Electronic Arts Crysis

Not nearly as good as the hype

Strengths: Stunning visuals and attention to graphical detail

Weakness: In October 2008, hardware does not exist that can run everything maxed out at acceptable framerates - a year after release!!!!! In the end, a lot less fun than a lot of other games.

I can certainly understand the buzz surrounding this game; after all, it absolutely brings even the most tricked-out PCs to their knees, and still can't deliver the frame rates! I am not trying for the e-peen here as I describe my system - just to inform potential game buyers what to expect: I have a 790i Ultra SLI MoBo with an Intel QX9770 overclocked to 4GHz, and liquid-cooled; 8GB of memory @...
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I can certainly understand the buzz surrounding this game; after all, it absolutely brings even the most tricked-out PCs to their knees, and still can't deliver the frame rates! I am not trying for the e-peen here as I describe my system - just to inform potential game buyers what to expect: I have a 790i Ultra SLI MoBo with an Intel QX9770 overclocked to 4GHz, and liquid-cooled; 8GB of memory @ 1333; three BFG GTX280 OC2s in triple SLI (liquid-cooled); 1300W PSU; a 30" monitor; and the other stuff isn't relevant. But despite this ridiculous hardware investment, if I turn up the settings to 2560x1600 and all Very High, the frame rates drop to less than 10 very often, and it is unplayable. This is particularly disappointing, having based this purchase on The Guru of 3D's review of triple SLI w/Crysis, in which they noted an average frame rate of 37 with stock-clocked 280s in triple-SLI. Naturally, with factory-overclocked 280s, I was expecting an average of 40 or so.

Even if I drop the settings to just High, all is not well...most of the action is playable, but the cutscenes (strange, yes?) suffer a low-enough frame rate as to look staccato...and can occasionally crash the game to the desktop altogether. The only way to insure a smooth frame rate and crash-free session...is to drop all down to Medium (while still keeping 2560x1600). So please note...as of 10/13/08, hardware just doesn't exist that can run this really well at maxed-out settings. Maybe late next year.

Aside from the graphics, the game just isn't that much fun. I enjoyed the battles against KPA soldiers, but even that part wasn't anywhere NEAR as much fun as BioShock (BioShock had me laughing out loud with delight on a number of occasions). Among shooters, I think Medal of Honor: Airborne is also more FUN. And finally, there were a couple of levels in Crysis that I hoped would just end - they weren't any fun at all - just plain frustrating (alien ship and VTOL leap to mind). Graphical demands and benchmarking usefulness aside, this game just wasn't that much fun, and that's what a game is really supposed to be. I won't be playing through this one again.

By Mason Storm - Oct 13, 2008

Crysis

Strengths: The best video graphics ever produced on the PC platform. Top notch sound and music.

Weakness: Sometimes alien AI is not as good as the Korean AI. Very high hardware requirements to fully appreciate what game has to offer. Game ended too soon.

From the game box artwork to the ending credits this game has been a pure joy to play. The intro which is a camera ride over the Nano suit from head to toe is one of the most brilliant and visually rewarding experiences I have witnessed in a long time. The Nano suit which is what makes you able to be stronger, faster, armored or like the alien in predator, almost completely invisible changes the...
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From the game box artwork to the ending credits this game has been a pure joy to play. The intro which is a camera ride over the Nano suit from head to toe is one of the most brilliant and visually rewarding experiences I have witnessed in a long time. The Nano suit which is what makes you able to be stronger, faster, armored or like the alien in predator, almost completely invisible changes the way you normally would play a first person shooter of this type. Because the suit itself is a weapon of sorts, you look at scenarios differently. Rather than run and gun into the bad guys, you can choose to creep right up behind them and put them asleep one by one. You can operate vehicles and use a wide variety of weapons found in the game. You can take the weapons from fallen enemies and use them as your own or just take the ammo from their weapons to add to your ammo caches. The single player game is more like playing a part in a feature film than playing a game on your PC. You begin to think like a Nano suit wearing solider that is faced with choices to resolve a situation and less likely to run in die and reload as most do when playing a first person shooter genre game. I am just starting to dabble in the online multi-player part of the game but from what I have experienced, I have a lot to learn! The nano suit not only makes for a great single player weapon to kill the enemy and protect against all sort of attacks it turns into a weapon of quick and certain death screen in online multi-player arena. The only negative comment I can make about this game is that it ended too fast. I played the game non stop and I know the game gave me over 10 hours of game play but it seemed to go by in an instant.

By Hajimoto - Dec 27, 2007

Crysis

Strengths: Awesome everything!

Weakness: None.

We have waited for Crysis for quite a while and read all of the hype. I would like to say that this game, just like Bioshock, lived up to its hype. Beautiful environments, great artificial intelligence. Works with DX9 or DX10. Can be a system hog if you do not have a relatively newer computer with some power. If you are into these types of games (FPS), get Crysis!

By bulldog93 - Dec 9, 2007

Excellent game, if you have the cards to support it

Strengths: Superb graphics, somewhat scalable, very smooth gameplay, ability to drive vehicles, good multiplayer, different difficulties.

Weakness: Needs beefy graphics cards to look decent at playable framerates

This game is beautiful visually. It has intense graphics and is one of the games that people measure their graphics cards against. Only the most recent, top notch graphics cards can play this game well and to play it well at max settings you will need multiple cards or a Very expensive one. Gameplay is very smooth, provided your GFX solution can maintain the framerate. The special abilities are...
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This game is beautiful visually. It has intense graphics and is one of the games that people measure their graphics cards against. Only the most recent, top notch graphics cards can play this game well and to play it well at max settings you will need multiple cards or a Very expensive one.

Gameplay is very smooth, provided your GFX solution can maintain the framerate. The special abilities are pretty cool and the different difficulties also add a lot to the game, both in terms of finding your comfort level and for replayability. The lower difficulties let you shoot while driving, etc... while higher difficulties remove abilities or advantages you have as well as making enemies tougher/smarter.

Is this the best game ever made? No - the plot could be significantly better, but this games looks great and has good gameplay, which is pretty much all you can ask for.

One relatively minor point that bothered me a little is that the cut-scenes could've been done better. They chose to render them, rather than having them just saved animations. This caused some lag in the animation and dialogue to be somewhat out of sync. It was a nice proof of concept, but I would've preferred smoother, pre-rendered cut-scenes that allowed you to skip them. Again, not a big deal, but worth noting if you're someone who gets irked by cut scenes you can't skip.

By iseestars - Feb 27, 2008

Crysisi in crisis

Strengths: Excellent story line. Cool game play

Weakness: Need to build a computer to handle the graphics.

Received this game as a present. Installed and have played for a couple of hours. Adjusted all setting to the lowest and the game was still lagging and a bit choppy. I have an amd 3200 system. If you would like to play this game, make sure you have a top notch system to enjoy all of the graphics.

By cbrlmgr - Feb 26, 2008