out there, I find it impossible to recommend Crysis due to its many, many bugs.
  
  
• Wanted So Much More
  By A1MD63EKMZU0A1 on 2007-11-30
  Barely runs on my incredibly high end quad-core, sli, 8 gigs of mem, Vista Machine. I'm talking 19 frames at 1024 (and that is with the AA OFF?)
  I wanted to love this game. I ended up trapped in a world of stupid AI, and graphics that need so much optimization that it isn't worth playing.
  Crashtastic game.
  You only see the high poly faces in Cinematic Moments.
  It has pretty--but without playable pretty is a huge waste.
  I'll go back to TimeShift on the PC. That is pretty and runs at 80 plus frames with everything on at 2560 resolution for me.
  
  
• Cray Supercomputer Required!!!
  By AS1XXTRDNXE1P on 2007-12-07
  Listen, I am sick and tired of seeing the ads for this game in magazines and on the web. If you see them then you are forced to believe that the graphics shown are actually attainable. They are not. Yes, the graphics are "amazing" but only if you have a Cray supercomputer to run the game on. This is very upsetting to me. My system is very solid and I refuse to be forced to "dummy down" my graphics settings to play a $50 game. Doing so makes it look like FarCry from 5 years ago. Obviously, the graphics you see in the ads cannot be run on most machines...even gaming enthusiast's machines. So, why buy this game if you cannot enjoy its biggest asset (great graphics)???
  
  There are no graphic optimizations done by this company. What a let down.
  
  Also, anyone who has played Battlefield 2142 knows that EA does not support multiplayer at all. It barely has forums on its website. You can forget any meaningful technical support from this company.
  
  
• After the Hype and the wait, its just plain Boring!!
  By A16WKPOSEGQC3Y on 2007-11-21
  Man, what a disappointment. I, like so many of us die hard PC shooter addicts loved Far Cry and was waiting for this release. Heck, I pre-orderd this from Amazon in the Summer!!! And boy, what a let down.
  
  The first part I felt like I was replaying Far Cry, maybe an updated version, but the same basic island setting, similar weapons, vehicles, etc. Then I got into the tank battle part, and this was highly derivative of the hover tanks in Quake 4. I kept spacing out and thinking I was in Quake 4.
  
  But then, I got to the middle part, where you're inside this mountain, and it was blatant RIPOFF of Prey. The whole thing. Floating in this 3 dimensional space, no gravity, similar type gameplay, and hugely pointless. There was no story. It was just a pain to get through, cuz nothing really happened. You shoot these things. Then nothing.
  
  Then I got to the ice planet part, and this was somewhat interesting, for the first 3 minutes. Then it too, became boring and repetitive. Hugely so. The flying blue things are totally annoying. The weapons are simply lousy, even the alien weapon is basically useless (it overheats in like 4 seconds and doesn't actually kill anything that quickly)
  
  All in all, what a huge letdown. The Crytek guys spent lots of time on the detailed environment that they became famous for with Far Cry. And the first part was similar. The nanosuit was somewhat novel, but it too ends up being useless because it runs out of power every few seconds.
  
  This is not what I had hoped for. I made it through the game, but I'm not sure I'll go back for another run through. Just too boring and repetitive.
  
  
• Love this game! Well, the first 3/4s of it anyway
  By A3Q3ICT3R45NF2 on 2007-11-27
  I tried out the demo for this game, as well as Call of Duty 4 and ended up spending my money on this one. Why? I think it's got way more to offer for the single player experience.
  
  First, a little background. I like realistic, traditional shoot 'em up games. And the more realistic they are, the better I like them. Prior to this I had been playing lots of Call of Duty 2 and Battlefield 2, all single player mode. I liked these games because they're based on real guns that have imperfections. Guns have limited accuracy, you have to aim down the sights for precision, you have limited ammo, the bullets take time to travel and thus you have to compensate, etc.
  
