Crysis 2 Preview
First, a combined disclaimer and confession – when we got a chance to see Crysis 2 recently and sat down for a quick chat with Executive Producer Nathan Camarillo, it wasn’t running on a PC. Instead, we saw Crysis 2 demonstrated on an Xbox 360. This is a fact which immediately demonstrates what is to many people the most interesting thing about Crysis 2: it runs on a console.
Disappointingly, at least for those of you who want to hear horror stories about how broken the console version of the game is and how Crytek is going to painfully learn that it never should have left the PC, Crysis 2 seems to run fine on the Xbox 360.
There are caveats, and ‘fine’ is a relative term, obviously. The game is never going to look as great on a console as it could on a PC, mods may be out of the question, and a gamepad is always going to play second fiddle to a mouse, but it’s fine. Really. If you don’t have a PC which is up to spec then, I’m sorry to say, the console version of the game may do the job.
More interesting than the technical and financially motivated changes to Crytek’s latest game are the numerous changes that have been wrought upon the gameplay – some of which potentially pull back the curtain on why Crytek’s games are the way they are. That is to say pretty and playable, but with some obvious flaws – we’ve never heard anyone speak fondly of Far Cry’s Trigens or Crysis’ aliens, for example.
“We didn’t fully realise how players would use the Nanosuit abilities,” said Crytek’s Nathan Camarillo in preface to his demonstration, going on to outline how gamers would create their own styles of gameplay that they would adhere to strictly.
“Some players, for example, would use the Stealth and Strength powers to create hit and run tactics – like Predators. Others would use Stealth and customised weapons to become the ultimate hitman. What we didn’t anticipate about that was that players set their own failure scenarios… They’d reload [the game] if they got spotted, not if they died, so breaking the style was their failure scenario.”
According to Camarillo, it was only after Crysis’ release that Crytek cottoned onto this fact and saw that the Nanosuit abilities players had at their disposal weren’t as brilliantly balanced as they could be. Simple things, such as having to switch between Maximum Speed and Maximum Strength to execute long jumps, broke the flow and snapped players out of the style. It was the first thing Crytek sought to change in Crysis 2, minimising the number of separate abilities and combining them into modes for dedicated play styles.
In anticipation of the reaction to that news, Camarillo was quick to stress that these changes have been borne out of feedback from the PC version of the game, and not just because console controllers have fewer buttons than a keyboard and mouse.
Whatever the inspiration or motivation, there’s no getting away from the fact that the game seems to have been improved by the changes. Stuffing together the speed and invisibility options of the Nanosuit into a new Maximum Stealth mode definitely enables more player autonomy than it destroys and, at the very least, means there’s less fiddling to be done with the various modes.
Crysis 2 Impressions
Crysis’ iconic nanosuit has undergone a bunch of other changes too, not just a streamlining of its powers and abilities. Three years have passed in the space between Crysis and Crysis 2, during which a new, modular Nanosuit has been created – one which can be customised in the same way as weapons could be in the first game. New functions and improvements can be collected throughout, then added on to your armour as you progress.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to see the new suit add-ons in action, but Camarillo made mention of a few different possibilities – stealth enhancements to reduce footstep noise, x-ray eyes and improvements to walking speed were all dropped into the conversation at one point or another.
The most immediately obvious change to Crysis 2 isn’t the tweaks to the nanosuit or attached powers though, it’s the change in setting. You’d be hard pushed not to notice that Crysis 2 abandons the swaying palm trees and pristine beaches of the original in favour of New York’s grey vistas and grotty skyline.
Again, while it’s easy to presume that the change in setting was bought about by the limitations of modern consoles (grey blocky skyscrapers are much easier to model than tropical jungle), Camarillo was quick to counter that thought. In fact, he turned confessional once more and revealed that the alteration was borne out of a weakness with the first Crysis.
“Nobody cared about those islands,” he claimed, outlining how Crytek wanted the Crysis series to be visually striking, cinematic and profound – something that’s easier to achieve with known landmarks. Watching palm trees be uprooted doesn’t have the same impact as seeing a hole blasted through the Empire State Building, reckons Camarillo.
Crytek has sought to make the most of new locale too and hasn’t stuck to just office blocks and smoke-filled streets. Verticality is a major feature in Crysis 2’s combats, with the nanosuit allowing you to hop between rooftops on occasion and survive a plummet to ground level if you’ve got a hankering for floor-based fisticuffs. Personally, we prefer the idea of rooftop sniping, but to each their own. Camarillo’s demonstration had him mixing and matching styles to suit; taking out snipers by hand, weaving across balconies with an assault rifle and finally sniping the infantry who marched far below. Nice.
The move to New York is easily one of the things we most like about Crysis 2, with the environments proving suitably desolate and decimated by the alien invasion, weaving an apocalyptic bleakness into the mix, which contrasts wonderfully with the bright background of the original game. Watching street battles being fought back and forth amongst well-known landmarks may not have left us feeling the sense of breathless awe that Camarillo claims Crytek is aiming for, but it was striking. Specifically, it reminded us of the closing battles in Children of Men, or Half-Life 2’s later chapters.
It has to be said though that, while Crysis 2 certainly looks to be a competent and good-looking shooter, we still have our concerns. For starters, those who are graphically obsessed would do well to know that, while Crysis 2 looks good on consoles, it’s also not the best title we’ve seen on that front. Maybe there’s more unveiling to come, and maybe there are some tricks we haven’t seen – but we didn’t look at Crysis 2 and think that it would blow the likes of God of War out of the water.
Our bigger worry is whether Crytek can really learn and demonstrate the finesse that has notably lacked from previous titles. Say what you will, but it’s somewhat proven that Crytek makes great graphics engines, but mediocre games. We’re definitely excited about Crysis 2, but we’ve yet to see anything that shows Crytek is going to exceed expectations.
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