Review: Crysis 2 (Xbox 360)

In the past three months, it has become painfully obvious that 2011 is going to be a big year for shooters. While this is not necessarily a surprise, it is a bit disconcerting for a person who would love to see some more obscure, progressive, and ambitious titles get some attention. With the likes of Killzone 3, Gears of War 3, Resistance 3, Rage, and the inevitable release of a new Call of Duty all hitting in 2011, a game like Crysis 2 has a lot of intense competition. Debuting for the first time on a console and sporting a glamorous new iteration of Crytek's impressive graphics engine, Cry Engine 3, Crysis 2 certainly has a lot to prove to both the PC and Console audiences. Does it live up to the promise? Does the newly designed CryEngine 3 continue to produce visually stunning games even on the limited tech that consoles provide? Does the game itself do anything to engage the players in ways that make it stand out from the crowd? Keep reading to find out.

Crysis 2 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
Developer: Crytek
Publisher: EA
Released: February 8, 2011 (North America)

Campaign

In the interest of full disclosure, I did not play through the original Crysis because like many people out there, I do not have a PC capable of running the graphical behemoth. In Cryteks latest outing, Crysis 2, the team set out with the goal of crafting a sequel that would not only be as technically impressive as the original but be far more accessible by designing the title for a console audience. The game begins with a viral outbreak in New York City that ultimately leads to an aggressive military takeover and the return of the alien menace known as the Ceph. After assuming the role of a military grunt, codenamed Alcatraz, players are rescued from certain death by the likes of "Prophet", the returning hero from the original Crysis. Having been infected with the "Manhattan Virus" himself, Prophet surrenders his powerful super-suit to Alcatraz and then kills himself in order to force the Nanosuit to assimilate with its new host. This is where the game takes a unique turn and ultimately begins to separate Crysis from the run of the mill FPS.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter may recall my initial frustrations with Crysis 2. I found myself constantly dying at the hands of ridiculous AI and an unnecessary numbers of opponents. It wasn't until more than halfway through the adventure that the beauty of the game's design dawned on me. Crysis 2 exists in a genre that is filled to the brim with twitch based shooters that favor a fast trigger finger and keen memorization over a solid strategy and mastery of a battle system. In this regard, Crysis 2 has much more in common with Halo and in many ways even achieves the sense of empowerment that Halo strives for more effectively. This is a game that forces the player to approach each encounter with a carefully constructed strategy. Thanks to the clever HUD system within the Nanosuit, players have the ability to scan the environment for hostiles and strategies before ever making a move. It is incredibly useful and absolutely necessary if players intend to succeed.

The Nanosuit is obviously the most interesting tool in the players arsenal for a number of reasons. While the suit is certainly a helpful device thanks to its super strength and speed, it also requires a certain amount of discretion and tactical awareness in order operate effectively. All of the suits benefits are governed by an energy meter that depletes as the suit runs, jumps, melees, or uses stealth or armor abilities. This enables the player but punishes the over zealous quickly when they end up stuck in a fire fight with no juice to power the suit. Over the course of the game, the suit can earn experience by absorbing energy from fallen alien foes which can be used to upgrade the various stats. These upgrades are organized into four different categories and mapped to each finger on the suits left hand. One upgrade per finger can be equipped at a time which once again forces the player to think about which upgrades should be equipped in a given situation. While some situations may call for an upgrade that allows the suit to drain less energy when in stealth mode, others may sacrifice this in favor of having quieter footsteps. All of this combines to create a far more tactical shooter experience than many people may be expecting or even accustomed to.

The level designers at Crytek deserve some serious recognition for adding yet another layer of depth to an already impressive formula. The world of Crysis 2 is deceptively open thanks to some truly grand environments that are littered with different routes for the player to take. A single environment in the game may include up to four to five different paths via sewers, scaffolding, streets, back-alleys, and more. When combined with the Nanosuit's stealth capabilities, redundancy is essentially eliminated since a new path can be taken when your first choice ultimately ends in failure. It is this sense of exploration that crafts this otherwise linear story into an open-ended adventure.