  Both Crysis and COD4 continue this, but what drew me to Crysis over COD4 is that you can play with tactics. The entire Call of Duty series is based on moving forward, with infinite amounts of enemies replacing the old ones until you move forward. Crysis allows far more sneaking around and taking out your enemies with skill. For me it's thrilling to use stealth and planning to eliminate an enemy crew without risking my own neck, rather than just running in guns ablaze. And when I mess up, they call for backup, but it's not the infinite number of reinforcements like in COD4. There's clearly a finite number of enemies per stage, and I get to decide how to deal with them.
  
  Compare this to basically every other shooter today, where you it's basically run and gun the whole time, and Crysis offers a whole new level of game play. It really feels like I'm on an island where the enemies around me are a real threat, whereas with other games where everything feels fake, the enemy is brain-dead, and I'm just running around shooting at everything that moves. Besides, I don't think I'm good enough for the running and gunning stuff in this game- I tried that the first few times and just kept getting killed. In this regard, Crysis is the most realistic and close to real-life shooter that I've played.
  
  Now the bad part. About 3/4 of the way through, it starts getting really tedious. For me it started with the mission where you're in a tank. The controls for these vehicles are totally unrefined. It's about as bad as the tank missions in Call of Duty 2, except the enemies are stronger and will kill you much faster. Compare this to Battlefield 2, where the tank/helicopter controls are spot on, and Crysis feels totally fake. If BF2 feels like driving a real car, then Crysis vehicles feel like those driving arcade games from the 90's: odd and disconnected. The same goes for the VTOL mission later. Also, one more thing- these levels lacked refinement. There were several times where my VTOL would plain crash after coming out of the cinematic transitions, controls totally unresponsive. Or my tank would end up stuck in a rut I couldn't get out of.
  
  At about this point is where you start fighting the aliens. I won't reveal much more, but fighting the aliens just isn't much fun. It's a lot like the old shooting games where you just have to blast the hell out of them. It's repetitive and tedious. And until you reach the end, it just keeps getting more and more like this. So, first 3/4's of the game I really liked. Then, it got really boring and frustrating.
  
  Finally, as others have mentioned, this game is a total bear on your system. Although I did experience some slowdown in the first parts of the game, it got ridiculously bad at the end. It was so bad I was getting nauseas with the lagging audio and poor frame rate. The last time I got nauseas from a game was when I tried playing a FPS on a projector screen from 2 feet away. My system plays Battlefield 2 (which was the benchmark a year or two ago) with flying colors: maximum quality and resolution with no problem. On Crysis and I'm on lower resolution and quality than I'm used to, and still it gets really slow. And it's not that my system is junk (yet, anyway..)- from what I've read, there isn't a graphics card out there that can play this game at high res and quality. The hardware just hasn't been invented yet.
  
  So, the bad news is, unless you've got a really fast system, get ready for low resolution, quality and frame rates. The good news is, the bad performance doesn't really set in until the later levels, which suck anyway. The other good news is that the demo is a great way to see if you like the gameplay before you buy (and a great way to see if your system can handle the game..)
  
  
• vista schmista !
  By A2B6LR4IRRPYXF on 2007-12-01
  try and get this game to work in Vista, I dare you.
  with 3gb memory, an 8800 GTS video card, and the game looks like Quake back in 1995... what the hell is going on ??? No patch, no support, no help.. go to hell if you think I'm recommending this turd to my friends. PUARFS!
  
  
• Know what you are getting into, and you'll be happy
  By A1V1AIPNCHH5PC on 2008-07-25
  Crysis has gotten plenty of lukewarm reviews on Amazon, and while I'm not ignoring the game's flaws, I think many of them are undeserved. First of all, Crysis has incredible graphics, probably the best so far of any game, and you therefore need a powerful computer to run the game. But this is relatively common knowledge, so don't buy the game if you don't meet the requirements. I will freely admit that I ran the game on very high with an overclocked Q9450, 4gigs of overclocked 1066mhz ram, and a GTX 280. I can understand the frustration of not being to play Crysis even with a fairly powerful rig, but there are other games out there, so don't blame Crytek. If you do have a capable machine, however, than Crysis is a surprisingly good game.
  
