A city in Crysis

Oh look – I’ve got a blog. Seems I managed to forget that for most of last year. New Year’s resolution: write more. Let’s see how that turns out.

Games!

Back in the old days this was a blog about video games. I played through and wrote about Crysis and Crysis: Warhead and made certain criticisms of the design decisions. In my post about Crysis I praised the game but said the narrative was a bit wonky, lurching from shooting Koreans to shooting aliens and in the process utterly changing the way the game played – and not for the better. They fixed that in Crysis: Warhead. I also said that the nanosuit, while being interesting was overly complicated and that they’d be better off losing some of the power modes and having them always-on.

Which brings us nicely to Crysis 2.

Suit me up

We’re back in the nanosuit – now apparently only being worn by one person in the entire gameworld – but with some of the power modes removed and those functions always-on. Sounds familiar. The new interface is far slicker than the old one which makes the gameplay faster and more fluid. The missing modes (Speed and Strength) are still around, but accessed via context-sensitive prompts (Strength) and just running quickly (Speed) which makes a lot more sense, even if you’re sometimes killed by enemies because being shot has drained your energy leaving you unable to run away properly. Still – it’s your fault. Plan properly next time.

Me suit up 

But you can’t just remove the useless element from an interface - you have to add new and exciting buttons to push to justify the “2”ness of the experience. So we have nightvision, which I don’t remember in the original games and not really worth the bother now. It is only of any use in one (very brief) section where the lights fail and a couple of occasions when the playing area is randomly filled with smoke. It just feels tacked on, which is a shame.

Then there is TacVisorThing. I struggle with TacVisorThing. I like game worlds and generally I feel it helps immersion to build logical gadgets then incorporate them into the gameplay rather than adding something cool and hoping the setting can swallow it. In the gameworld, the TacVisor makes sense. Basically, you bring down the “spotter” sights and the nanosuit analyses the battlefield and overlays tactical options to help you out. Generally they are quite obvious (marking high ground as suitable for "sniping" or the bit at the side suitable for "flanking") but it can point out weapon and ammo caches which would otherwise be easily missed. The problem is that all this really does is put a series of button presses between you and continuing the action when you enter one of the more open areas. It’s just busywork and I can’t help feeling that an automatic overlay would have been a nicer solution (prediction for Crysis 3! Which has been out for nearly a year!).

Oh, and there is an upgrade system too. More on that later.

Up me suit

So, we’re suited up. Time to get going. The gameplay drops Crysis’s vaguely open world for a series of corridors spilling out into arenas. It keeps things focused, but does lose any real sense of planning. You’re going in at A and coming out at B. All you can really decide is how to progress between those points. Oh – you’ve chosen stealth. Well, that means you can just walk from A to B and ignore the guys hanging around waiting to kill you.

Damn.

Yes, the Stealth option basically lets you bypass most of the enemies and without ever engaging them. And there really isn’t much encouraging you to fight – sure the human opposition are portrayed as a bunch of thuggish tools, but you’ve got places to be and pretty soon they are all busy being eaten by aliens anyway. The aliens on the other hand are big walking robot things with tentacles coming out of their heads (gone are the flying squid-things from the first game) who … you can also walk straight past. Sigh.

Actually, this feels like a step backwards from Crysis 1 where the enemies would hunt you down once you’d shown yourself. Now re-cloaking utterly confuses them. They don’t try shooting where you might be, or throw things to make you appear. You can just scurry off and murder anew from a new angle. The AI in general seems universally dense – they follow very obvious paths and just don’t seem to react to what you’re doing beyond “turn and shoot” instincts.

In an effort to stop you bypassing all the enemies in stealth mode there is an upgrade system which is powered from the corpses of the alien troops. There is some pseudo-science explaining this, but suffice to say that it means you’ll 1. spend a lot of time running like an idiot through the middle of firefights because you don’t want to lose the XP, rather ruining game flow (why can’t the pick-ups drift to you?) and 2. become next to invulnerable horribly quickly. Pro tip when upgrading – get level 1 of all 4 sections, then save for level 3 stealth and armour in that order. Everything else is largely worthless.

There are also token collectables which do little other than say YOU’RE PLAYING A COMPUTER GAME (why am I picking up tourist models of famous buildings, exactly?). It’s important to not forget those.

Tell me a tale

The plot? Yeah, there's one of those too.

