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Crytek has surprised everyone with their follow up to the most technically demanding game of its time. Crysis 2 has kicked up a firestorm in the PC community by being accessible and fully playable on a variety of rigs. As a result of removing the graphic OCD a lot of us PC gamers suffer from, we’re free to focus on – you know – actually playing the game. There are those who continue to cling to what Crysis used to be: an unrelenting tech benchmark with decent gameplay, but for the rest of us, we’ve moved on. Crysis 2 is more than a showpiece. It’s a damn fun game to play.
Welcome to New York – a different kind of jungle
In memorable games there's always a moment where I know I've bought into the concept. In Batman: Arkham Aslyum it was stalking criminals from high above, relishing in their terror as their companions were picked off one by one. In Halo: Combat Evolved it was an orchestral score combined with an epic firefight on a snowy bridge.
A single such moment occurred in Crysis 2, one that sums up the differences between it and other shooters of this era. I was in a free-for-all deathmatch, strolling down a beautifully ruined street, admiring the scenery like a noob. Switching to stealth mode I began to creep toward a central building when bullets suddenly whipped by head. I had been spotted.
Quickly, I switched to armor mode and scrambled to find cover. The street was wide open. The only cover I could see was a car. Without a second to spare I sprang into full sprint and crouch-slid into safety behind the sedan. My attacker was laying down a spray of bullets, purposefully pinning me down. My health was low, so attempting to fire back was suicide and I knew sooner or later a grenade would be coming my way. I had to think. Another pelting of bullets, more accurate this time. I racked my brain for ideas.
And then it hit me: the car!
I didn’t know how far back my assailant was, or even if it would work, but I had to try. I dropped armor mode, slid back to the appropriate angle, and unleashed a kick so hard it sent the car (what had once been my cover) flying down the street toward my attacker.
With crushing force, it slammed into him, instantly killing him. He congratulated me with a “nice move!” in chat.
I responded with a wicked grin. ";)"
And that’s when Crysis 2’s multiplayer sold me. This isn’t Call of Duty with its twitch-like reflexes, nor is it Battlefield Bad Company 2 with its destructible environments and squad tactics. This is Crysis 2, a game where you’re a badass super soldier who can leap to rooftops in a single bound, traverse urban environments like Faith from Mirror's Edge and, best of all, kick cars into people's faces.
The armor abilities, while such a minor change to the shooter formula, add incredible depth to those who have a mind to get creative.
Nanosuit? More like Rick’s Suit of Maximum Pwnage.
The multiplayer avoids the pitfalls of repetition due to the varying battle scenario and play style that each player adheres to. You have your ninjas who creep around in stealth waiting to surprise you. You have the tank dudes who rip off turrets, activate armor mode and become an unstoppable force of destruction. You have runners who whip around the map at lightning speeds, killing the slow and capturing objectives before you can blink.
From there, players mix and match combinations on the go. Like to snipe and sneak? Be my guest, but watch for those runners with shotguns.
The unlockables, while not groundbreaking, offer enough flexibility for you to build upon your playstyle. Personally, I prefer to be a midrange fighter. So my loadout includes an assault rifle with a dot site, an armor enhancement for survivability, a mod for increased accuracy while using my sites, and a mod that turns my targets red if I pull sites on them, thus allowing me to gain more visibility in a firefight. The whole thing culminates to a custom class that may as well have my name on it.
With the suit powers comes an obvious shift in map design. At first, I didn't pay it much mind; however, after a few rounds on a variety of maps I became deadly aware. It was something I had nearly forgotten about, something that harkens back to my Unreal Tournament days: the z-axis.
Nowadays, game reviewers refer to it as verticality, but I'm old school and to me it will always be the z-axis. In Crysis 2 your opponents aren't likely to be on the same level with you. They will attack from above or below. This adds an extra layer of intensity to the combat. Instead of walking around with your eyes locked dead ahead, you need to scan rooftops and ledges. Players move fast and the last thing you want is to get air stomped like a Koopa Troopa.
Welcome to z-axis warfare. Ground level is for noobs.
Crysis 2 isn't perfect on the PC. Graphic customization is a joke and truly an insult to even the most modest of PC gamers. On higher resolutions the engine definitely shows it's seams with some surprisingly low resolution textures, weird object pop-in, and a heavy use of motion blur. Luckily, the community is already providing intuitive workarounds and with gameplay this compelling, it’s easy enough to overlook its flaws.
Other bugs can crop up but most of that is found in the single player campaign, a topic I’ll leave to others.
If you're like me and seriously burnt out on the multiplayer shooter formula, you owe it to yourself to try Crysis 2. Yeah, you still shoot things, but the Nanosuit combined with your own ingenuity will make you really feel like the super soldier you always wanted to be.