  To begin with, in my experience Crysis is very stable. I did not have a single crash. This is impressive, given the strain the game puts on your computer (particulary the RAM). The graphics will tax your system, as I've mentioned, but they are absolutely worth it. I found myself just wandering around looking at the rocks and water in the beginning. I have played pretty much every recent shooter, and I can tell you that they don't hold a candle to Crysis. Whoever said Half-Life 2 has comparable graphics hasn't played this game. I should mention that I care a lot about graphics. If you are more interested in a complex story or innovative gameplay, than Crysis may not be for you.
  
  The gameplay of Crysis is not as bad as some people here would have you think. Since it was made by the same team who developed Far Cry (in my opinion the second best shooter ever behind Half-Life), the two games have a lot in common. The HUDs are similar, the radar is basically identical, the AI uses common tactics, you're in a jungle etc. Far Cry is a little more sophisticated and polished in terms of the diversity of play, but Crysis has its moments. Crysis is slightly more linear, but also offers more vehicles and more interactive environments. In addition, your character has a suit that enables him to increase speed, strength, armor - or make himself temporarily invisible. While these are not all quite as useful as they could be, they do allow for a variety of approaches. "Maximum strength" is especially fun as it allows you to jump insanely high and throw enemies to their death. There is good weapon variety, especially since all of the weapons are customizable.
  
  I will acknowledge that the game is not perfect. But I also feel that it is being compared unfairly. Crysis and Far Cry don't pretend to compete with the Half-Life series in terms of immersion and story, yet these games are compared frequently. If you like beautiful, expansive, open-ended environments and lots of freedom, then play Crysis or Far Cry. If you like a more linear, more RPG type FPS, than play Half-Life. I will say that Crysis is hindered by its absurd plot, as the alien component is not polished or enjoyable enough (as reviewers have mentioned). But this is not a major flaw, and certainly should not prevent anyone from buying the game. The cutscenes and objectives are still good, and it's not like your're expecting another Deus Ex when you buy Crysis.
  
  Crysis is fun. There is no denying that. You get to use all kinds of vehicles - including a mission where you have to fly a helicopter full of marines while battling aliens! The final bosses are challenging; think shooting Halo's vents while battling flood combined with Doom 3's enormous bosses. Also, this game is not short by any means. There are a lot of diverse levels - even more diverse than Far Cry, because other US soldiers drift in and out of the missions. Vehicles are well-integrated into the levels, and there is always plenty going on. There are mountainous levels, beach/water levels, jungle levels, ship levels, largely indoor levels, a wintery level, and even a level inside an alien ship (which I liked, even though some people didn't). There are objectives and missions (even at the end when you are fighting the final bosses, it tells you to destroy them - duh!), but you always have the freedom of how you want to approach them, and generally you get a lot of space with which to work. There is a lot of variety in weapons, which, combined with your nano-suit, allow you maximum use of your environment at nearly every stage. Crysis does a good job of mixing realistic firefights with fun, futuristic warfare. It is an extremely enjoyable game.
  
  As you've probably gathered, I'm mostly writing this review in response to others because I don't want potential buyers to be misinformed. I want to reiterate that you should only buy Crysis if you know what you are getting into. It is not a game for everybody. But, if you have a high-end computer, and enjoyed Far Cry, then I highly recommend Crysis. It is a well made game that is beautiful and fun. Sure, the developers made a mistake by making its optimal setting only accessible to graphics cards that hadn't come out yet, but honestly this game looks better than any other on medium, and there are cards now that can run it on very high.
  
  
• oh boo hoo.
  By A1H9EW77YUKAWR on 2007-11-15
  so you cant play it on your multimonitor setup. big deal! does that mean it's a lousy game? NO! Demo is great, and so should be the Finished version.
  
  
• Follow up game to Far Cry (finally!)
  By A352UWZ826D8KX on 2007-12-05
  Hi all! If you've ever read some of my other reviews, you know I'm a hard core action, adventure, FPS type of gamer. I loved Far Cry and have been waiting patiently (and I'm not a patient man) for a sequel. Well, this is it. Yep! I got the demo and it looks every bit as good as Far Cry. The thing that is really cool about Far Cry AND this game, is that you can interact with the entire environment, you can take your own path throughout the game and you can just plain have fun. You actually feel like you're IN the game. The graphics, as in Far Cry, are excellent and the environments are realistic and a blast to play in. You can shoot down all the palm trees you want, shoot the buildings to pieces and have a general blast playing psycho killer. No, I haven't purchased the game yet. I plan to though. This one is worth every cent, just as Far Cry was. I highly recommend this game to all those fellow FPS fans out there. You won't go wrong with this one. Now, make another and another. Love these games!
  
