[Fury]

Played the sp campaign a bit yesterday evening, it was pretty fun. It runs very smoothly at "extreme" settings on my Q9550, R6850 and 8GB RAM.

Graphics aren't as spectacular as you'd expect from Crytek, definitely better than Crysis 1 and Warhead but not THAT much better. It is however a console port, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. Gameplay is pretty intuitive. Use of nanosuit is easier than what it was in Crysis 1 and Warhead, it's important factor in action where you should be able to use the suit's functions "naturally".

If there is one thing I absolutely loathe, it's the lack of savegames. Crysis 2 only has checkpoints, on dying you have to start over whereever last checkpoint was. While I raged over it for a while, it wasn't that bad. Checkpoints are mostly logically placed and didn't have too much trouble with it.

Gameplay is nice, better than in Crysis 1 or Warhead I'd say. Part of it is because of better nanosuit control as mentioned earlier, but the other thing is that it is really well balanced. It's not overpowered, you get killed fast if you try playing a Rambo. Gameplay is also well paced so far. I like how much attention they've put on environment, New York City is really well done and destruction of environment ranges from good to awesome.

Story on the other hand I have mixed feelings about. There is far more depth in it than Crysis 1 and Warhead combined and then some. But background on nanosuit is totally cliché, at least what I've learned in the game so far. My opinion my yet change as I progress further.

If you liked Crysis and Crysis Warhead, I'm quite sure Crysis 2 won't disappoint you. At least if you don't let checkpoint saving system bother you too much. If we're lucky, real saving will get patched in for PC later. Oh and Crytek dropped DirectX11 support on launch, I hear they're planning to patch it in later though.


The crash is scripted but it still looks nice.

[PsychoLandlord]

I held off on getting it until some more nonprofessional reviews pop up. This is pretty good news actually. I probably still wont pay full price until I get a rough estimate on campaign length, but its nice to know it wasn't the horrible failure that everyone prophesied.

[Kolgena]

Campaign length is supposed to be ~12h if you're good. Longer if you die lots or spend time ogling scenery porn.

I can't say I quite agree with you, Fury, about suit usability. The scroll wheel system for Crysis 1 felt quite good to me. A 0.1 second twitch allows me to switch to any mode I wished. I feel it makes it cooler when I have to micromanage to speed jump out of the bushes, cloak immediately, then change to strength mode just before landing to ruin someone's face, then back to cloak: all fast enough so that no one else notices (though crysis AI is pretty ****)

Does the fov tweak change the size of the gun? I mean, I don't need a consolized weapon taking up half my screen...

[Fury]

I can't say I quite agree with you, Fury, about suit usability. The scroll wheel system for Crysis 1 felt quite good to me. A 0.1 second twitch allows me to switch to any mode I wished. I feel it makes it cooler when I have to micromanage to speed jump out of the bushes, cloak immediately, then change to strength mode just before landing to ruin someone's face, then back to cloak: all fast enough so that no one else notices (though crysis AI is pretty ****)

I never could master rapid switching of suit modes in Crysis 1 or Warhead, especially not in middle of combat. Crysis 2 for me, is a huge improvement.

Does the fov tweak change the size of the gun? I mean, I don't need a consolized weapon taking up half my screen...

No idea, I didn't change any settings beyond what's available in the game options menu. Which by the way, are very, very limited.

[Grizzly]

Graphics aren't as spectacular as you'd expect from Crytek, definitely better than Crysis 1 and Warhead but not THAT much better. It is however a console port, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. Gameplay is pretty intuitive. Use of nanosuit is easier than what it was in Crysis 1 and Warhead, it's important factor in action where you should be able to use the suit's functions "naturally".

Its not a console port. The console versions were ported from PC. The reason why they did not invest in spectacular graphics this time is fairly easy: They did not want to alienate everyone which did not have an Ultra High Spec PC, like last time.

[General Battuta]

So I just finished this game:

The Good

-The game is brilliantly optimized, looks gorgeous, and will run fast even on high settings. It's an absolute technical marvel. The best engine I've ever seen in terms of both looks and performance.
-With a few config file tweaks, it looks and plays like a good PC title, including proper FOV.
-The dialogue writing is excellent, absolutely perfect for the setting. Richard Morgan's fingerprints are all over it. The enemies sound convincing, Gould is endearing, and the atmosphere is nice. Much of the backstory about the Nanosuit and certain characters

Spoiler:

like Hargreave

is top-notch. Voice acting is very very very strong.
-The weapons feel good and are satisfying to shoot.
-The nanosuit works well, and the mantling/jumping is fun.
-Good music.
-Lengthy campaign for a modern shooter, 10-12 hours on Veteran difficulty for me. I went 7.5 hours without dying at one point! That's not because the game is easy, but because it gives you the tools to play skillfully if you're tactical and cautious.
-A couple spectacular (but noninteractive) physics set pieces that look amazing.