Come on

Eugh. Well, there is some evil-PMC nonsense, an alien invasion, a sinister businessman pulling the strings behind the scenes and some of the noblest marines you’ll ever meet. The characters are largely uninteresting and to a man unlikable and most of the time you’re glad you’re on your own. The marines do provide a particularly hilarious sequence though – you’re told that the normal humans basically have no chance against the aliens and you need to escort them back to base. However, these normal humans turn out to be invulnerable (presumably to stop the escort quest making you hate all of humanity which is what normally happens – definitely a good decision) which means you can cheerfully use them as shields or just cower in a corner while they PUNCH THE ALIEN MECHA-SUITS TO DEATH. Do NOT mess with the US Marine Corps.

You’re still typing

That’s about it. It all functions, but it feels rather uninspired. It’s as if Crytek have built a great engine, hired the best artists on the planet (even seven years on it looks amazing, but then you already knew that), thought about the nanosuit and basically free-styled the actual game part. Not to say that it isn’t fun – I had an enjoyable 10 or so hours blasting through it, aside from a horrible end of game fight against cloaked aliens who had to die to unlock a door for … reasons – but it feels like a missed opportunity. There was the potential to do an open-world game in a semi-ruined cityscape here which changed as the war evolved. Who knows – maybe some of your actions could have helped that evolution along different paths. In that world the nanosuit could have come into its own, allowing you to customise the game to your preferred play-style via your use of powers and upgrades. Instead, we have a corridor shooter with some knobs on. A good corridor shooter, with some very pretty knobs but still – corridors and knobs.

Another Crysis Averted

I was supposed to be playing Half Life 2 these last few weeks, but due to a social schedule which actually included Things and a room with no obvious way out (in Half Life that is, I didn't get trapped in a cupboard somewhere in real life) I didn't get very far. Then EA irresponsibly released Crysis Warheard and I decided nanosuit powered gunfighting was more tempting than wrench waving in an underground labyrinth. Half Life 2 will no doubt bubble back to the top of my as Warhead has done the usual FPS thing of dying without a fight.

So anyway, Warhead. Set during the events of the first game, you play Jason Statham-alike Sergeant "Psycho" Sykes as he rocks around the other side of the island shooting Koreans and aliens in what is basically Crysis - again. This time out there are a couple of new vehicles (which, mercifully, you don't have to drive very often) and a couple of new guns, a new range in totally useless explosives and an all new plot. During this plot you discover you are not the only Delta Force nanosuit team on the island which does raise the question of quite why you're being sent to the other side of the island alone when they could have sent another team but lets not quibble as everything else is really well put together.

For me, the biggest problem in the original Crysis was the massive lurch in gameplay when the aliens appeared - most of your moves became redundant and you ran around in a normal FPS blazing away with whatever gun the game decided you should be using at a time. This time around Crytek have realised that Koreans are more fun to shoot than aliens so right through the game your primary adversary are the KPA with the occasional appearance by the aliens for some all-out shoot em up shenanigans. The pacing is a huge improvement over the original and because you are raiding bases and strong points throughout your various suit modes remain useful. I'd also say the nanosuit is better catered for this time out - I found many more situations where using Speed or Strength was worthwhile (last time I stuck almost exclusively to Shield and Cloak) although that could be extra experience on my part and an extra dose of creativity in solving the problems put before me. Even the graphics have been overhauled and now look even more impressive.

So is there anything wrong with Warhead? Well, there is a mine section which gets quite irritating as the level wanders all over the place and it's very easy to get turned around. There are a couple of times when things get quite difficult simply because your chap doesn't seem to like talking to HQ on his radio (in fact there were a couple of occasions where I felt quite rude because HQ would call up to give me some new info and Psycho wouldn't even bother to acknowledge - maybe that's just me) and the end boss fight is truly pathetic, although you do get to play with Das Uber Gun and this time around the thing is actually as badass as the NPCs are promising. These are all trivial gripes though - Warhead is generally an excellent game, really good fun from start to finish and even pretty well written as a story, fleshing out a character I genually liked from the first game and filling in holes in that games' plot.

There is one concern I have about Warhead though, and it is to do with the plot. Crytek have released it as a stand alone game, you don't need the original Crysis to run it. It plays better than Crysis, looks better than Crysis and stars a more interesting character than Crysis. The concern I have is that I'm not sure how well it would work without the original. The plot is heavily tied to Crysis' as you'd expect and I'm not convinced it stands up on its own - there are many references to what is going on behind the scenes and the characters sometimes discuss your chap from the first game which I would imagine would make no sense if you didn't know who he was. It also lacks a clear beginning and end - you suddenly start on the island under assault by Koreans and the end has you flying off to the carrier to take part in the final scenes of Crysis. This is fine when you fill in the blanks yourself, but may be unsatisfying if you are just playing Warhead without the backplot knowledge. That said I think I'm about the only person in the world who cares about the plot in a FPS so I doubt it will impact too many people.