  
• Disappointing, don't believe the hype
  By AJKWF4W7QD4NS on 2007-12-06
  I've always been more of a console gamer than a PC gamer, but with how hyped Crysis has been over the past year, gamers of all sorts (myself included) were eagerly anticipating it, considering the bombardment of beautiful trailers and gameplay clips that we've seen over all that time, and the fact that the game is developed by Crytek, the same team that brought us the excellent FPS Far Cry. Once you get Crysis fired up (hope you have a system and graphics card powerful enough to do it), you'll be amazed at how stunningly beautiful the environments and areas appear, even on a low resolution. The explosion effects are brilliant and the sound effects are wonderfully done as well, making Crysis one of most visually pleasing FPS' to come out in quite some time. Where Crysis derails though is thanks to the assortment of bugs and glitches that are apparent throughout the game. These range from physics glitches to mission bugs where you are wandering around wondering just what to do. It should also be noted that the supposed "advanced AI" in the game is practically non-existant, as you'll notice enemies doing things not so intelligent in the heat of battle, at least when it comes to the human enemies in the game. These range from shooting in the opposite direction of you to not shooting at all. However, there are moments in the game where you will be left with your jaw hanging open, including some battles with massive alien adversaries that are done exquisitely well, but these moments happen nowhere near as often as advertised. Crysis isn't a bad game one bit, and for FPS fans seeking a new shooter or for those who have been marginally interested in the game since it's announcement, it is definitely worth checking out. Keeping that in mind, don't expect the next great shooter, or nothing close to what Crysis has been hyped as being.
  
  
• Quit crying because your system is too frackin' wimpy to handle the game! IT'S AWESOME!
  By A37108LH0OWWXE on 2007-12-15
  Let me first start by saying all you frackin' cry babies complaining because your system can't handle it need to shut the frack up and back away from the vehicle. This game is awesome, and the fact that it will be graphically scalable for the next few generations of Graphics is a GOOD THING, similar to FarCry and how it was at it's release time with the 5900Ultra.
  
  If your system can't handle it on settings that're good, it REALLY DOES NOT LOOK THAT BAD ON LOW FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
  
  I am not going to spoil the game but I will say it is HIGHLY recommended by me. The gameplay is not only graphically gorgeous, if set correctly, it is perfectly playable on any system. I have tested it with a single 8800Ultra, dual 8800Ultras, an HD2900XT and dual 7800GTXs, and was able to find very playable settings on all four setups. I will list my full system specs at the end of the review.
  
  From the start it is very brilliant in terms of plot, gameplay and graphics. I myself prefer the hardest difficulty, cuz being able to understand the Koreans talking actually makes it less fun in my opinion, because you can hear them yelling grenade... what's the fun in knowing a grenade's coming? LOL
  
  The suit modes and weapons modifications are also VERY cool, I myself modified the suit modes file to allow more flexible gameplay. I love how mod-able the game is, I even set it up so that I'm running the DX9 version of Very High Settings on some of my settings.
  
  Overall I give this game a full 5 stars as I have played through it at least 6 times now and it has not lost it's fun. Here are the settings I use, and my system specs:
  
  Resolution: 1680x1050 (Full Screen)
  Anti-Aliasing: 2x
  
  Texture Quality: Medium
  Object Quality: Medium
  Shadow Quality: Medium
  Physics Quality: High (modded to Very High in the Config File)
  Shader Quality: Custom (Forced by the game when AA is enabled, hopefully patch #1 will fix that)
  Volumetric Effects Quality: Medium
  Game Effects Quality: Medium
  Post Processing Quality: Medium
  Particles Quality: High (modded to Very High in Config File)
  Water Quality: High (modded to Very High in Config File)
  Sound Quality: High (modded to Very High in Config File)
  
  VSync Forced On in NVidia Control Panel. Ran the benchmark at these settings: 29FPS Minimum, 42FPS Average, 59FPS Maximum
  