The Bad

-The level design is inferior to Crysis and Warhead, far more restrictive and linear. This is the game's biggest weakness; it's not a corridor shooter, but it's definitely a fat corridor shooter with a few bubbles.
-The AI is all right, but not as good as Crysis in terms of posing a challenge.
-The game becomes trivially easy even on higher difficulties once you get the high-ranked armor mode upgrade.
-Weapon variety is limited, you'll be using the SCAR and SCARAB for most of the game.
-The gameplay isn't varied enough to support the game's length. You'll fight the same types of enemies for most of the game, and they get pretty predictable and familiar. The Ceph grunts in particular get dull. This is another big issue; there's just not as many things to do as there were in Crysis.
-The story builds really well, and as I mentioned has excellent dialogue, but has only one really good payoff and then fizzles a bit at the end. It also throws away a lot of details from Crysis 1, if you care about that.

Spoiler:

The ending feels like something of a cop-out, but all the stuff about Prophet is great.

-The Ceph get a lot of talk in the story about how dangerous and mysterious they are, but don't have much personality and feel like fairly standard video game aliens. They were more interesting in Crysis 1. They seem to have ditched their entire 'cold' angle for a 'bioweapons' angle.
-A lot of quicktime events. Kind of annoying and predictable.
-The infected people scattered around aren't 'real' objects; you can't shoot or interact with them. I wanted to put them out of their misery but the game wouldn't let me.
-The city setting gets pretty dull.

The Ugly

-There is no way to customize important graphical features ingame. You'll need to resort to config file editing.
-The game's data is allegedly encrypted, and they didn't ship the excellent CryEngine 3 editor with the game. Should wait and see what the modding scene looks like in a few months.

Not worth buying at full price right now, but a good game.

[NGTM-1R]

Fizzling at the end is something of a tradition now, I guess?

[headdie]

 

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[Gortef]

Oh and Crytek dropped DirectX11 support on launch, I hear they're planning to patch it in later though.

Yep that's what I've heard aswell.

So far I've tried only the MP demo and on so-so high settings it ran pretty damn smoothly on my 5770.
Though, I think that I won't try the full game untill I've gotten my MSI 6950 Twin Frozr III. Prrrrrrrllllease ship 'em out already MSI. I wanna know the real price for it and how it affects the other brands prices.

[Hades]

The demo was a port of the xbox 360 demo, I believe, due to several reasons, most being the discrepancies between it and the final game in terms of performance, as the final has far better performance. I do, even with a two year old laptop GPU, think Crysis 2 could have been a bit prettier, as they already got it prettier than Crysis 1 while having better performance simultaneously. The story does get better at the end, but it does

Spoiler:

leave you hanging, like they're expecting to make a Crysis 3

but that's not necessarily a bad thing presuming they can keep it as good or better than Crysis 2.

I, personally, liked weapon variety. There were more weapons than in Crysis 1, which I only ever used the shotgun or SCAR in, myself, and I found the Grendel and Jackel (as well as the majestic and energy gun thing) useful as secondaries (since I always use the SCAR, it's one of my favorite guns ), although I wish you could still have two of the 'medium guns' and a pistol, like in Crysis 1.

[Jeryko]

Rumor has it that Dx11 will only be available to GTX590 users.

http://www.gamemunition.com/rumors/did-nvidia-pay-crytek-to-delay-directx-11-support-for-crysis-2/

[Kolgena]

It all depends how much of the game was built around DX11. For all we know, Crysis 2 DX11 could be as useless as Crysis 1 DX10.

(Also, I read somewhere that it's been figured out how to crack open the encryped game files. Modding can begin unless Crytek slams the lid down on this.)

[Fineus]

For those of you looking for advanced graphics options:

http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=33008

Someone has put together a little program that allows you to further customise the graphics - the fact that this has been done so quickly after launch does make the folks at Crytek look a bit silly for not just having it in there already. Still, whatever.