Oh, and you don't have to pilot that bloody VTOL over the carrier as Psycho does in the final scenes of Crysis. For this I am very thankful.

So Warhead then. It's great. Buy it.

Facing the Invasion

After a weekend of playing, plus a couple of hours in an evening, I have completed the PC-eating Crysis and, for once, it was pretty good fun. The game kicks off with your Delta-Force type being dropped off on a Korean island to rescue some US hostages from the evil clutches of the invading KPA and you rock around in a futuristic nanosuit mowing down Koreans with a variety of weapons. Delta Force Command helpfully declines to send you a decent supply of ammunition so you spend most of the game using the Korean's own toys, which in practice means you want to pinch an assault rifle and you're set.

Your nanosuit gives you the ability to modify your personal skills, boosting strength, shields, speed or cloaking you. This is demonstrated in the exciting introduction as your character leaps over a leap whilst blasting away with his assault rifle then punches an enemy through a wall. Sadly in game life isn't quite as exciting - I found myself switching between Cloak and Shields for the first part of the game and just stuck with Shields for the second part. Aside from some set pieces where you HAVE to use Strength to jump or avoiding boredom trudging across the landscape (and hence kicking in Speed) I barely used the other modes and I can't help wondering if they would have been better served leaving those modes enabled at all times and giving you the choice between stealth and shields for your distributable energy.

Crysis is very much a game of two halves. For the first half you are sneaking round an island crawling with the KPA, using stealth to creep around the edge of bases, sniping enemies unsportingly, then racing across open areas, leaping walls and hosing the remaining defenders. All the while they are hunting you in packs, closing in with their superior numbers (excitingly there are moments when there are FAR too many badguys and your best option is to employ all your stealth abilities to escape rather than attempting to take them all on). It is all tremendously exciting, if not quite as "open" as you might hope - you can rarely tackle objectives in an order other than the one presented to you for example. This does not deminish quite how thrilling it all is though, as you pop up from a bush and scan the land ahead with your binoculars before popping off badguys from half a mile away with single shots of your silenced rifle. Sadly you only pick up a telescopic sight much later on, which is a shame because they add a whole extra level of tactical planning.

Towards the end of the KPA section some cracks start to show as you start to face enemies seemingly encased in steel who take forever to kill which knocks stealth out of the window somewhat as you pop up, snipe a person, then switch to full auto and empty a clip into his face before he finally does the honorable thing and dies. Fortunately it is about this point the aliens put in an appearance and you forget all about stealth. So, cue entrance to the alien ship, a frustrating zero-G section where it is unbelievably easy to get turned around (saved by the beauty of the environment you are in and your character saying "this looks familiar" if you start going back the way you came) and finding a use for the shotgun. If you are blessed with quick reactions, switch it to narrow-burst mode and blast the alien squid-things at point blank range with it as they swim towards you. Very satisfying, and I did find myself shouting a variety of lines from Duke Nukem whilst blowing away the enemies.

Unfortunately this section sees the end of multiple entry point bases and any need for stealth and the game reverts to being a standard FPS. It holds up reasonably well at this, but personally I found far less satisfaction picking up a gun with unlimited ammo and using it to hose jumping aliens than I did in the previous commando-stealth sections. Then there is the end sequence on an aircraft carrier which gives you the most disappointing gun ever - a tactical nuclear grenade launcher which sounds phenomenal until you realise you can't use it on anything other than the mothership. Not, for example, the flying alien planes, or the huge walking thing that takes ages to blast out of existance with conventional rockets. The game reasons this by refusing to lock on to these targets and the gun doesn't fire without a lock - but this isn't really explained so if you're like me you'll die several times trying to work out why your new gun of coolness doesn't appear to work.

So is Crysis any good? Well, yes. I had a great time playing through it, even if I wouldn't rush to do so again (the vehicle sections induce keyboard-destroying frustration and some of them you cannot avoid - I'm a commando, why do I have to fly a damn plane?) and the best bit about replaying is that all the really good stuff happens in the first half so you can just forget about the aliens once you've seen the plot through once. Maybe recommending throwing away half of the game is a sad statement, but I think the first half stands up to the rest of the world of FPSs much better than the second and you'll have far more fun in it. So yes, I'd recommend Crysis although cautiously - and do remember to check the specs on the back of the box (as I was told four times in the shop) as it does require one hell of a PC to run well.