  On these settings, it looks absolutely stunning. My specs:
  
  Meet Elizabeth QX
  
  QX6850 @ 3.666Ghz (1.5Vs) under a DangerDen TDX775 Liquid Block cooled by MCT-40 Coolant and a 360mm DangerDen Black Ice XtremeIII Radiator with 1/2" tubing (35C idle, 57C load with the 5 120mm fans on the radiator on low/quiet mode)
  EVGA 680i SLI A1 Motherboard
  2x 2GB Mushkin DDR2-8500 (no longer made, very rare) @ 889MHz @ 5-4-4-12-2T @ 2.1Vs
  2x EVGA 8800Ultras (one Superclocked, one stock model) @ 612Core/1080Mem (for now as I just got the second card, the stock one)
  Creative X-Fi Fata1ty Champion Series Edition Sound Card W/Front Ports
  HP External DVD Burner w/LightScribe
  CoolerMaster Stacker 832 Case
  FSP Fortron Everest 1010 Watt PSU
  Lasko HVB as a side fan to keep the motherboard and cards happy
  Dell 24" Widescreen Flat Panel LCD Monitor
  Logitech Z5300 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System
  Sony MDR-V700 Headphones
  Logitech G15 Gaming Keyborad
  Logitech G5 Laser Mouse
  
  If you have a system less than that, don't expect to be able to run the game on high... ever. lol I can run it on all high settings with no AA, but I prefer the 2x AA as it makes it easier to snipe.
  
  Anywho, thus concludes my review, quit crying, it's an awesome game, good job Crytek, get that darn patch out to make it support SLI better so I can really get good #s with VSync on. :-D
  
  
• If your computer can handle it.......
  By A27F1N27M1X0NM on 2008-01-12
  Ok, let's start with what you should have, minimum, to run this game. At least 2 gb RAM but 4 is MUCH better, a new 8800 GT or better video card (and the ones with at least 512 mb) and at least a 2.4 6600 dual core chip on board. Whew! Don't have that? Then wait until you do or you will miss out on the spectacular graphics and detail as you shoot away. This is one busy game, a lot going on and sometimes confusing controls if you are used to other FPSs. Once you get used to it, and you will, it is a cool blend of action and story. The vehicles are great, and you can interact with almost anything. And the AI is VERY good and makes the game VERY tough. An excellent game as long as you have the hardware.
  
  
• Almost half of a game!
  By A8P310BOK2V27 on 2008-02-08
  I just finished Crysis, and wow... what a tremendous disappointment.
  
  I had some of the bugs other people mentioned, but I am used to bugs. I thoroughly enjoyed S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, and thats one of the buggiest games I have ever seen. Bugs are, apparently, a part of pc gaming, and I can live with them up to a point.
  
  I didn't have much trouble with the system specs either. I couldn't play it with everything maxed out, but it looks very nice and the performance was not bad for me at medium/high quality settings. I will admit Crysis is quite pretty to look at it.
  
  The thing that really destroys this game is that it beings by leading you through a boring labyrinth of utterly plotless sequences, all the time building up to an "alien invasion" which looks like a promising second half of the game. On and on you travel thinking that at any time you will be fighting aliens in frozen jungles... just like in the trailers!
  
  Then, just about the time you think its going to actually get to that second half, the game suddenly and abruptly ends with a "cliff hanger."
  
  I was literally sitting there looking at the credits rolling and thinking that perhaps there had been a glitch or that maybe it was a joke.
  
  This is one of the shortest games I have played in years, on par with the half life 2 sequals, and it ends up being nothing but a trailer for an idea that was never realised. Its absolutely brainless and I have seldom felt so ripped off. The tiny bit of it that is available to play was just the basic run of the mill shooter game with better than average graphics. Graphics are nice, but please.... how about some content? How about a game that lasts more than 10 hours and actually has something even remotely like an ending??
  
  Honestly, if I'd had any idea, I would never have bothered, and as far as Crytek goes, thats going to be my approach from now on.
  
  This game lacks imagination and inspiration in every concievable way, and if thats the "next generation," then I probably need to find a new way to entertain myself.
  
