Crysis 2

Readers who have been followers of this blog on Facebook or Blogspot may remember the last Crytek game I reviewed. Those same readers may also remember that I pretty much didn't like it. Far Cry 2 had some redeeming qualities, but none were awesome enough to completely redeem the bad design choices. And with that, here we are x amount of months later, with Crysis 2. Sadly, Crysis 2 doesn't deserve the written abuse that Far Cry 2 got. Oh well.

STORY
The game is set in New York City, in the year 2023, three years after the original Crysis. Society has broken down due to the outbreak of some virus that causes complete cellular breakdown, and fears of an alien invasion by the Ceph (the aliens behind the incident in Crysis [Spoilers], or so I'm told). You control "Alcatraz", a marine saved from certain death by Prophet (also seen in Crysis), a soldier wearing a highly advance nano suit.
After your rescue, Prophet decides to put you in the suit, and promptly take his own life; leaving very little explaination as to what's going on, aside from "Find Dr. Gould". From here, we learn more about the invading Ceph, the suit's powers and purpose, as well as Prophet's experiences in the first Crysis.

Now, being someone who never played the first game, it took me a while to understand exactly what was going on. However, not a whole lot of the backstory is crammed down the players throat, so Crysis 2 could easily be treated as it's own game.
Once we get past that, Crysis 2 is certainly interesting, with some obvious, yet still entertaining, plot twists. It's got enough mystery surrounding the suit and the aliens and everything else to keep me playing on to find out more.

PRESENTATION
When the first Crysis came out, people were pretty much jizzing themselves over how beautiful it was. And while I do admit, Crysis looked amazing, Crysis 2 drops the ball somewhat. It's not bad looking, it's just not as good as I've seen Crytek do. And this isn't just a console problem either; Killzone 3 was fucking beautiful.

The environments in Crysis 2 get somewhat repetitive after a while; some time after you're flanking PMC's through the 8th sewer. But, as repetitive as they are, they're interesting enough to not notice too much.
The scenery starts to vary about halfway through it, and it left me wondering why they didn't change it up sooner. For one thing, I've seen Central Park in ALOT of games set in New York City (or Liberty City even), but I will NEVER forget Crysis 2's rendition of it.

The music is fairly ordinary most of the time, but the voice acting is rather excellent. Prophet sounds like the nanosuited god of manliness that I'm sure he is, while Hargreave is voiced in such a way that you're never quite sure if he's trustworthy or not.


GAMEPLAY\
The main draw here for Crysis 2 is the nanosuit mechanic. Without it, the game would be your run of the mill first person shooter affair. Not to say it doesn't have solid controls or anything, but fire one gun in first-person in a game, and you've fired almost all of them.
The nanosuit seeks to give players a more tactical approach to any situation, with Armour, Stealth and Power modules to customize the way you play. As well as these power modules, your visor also lets you scan for tactical points on any given situation.

While these are pretty interesting mechanics, and they serve well to differentiate Crysis 2 from the crowd, the enemy AI throws it back in with the rest. While alot of the game CAN rely on your stealth skills, it doesn't really work when once a single grunt spots you, every soldier within 5km knows where you are. The fact that they can spot you from a mile off, hidden behind cover, is astounding.
Also, why would people know where you are if you shoot someone else, four rooms away WITH A SUPPRESSED WEAPON. It's sheer stupidity! Far Cry 2 had the same problem!

Luckily, not all encounters are decided by your sneakiness factor. If the shit hits the fan, you can pump up your armour and go fucking Rambo on everyone in the street, which, in itself, is its own gratifying reward.

Other than that, Crysis never really evolves past your standard shooter. Gunfight-->cutscene--->gunfight--->first person cutscene---> vehicle section---> gunfight.
Everything about it is rather by the numbers, aside from the nanosuit. Maybe that's enough, but its strange that Crytek can't get stealth sections right when frnachises like Call of Duty and Killzone have for ages!

One last thing, all the freedom that Crysis 2 gives you is an elaborate illusion. It basically tells you what to do at each tactical point, and the incredible awareness of the enemy AI almost destroys any chance at a successful stealth attempt.
BUT, these problems aside, Crysis 2's gameplay is fairly solid (apart from stealth problems) and fun when it comes down to it.

REPLAYABILITY
Crysis 2 is a first person shooter with an online multiplayer mode! How unique!!!!
But seriously, it does have a multiplayer mode, and it is fun. While the shooting mechanics (hit detection especially) need some tweaking, it didn't stop me wasting a couple of hours on it. The nanosuit abilities make an appearance in this mode, and its partly because of them that this could possibly stand up to the CoD behemoth, despite ripping off plenty from it.
The campaign is interesting enough to warrant another playthrough, and if you truly believe theres a better way to do a certain mission, then you can jump straight to it and attempt it again. Plenty of trophies and achievements too, but I reckon that goes without saying anymore.

OVERVIEW
Crysis 2 was fun, but not everything I was led to believe it was. The freedom it offers seemed like more of an illusion to me, and the graphics weren't as amazing as we were promised, console or not. I was surprised at the depth of the story, however, and the multiplayer amazed me in that it was almost as solid at its core as Call of Duty. But it had superpowers, which is an added bonus for me.
My recommendation: If you like FPS games, and you want something slightly different, there are worse picks than this. It was interesting, to say the least, tedious at its worst, and really fun at its best.


No idea what I'm going to review next week. Maybe a retrospective on Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, considering Skrim comes out this year. Anyway, see you next time!