I haven't tried the game yet - I tried to get the demo running but it wouldn't even let me create a log in so I've had no chance to try it. I'm feeling sorely jaded by the whole thing so despite liking Crysis, I may have to acquire Crysis 2 to see if it'll even run on my system before I hand over any cash. For once, I really don't feel bad about that.

[General Battuta]

If you could run Crysis 1 you can run Crysis 2. I guarantee it.

[Suongadon]

For those of you looking for advanced graphics options:

http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=33008

Awesome, but is there no way to kill the bloom in the release version? It's less bad than the demo, sure, but it still gives me a headache -whether psychosomatic or for reasons more medical than hate, I dunno, but I could only go about twenty minutes before quitting because of the pain.

[Fury]

For those of you looking for advanced graphics options:

http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=33008

Someone has put together a little program that allows you to further customise the graphics - the fact that this has been done so quickly after launch does make the folks at Crytek look a bit silly for not just having it in there already. Still, whatever.

Interesting. Cranked up every setting in there and the game still plays very smoothly. I'm actually impressed.

[Fineus]

Really? My system isn't as beefy as yours but going on GBs saying that it'll run and your not-scathing review, I'm tempted to give it a go. I realise that the main thing stopping me last time is probably not a factor this time around.

Edit: Oh, and sorry Suongadon but I didn't make or have anything to do with that detail-changing program. I just passed along the link to you guys. It might be worth running a Google search and/or signing up to a Crysis forum and asking the question. Crysis 1 was really quite customisable if you were willing to get your hands dirty so it's possible someone knows how to help you.

[Hades]

The demo is an awful way to see if Crysis 2 runs well or not, it's the final game runs MUCH smoother, as did the leak, which leads me to believe that the demo was a port of the xbox 360 demo to save both time and money.

[Kolgena]

Eh. I just put together my own custom autoexec.cfg.

The game is very very pretty. I'm actually very impressed on how much the engine renders vs the framerates given. I suspect that lots of it has to do with much better vis-areas and level optimization, rather than only with engine optimizations.

I have this issue where ironsight aiming moves over 1 pixel at a time. It can't do sub-pixel aiming, if that makes any sense, which makes some sniping decidedly harder. Anyone have tips besides "get a real GPU so you can play at >1024x600"?

[General Battuta]

So this game has an okay plot with some great writing. I'm gonna rewrite it to be better, hang on to your diapers. Obviously massive spoiler.

Spoiler:

First off, some of the content from the emails needs to be moved into the main narrative and made much more explicit. Hargreave's signoff to Gould in particular, with the information about the Ceph rejection safeguards and how they've now been overcome, but also information about Lockhart's conflict with Hargreave.

Now, second, the game does the ****tiest job of handling its mute protagonist. Alcatraz could at any point in the early game have told the CELL guys 'I'm not Prophet! I'm some other guy! Let's fight these aliens together!' and that probably would've been it.

However, there is an easy way to handle the mute protagonist, one which makes the game way more creepy and interesting. It's going to involve a rewrite of a major event towards the end, when Hargreave captures Alcatraz and attempts to remove the suit.

In the game, Tara Strickland prevents the removal, and Alcatraz lives to continue silently complying with everything anyone tells him to do.

Imagine if it went like this instead:

Hargreave's surgical unit deactivates the suit. As a CELL soldier lifts the suit's facemask away, the player's POV detaches with the facemask. We look down at Alcatraz's dead body from the perspective of the nanosuit itself.

"The poor man," Hargreave says. "Brain-dead from the moment Prophet pulled him out of the water. His motor functions and basic systems were still intact, but his will, his consciousness...all irretrievably gone. So the suit filled the gap. Repaired his brain using its own protocols and objectives."

"I wonder," he continues, "if we should really say he wore the suit...I think it more appropriate to say the suit was wearing him. No wonder he carried on so doggedly with Prophet's last mission."

Thus it is revealed that we have not been playing most of the game as Alcatraz wearing the suit, but as the suit wearing Alcatraz. The two have blended now, as Prophet and the suit did, and thus we are as much the suit as Alcatraz.

Strickland shoots the CELL soldier and replaces the mask. Alcatraz is defibrillated and revived. The narrative proceeds to the ending, with the same reveal of Prophet 'returning' from the nanosuit, but now most of the game makes sense because the brain-damaged Alcatraz is carrying out the suit's objectives at the behest of the stored Prophet personality.

I actually like to think this is what happened anyway.