  Blah.
  
  
  
  
• Aweome game! CPU/GPU killer!
  By A3AXSYSZYIS8Z1 on 2007-11-15
  Well, to start off, I shouldn't have purchased Crysis yet. My system is okay, I have a Duo Core processor and a Nvidia 7800gtx so I have to run the game on low settings. I feel like I'm ruining a great game running it on my current set-up. I recommend waiting for the 9000 series GPU to come out in a couple months, because even with the high end 8800 ultras, you can't get the very high settings. The gameplay is awesome, the combat is action packed and the powers are fun to use! I highly recommend this game if your computer has the stones for it. If not, wait until you upgrade.
  
  
• Exceptional inovation
  By AL6MCYNW7OL87 on 2007-11-16
  This game is the best I have ever played. This game is to me what Half-Life 2 (HL2) was to me 3 years ago. The physics engine of HL2 brought a grand sense of imersion that had me grinning ear to ear the whole time I played. That's how I feel when I play Crysis. The very large destructable environments give me a sense of freedom I have never felt in a game. It's not just the graphics, the game really inovates by allowing the player to choose his/her own path to resolution.
  
  Recent FPS games (Bioshock, Halo 3, HL2 Episode 2, and Portal) have been great, but I feel constrained by them, there is always one or two blocked paths that open up miracusly after you defeat the current group of enemies. With Crysis, I feel like I can play the way I want, I can play stealthy, or I can go in guns a blazing! It's neat that when I die, and have to repeat an area, I find myself doing totally diferent things, atacking from a different point, or sneaking by the enemies unseen. Some people probably think this makes the game too easy, but I personally LOVE the fact that I can snipe alot, you can attach the sniper scope to a regular rifle, so you don't only have 5 bits of sniper ammo. Of course there is a dedicated sniper rifle (with little ammo), but I prefer to use my ordinary rifle with lots of ammo:) THANKS for the CHOICE!!! I love you Crytek!
  
  There are some bugs in the game. I saw some guys run into the water and drown. I had a problem where I couldn't get rid of an empty rocket launcher. So yes, there are problems, but I'm glad to be playing the game now. If this stuff bothers you, just wait 6 months for all the bugs to be patched and for the video hardware to catch up before you buy. If it was a Valve game, it probably would have been delayed for another year. Instead, I'm overjoyed to play it now, and I will surly be playing it later.
  
  My system:
  
  Windows XP
  1 GB RAM
  Intel Core 2 E6600 OC'd @ 3.4 Ghz
  ATI X1900 XT 256 Mb
  Kolance water cooler w/ waterblocks on CPU and GPU
  
  I run in medium/high settings with no framerate problems except the first ~30 seconds after loading.
  
  Update,
  I added 2Gb of RAM (total of 3Gb) and I can play on high settings @ 1280 x 1024. Also, the RAM fixed that super annoying inital load problem. Now, I need to download the hack to play Ultra settings with Windows XP:)
  
  If you're not sure how this game will run on your PC, then download the demo before you buy! Easy-peezzy.
  
  
  
• Could have been great, instead...clumsy version of old Far Cry game!!
  By A2WLDEORTNRY0D on 2007-11-20
  If you played Far Cry, then you know what this game is about and what you were expecting. The graphics are fantastic but the game play is on a lower level when compared to Far Cry.
  
  PROS -
  Basically, you are getting more Far Cry! LONG OVER DUE!!!
  Excellent graphics.
  New weapons.
  Nano Suit - give you super human abilities.
  
  
  CONS -
  Linear game play with too many scripted events.(In other words, you cannot venture around and find alternate attack routes as much as you did in Far Cry and as soon as the game hits a save point, you know action is about to happen. It takes away all the surprise!)
  
  BUGGY. This game crashes a lot. You can review different gaming forums and read the horror stories. Pretty pathetic for the excellent team of people behind CRYSIS to have released this clunker piece of manure out before it was well tested! I cannot play for more than 20 minutes without crashing out. (Yes I am updated and even running the latest NVIDIA beta drivers designed to resolve CRYSIS problems!)
  