For me, the most interesting aspect of Crysis 2 comes from the sense of character growth and advancement that is shared between Alcatraz and the player controlling him. The game throws you into an intense situation as a military grunt with no experience operating this advanced Nanosuit.  Over the course of the game, the player is slowly acclimated to the intricacies of this super weapon at the exact same time as the character in the game. While the learning process was certainly a painful one, by the later points in the game, I found myself leaping headfirst into firefights that would have once left me trembling in my boots. What I found so intriging about this was the fact that not much had changed about the character over the course of the game. The suit was still the same suit I had earlier and the only thing that had changed was my mastery over the mechanics. By the end of the game, I truly felt like I had grown into the suit and become a truly lethal predator on the battlefield. This is a feeling that I have rarely felt in games and is a feeling I wish developers would strive to achieve more often.

The original Crysis was a landmark title that went on to become the primary benchmark for the performance of top tier PC's. This time around, Crytek has retooled their impressive visual engine in order to not only recreate a graphical masterpiece but make it possible on current-gen consoles. In that sense, Crytek has definitely succeeded seeing as Crysis 2 is a visual heavyweight with very little in the way of actual competition. This crumbling recreation of New York City is recreated in flawless detail and is made to appear more impressive by incredible light and particle effects. Light refracts realistically off of towering skyscrapers, concrete crumbles as it is pelted with bullets, and the world blurs with stunning beauty as the player controlled super-soldier sprints towards his target. The technical fidelity isn't without it's flaws. The framerate does drop occassionally and animations sometimes glitch in some pretty distracting ways. With that said, none of these glitches were ever game breaking.

In what I consider to be a dramatic yet appropriate design choice, the perspective is constantly kept in the first-person in order to create a sense of involvement and boundless strength in a world without limits. In situations that would otherwise be handled via cutscenes, Crysis 2 keeps the player firmly rooted behind the eyes and ears of the Nanosuit. It's hard to descibe in words the feeling I felt when I was tackled through a window of a skyscraper or stuck in the midst of a crumbling bridge as cars and debris rocketed at my face. These were situations that caught me by surprise but kept me completely enveloped in the character and the events that were unfolding around me.

Where Crysis 2 doesn't quite succeed is in the telling of a cohesive narrative. While I wouldn't go as far as to label the story as bad, I would say that it fails to tell the story in a way that makes perfect sense to the player. I often found myself confused about the objective I was currently trying to achieve and the involvement of the secondary characters and their role in the overarching story. Perhaps part of this confusion stems from having not played the original Crysis but I can't help but feel like steps could have been taken to ensure that the story made more sense. With the promise of a concluding chapter in this planned trilogy, there is still plenty of room to bring the more positive aspects of the story to the forefront.

Multiplayer

While the single player campaign in Crysis 2 is a unique and rare excursion in the FPS genre, the multiplayer experience opts to stick to what is proven. Anyone familiar with the Call of Duty or Halo mutiplayer experience is certain to be plenty familiar with the offering in this package. Players start at a low 'recruit' rank and slowly gain new ranks, weapons, and abilities by gunning down other players. The addition of the Nanosuit does add a few additional mechanics such as the progression of the armor, stealth, and power stats while Nanosuit upgrades take the place of the 'perks' from the Call of Duty series. While only sporting a few maps to choose from, the elaborate design and sheer size of the maps does enough to ensure that players won't get bored quickly. Lastly, the ability to collect the dog tags of your victims adds a little extra excitement to an already satisfying experience.

Perhaps the only hinderance to the otherwise fun multiplayer modes is the slow matchmaking service. Finding a game is usually hit or miss and when it does work, the system rarely finds a match with players of equal rank and skill. While this certainly doesn't kill the experience, it does leave some to be desired and doesn't necessarily leave the greatest impression, especially on the FPS multiplayer veteran.

Final Thoughts

As yet another FPS on consoles this year, Crysis 2 surprised me by showing me that shooters can still be unique and engaging. They can still tell a cool, if not a bit convoluted, story and wrap the otherwise traditional gameplay mechanics in layers of depth. This game officially does things that few games before it have done as far as putting the player in the shoes of a character and I hope I am not the only one who recognizes this. With the other forementioned shooters set to release this year, Crysis 2 has established itself as a major competitor in a year that is sure to be a monumental year for the FPS genre.

Score: 91%

90-95%: Phenomenal; transcends all issues