View All (41)

View All (25)

Flying the V-Tol and working through zero gravity were a bit more challenging. The aircraft’s response system was not too great, and it tended to fall instead of climb. Suffice to say, being forced to restart because there are no enemies around to finish you off when the evil trees have a death-lock on you is unfortunate. Zero gravity is perhaps one of the coolest ideas for a level, and indeed it played very well once I managed to get used to the controls, but it really slows down any machine. The last thing anyone needs is to worry about framerates when aliens flying through the air are taking swipes at you and bringing horrid memories of “Birds” to mind.

Then, sadly, Crytek rips player’s hearts open by doing what no videogame should ever have done again after 2004: a “finish the fight” ending. Taking a solid note from Bungie’s Halo 2, Crysis literally does the exact same thing, though anyone who’s lived through it once will at least be a little numb to the feeling. And chances are if you are running Crysis at all, you won’t be throwing monitors and computer components around in a fury.

Multiplayer has all the nano-suit powers of the single player adventure, though they all take much longer to regenerate to give some balance to gameplay. There are two types of play, standard deathmatch and Power Struggle, which is a cooperative mode against Koreans. They are heavily fortified and it is an extremely difficult game to win, so teamwork is a necessity. Don’t work together and you’ll find your head on a stake somewhere in the jungle. Once your team is able to scrap together some real tactics and strategies, this gametype will prove to be immense fun.

Crysis is undeniably one of the most exciting and memorable experiences on the PC. It is, however, in a similar situation as Doom 3 when it first released, where few people could sufficiently run the game at its highest settings. Crysis will be appreciated much more than a benchmark standard; it is a genuinely wonderful FPS that takes full advantage of an entire island that is yours to make or break. This beauty isn’t just skin deep.