  This is kind of just like Far Cry all over again.
  Another scientific experiment gone wrong.
  Another batch of aliens invades the earth.
  The worst part is, you spend the entire 2nd half of the game fighting aliens. UGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
  
  Also, the AI was crappy. I found the enemy to be VERY stupid and not very aggressive. In Far Cry the soldiers would come after me, flank me, attack hard. I almost could fall asleep at times waiting for the soldiers to do something!!!!
  
  
  This could have been the game we were waiting for. Instead, it is a clumsy, half finished, unpolished remake of a great game!
  
  
• Overrated
  By A3RB0IJG7UOQCC on 2007-11-27
  Let's get one thing straight: when people talk about GRAPHICS relative to Crysis what they really mean is PLANTS. Yes, it has pretty PLANTS. Hours and hours of them. But if your definition of "graphics" goes beyond "plants" then Crysis graphics are dead generic. For the, ahem...Best Graphics Of All Time I could have used a bit more variety, is all I'm saying. Apart from the end when things get otherworldly, you're looking at the same stuff the whole time. It's much the same for the enemies. Not much changes between baddies apart from the weapons they use. I should add that the "Korean" enemies you mow down are voiced with such badly stereotyped, fake accents they left me cringing. I'm not known for my PC sensibilities, but if Asians start returning this game I wouldn't blame them.
  
  Like Halo, Crysis suffers from Slow Running Character Syndrome. You'd think that between sprint mode and powered super sprint mode you'd be spared that "feet in molasses" feeling. But super sprint is--bizarrely--only good for 2 second bursts, so you're left "sprinting" everywhere in unpowered mode no matter how hard you mash that shift key. So, cajillion dollar power armor notwithstanding, you leisurely jog through Crysis. A pretty big design flaw of the Nano suit, if you ask me. I hope they kept the receipt. You'd also think all the vehicles would help, but the vehicles are fragile, gutless clunkers, which lurch around so alarmingly you're happy to ditch them. Have none of these designers played that swamp boat level in Half-Life 2 that wore out my grin muscles it was so fun? What are they teaching in game design school these days that drains all the fun out of vehicular mayhem?
  
  And what ever happened to BOSSES? You know, those things that you occasionally fight at the end of levels which make games vastly more interesting and non-repetitive? Crysis doesn't do bosses. It doesn't even do "boss situations" where things ramp up in intensity before the level ends. Your character is there to mark off his checklist and punch out. Where's the pacing?
  
  What Crysis does do well is firefights. There is endless, chaotic, gun-blazing fun to be had. The enemy AI is pretty good which is rare. They'll surprise you with flanking maneuvers and strategic use of grenades. So if this is your main prerequisite for an FPS you may want to check it out. But the game disappoints on most other levels.
  
  
• Awesome game, sadly we wait for the next one.
  By A15F7ACDRTWXO1 on 2007-12-05
  I want to start by saying, "Next company that makes a game without an ending gets a crowbar to the face." That aside, I found this to be a very good first person shooter as games go.
  
  The game looks good. It seems that this game is the newest release by the company CryTech. You may recall a previous title by the name Far Cry, yeah same people. Crysis makes use of a new gaming engine (CryEngine 2) and is one of the new "Next Gen" games available for both XP and Vista and blah blah blah. Essentially, you can count on it to put your video card in a hammerlock and clock you processor to next week as you play. From what I have seen, this game is built for platforms which may not even exist yet. Not to say that you can't play it on a less than brand new machine, you simply may not enjoy it as much. For reference, I played through with a Intel Core Duo 2.4, Nvidia 8800 GTS and 2 gigs of ram, without any problems.
  
  The game itself is great. Set in the not so distant future (2020) you are a special ops soldier sent into an island somewhere in the south China sea. Originally sent to fight Koreans and rescue some scientists, things get very odd very fast. For more plot check out Wikipedia, but let me assure you it is far more gratifying than the plot of most shooters out there (namely Timeshift).
  
  The interface of the game works well. I didn't have to play with a single config, control or setting throughout the entire game. I find it is always nice to find my buttons, video and sound settings right where I need them from the start.
  
