E3 2010: Crysis 2 Preview
We play Crysis 2 and see its newest trick: 3D.
EA and Crytek actually showed us Crysis 2 a few months ago, if you'll recall, where they debuted its urban relocation to New York, along with its streamlined nano-suit options. Perhaps most surprisingly, Crytek also chose to show press the game on the Xbox 360 rather than PC. At this year's E3, Crytek has the same demo on hand, but press are finally getting the chance to play the game, and also to see its just announced debut in 3D.
After spending some time playing Crysis 2, the most striking difference from the first game is the overwhelming verticality on display. Where the first game largely involved large horizontal spaces in which to engage enemies with the nano-suit's various abilities, Crysis 2 appears to be predicated on death from above – whether you're dishing it out or avoiding it.
My demo started in the now familiar highrise corridor with a blown out wall, ostensibly sheared open by a crashing vehicle or alien weapon. Looking down onto the city below is dizzying; there's a real sense of physical space in Crysis 2 that didn't seem as evident in the crowded jungle environments of the first game, and looking 30 stories down inspired a bit of unexpected vertigo.
The possibility for Crysis 2 to play as a more thoughtful shooter was present in the ability to reconnoiter enemy posts in the nano-suit's new tactical mode, but at this point, it's hard to fully grasp exactly how encounters in Crysis 2 will evolve from last time. Enemies act similarly to the Korean soldiers from Crysis, though they seem much easier to kill now (even though all the soldiers I encountered were wearing off-brand nano-suit knockoffs), which is nice, but there wasn't enough combat to get a feel for the AI. From my brief time with the game, the dual tactics/dual suit modes juxtaposition was a bit disorienting, but I'm reasonably confident that this will become second nature after more time with the game.
After taking out a number of nano-suited PMCs, I was captured and locked down in a helicopter. After a moment of flight though, a number of alien… somethings attacked and knocked the helicopter out of the air, forcing me to fight them on the ground. While fighting the new alien enemies was more interesting than the assorted PMC troops from the first section of the demo, there were some weird AI hiccups present that lead me to believe that Crytek is still working out the kinks in enemy behavior.
Of course, the biggest question on everyone's mind is how the notorious PC benchmarking juggernaut looks in its transition to console, and the news is mostly good. Image quality is excellent. As mentioned before, there's a great sense of physical space in Crysis 2, which is largely because of great lighting and color correction, as well as the particle effects from smoke and destructible environments and well implemented motion blur. That being said, the game still looks a ways off from release; there are a number of textures that look like placeholder assets and the framerate is all over the place. The sound design is coming along nicely however, with strong gun feedback that compares favorably to games like Bad Company 2.
Crysis in 3D is… well, it's still Crysis. In 3D. I don't mean to sound reductive; I was impressed with some of the tricks Crytek displayed to make the 3D version of the game more immersive, including layering and subtle movement of the HUD over the game world, and the sense of verticality and height in particular were heightened by the effect. Meanwhile, there was no perceivable performance decrease with 3D mode active, and perhaps more surprisingly to some, this was all running with no issues at all on the Xbox 360, a quiet refutation of Sony's nascent push to lay claim to the technology in the public conscience.
But – of course there's a but – 3D didn't make the game better, really. It's the same game, and Crytek doesn't appear to be making the mistake of designing heavily around the 3D element. While it's a neat addition, I haven't yet seen anything to convince me to buy into the required ancillary hardware, be it a new TV and/or active shutter glasses (though Crytek has been kind enough to announce support for the three current forms of 3D tech, and my demo used passive polarized glasses similar to those used for 3D screenings of last year's Avatar). And for some players, it actually made the game worse, as the 3D made a number of members of the games press nauseous, including our own Hilary Goldstein.
Regardless, my time with Crysis 2 only has me more interested in the game. After years of promises, Crytek has finally put its money where its mouth is with a playable, good-looking console Crysis game, and given how much more time they have before Crysis 2 ships late this year, all signs indicate that it should be able to more than hold its own with the other big shooters regardless of platform.
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