  The only real concept that causes this game to differ from others is the use of the nanosuit. Essentially, it is a set of superpowered battle armor you get the joy of using. For short intervals, it can cloak you, speed you up, give you super strength or simply defend you. This sounded cool from the start, but quickly degenerated into using the same function over and over again as the difficulty of your enemy is amped up to compensate for you powers.
  
  Example: I decide to give myself a bit of super strength to rush up and pound some poor sap into the ground. Result: I am blasted to death before I make it five feet or I find that I am trying to fight the loosing side of a brawl between Halle Berry and a bull elephant. So scratch that power for any reason other than jumping really high.
  I was pretty much stuck cloaking myself, running until my battery went dead, then hiding and recharging. This process is repeated until you get close enough to actually hit someone with that wildly gyrating rifle you have been trying to aim for the last hour.
  
  This was my experience on normal skill, which oscillated from pointlessly easy to total unthinking rage against all living things. I would assume that things get only worse on hard, your enemies also stop speaking English on hard for some reason. So, if you are worried about playing an unbalanced game, stop there. This game is nicely balanced against you in every way. Recoil makes any rapid fire attempt laughable and a "realistic" figure 8 sway pattern makes timing a sniper shot a minigame all in its own.
  
  The only shortcoming I had with this game was the length (about 10 hours give or take 2 depending on your anger threshold). Now I understand it is the new thing for developers to get lazy and release games in episodes in order to guarantee future income as well as cut down on development costs (just release the second half years later and call it Episode 2, stupid Valve) but I am getting really tired of paying for demos.
  
  Overall, I have to give this game good ratings. It plays nicely, it keeps you interested and it looks amazing. But after reaching the end you are left flailing in confusion as to what the heck ever happened to the idea of a conclusion. I notice that CryTech has plans for a FarCry 2 but I haven't heard anything for a Crysis 2 yet so it may be a while before anyone gets closure. Great, all of a month after release and I am yelling for a sequel, or at least the second half of my game.
  
  
  
• More than good looks
  By A38RMEDWLM2XDU on 2007-11-16
  With all the hype around Crysis' great graphics, I was expecting a mediocre FPS with stunning visuals. I was presented with much, much more.
  
  The gameplay is very malleable, which accords players the freedom to play Crysis like Splinter Cell/Hitman, or like Quake 3. The levels are spacious enough so that the player isn't forced to confront enemies head on. You can easily sneak past enemies and subsequently pick them off, or avoid engaging them entirely.
  
  The destructible environment also contributes to the unique experience of Crysis by adding a great degree of dynamism to combat. Falling trees, exploding vehicles, collapsing houses, etc. are all tactical factors to consider while playing Crysis, and forces the player to be alert to more threats than just enemy fire. For instance there were times I thought I could find secure cover in a small house from a circling helicopter, only to be crushed by the roof after the helicopter opened fire on the house.
  
  Crysis' story isn't anything groundbreaking, but is entertaining, and if you allow yourself to be immersed into the game (which isn't hard) I think you will find it very enjoyable. The way the story is narrated borrows strongly from Half-Life, in that it sticks with the perspective of the player.
  
  All in all, Crysis is much more than the sum of its parts. There is something inexplicably epic about this game, that is more than just having all the right features of an FPS.
  
  My system:
  AMD X2 4000+ @ 2.73ghz
  2gb ddr2 @ 800mhz
  evga 8800gt 512mb ssc
  24" Dell 2007wfp-hc 1920x1200
  fps: with dx10 hack i get 10-40 fps, with standard dx9 i get 25-30 consistently.
  
  
• Good game, terrible distribution
  By AG1X2EJ1Q7K3A on 2007-11-19
  This product installs securom malware without asking the user just like Bioshock. The graphics would be amazing if you could have a GPU from the future but with the same graphics card, Bioshock looked awesome while Crysis left a lot to be wished for. The single player is very short which makes it very similar to Call of Duty games. The multi-player "Power Struggle" is very nice but as with other previous MP games, it is easy for some players to dominate the game.
  
  Definately buy the game but don't expect a lot.
  
  

• Crysis: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides)
• PC Gamer (1-year)

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• BioShock
• The Orange Box
• World In Conflict
• Unreal Tournament III