I bought crysis on launch day back in the ancient days of core-2 and gtx8800. Naturally i was upset at my machines inability to run the game in dx10 @ 1680x1050 with 2xAA without crapping itself. It was a fresh breath of air to see that the rig i built for Crysis2 (i'll post specs if anyone is curious) was not hampered by the shiny new cryengine3. However like many other PC gamers i was upset at the trade off for this performance. Clipping issues abound low resolution textures and low polygon object models are only half of the complaints i have as far as visual performance goes. The art-direction in the game is still quite superb and hopefully the DX11 patch will make this game a worthy successor to the visual benchmark set by crysis.

As far as the actual gameplay goes? The story is 800 times better than the generic space-marine garbage we got with crysis. I was genuinely afraid to face my alien antagonists and for the first time instead of being mildly annoyed by them. The sounds they made when communicating with eachother genuinely made my skin crawl. However this was stymied by the fact that their AI was mindblowingly retarded when compared to the original North Korean and Lingshan Ceph in the first game. At times i felt like i was outnumbered and out gunned. Nano-suit or not, trying to evade 2 ceph devestators, three commanders and a plethora of scouts and soldiers was quite the hassle.

It was great to be able to play outside of the Jungle and to step foot into a real city, however i was dissapointed by the less than stellar sandbox capabilities. Crytek made it sound like we were going to get a FPS version of Prototype, wherein we are ridiculously overpowered soldiers who can turn invisible and kick cars clear across a map and we now have the ability to "think vertically". Crysis' options for approaching a combat area felt limited despite the massive sprawling jungle they had given us. Crysis 2 felt like an oversized corridor shooter. Sure i could jump into the designated ledge grab areas and turn invisible or hide underneath my enemies in a sewer. This actually worked out well in some of the levels. however if i wanted to Say, scale a fence and make a parkour style jump from awning to awning or rooftop to rooftop i was plain old **** out of luck. Sure i could kick a freaking 3,000 pound family sedan clear across times-square but i will be damned if i can get over that ivy covered chain link fence. That was a problem i had in the first crysis as well but then again the nanosuit wasn't as powerful.

The guns. Dear god the freaking guns. Why in the hell was it impossible to find decent ammo for the Gauss rifle or the Mike? The freaking MIKE had a goddamned picatinny rail on it, but god-forbid they include basic iron sights or an assault scope. Which brings me to my next point. Why can't i customize my weapons with pre-gathered mod-parts? i absolutely LOVED that i could put a sniper scope and silencer on damn near any gun in game on Crysis. Sniping with the FY7 with incendiary ammo was oodles of fun. Sure i had the added ability to upgrade my nanosuit with scientifically-magical alien goop, however the upgrades did little to make me feel like i had an added advantage. I didn't even notice that i had nano-recharge off until i purchased another upgrade. And then there was the most basic inconvenience of all. WHY IN THE HELL CAN I NOT ASSIGN THE GRENADE TOSS TO MY MOUSE BUTTONS? I have 4 extra buttons on my mouse that i can assign damn near anything to and i can not assign grenade toss to it? I HAVE TO HIT G AND THEN LEFT CLICK? having C4 and grenades available on the scroll wheel screwed me over more times than i can count.

As far as multiplayer goes? I haven't bothered to play it yet. I don't have any particular urge at the moment given how bored i am with online gaming in general. I am mainly an RPG guy ( god i hope they do not screw up Skyrim). The only FPS multiplayer that i enjoy in Bad Company 2's mainly because it was beautifully executed but has now grown stale.


My final thoughts/TL;DR?

A visually decent game with very fun gameplay mechanics. That aside it is nowhere near the groundbreaking revolutionary game we were expecting it to be and it is painfully clear that it was slightly polished port from the console versions. Crysis 1 was not much of an innovator either, however it took an interesting twist on the FPS genre. Crysis 2 has continued this tradition. However i feel the game could have been much better.

I think that Crysis 2 is much better then Crysis 1!

I think their on pair with eachother,since both have bad and good things.

I concur with these generally neutral sentiments.

the voice acting in both svckED! i just play just to kill things and because of sandbox but that was crysis 1. sense crysis 2 is by no means sandbox, i just play it once and expect the same thing over and over again. Sense the visuals are not grabbing my attention in the game, acting svcks, predictable story, and linear gameplay, i got tired of the game fast.

You say that the story is 800x times better than Crysis, then give no further explanation for that other than the fact that you find the aliens more intimidating? That's not really an element of story, more of art design. Of course, you're entitled to your opinion, but I personally can't imagine how anyone could think the bloated, generic sci-fi dreck that is Crysis 2 is a good story. Not only is it yet another linear, console-ish post-apocalyptic alien shooter, the plot is needlessly complicated to the point of convolution, and it shamelessly abandons every precedent set by the original - for which we have two conflicting justifications: A) "It's a re-boot of the series" and B) "You have to read the companion 'novel' to bridge the gap."

Well, if it's a re-boot, a re-make, a re-imagining of the original Crysis universe, then that svcks because Crytek trashed some really great, already-developed characters in favor of an utterly forgettable, nameless, faceless "Space Marine" grunt, and beyond that, you don't leave your audience with a massive cliffhanger only to never resolve or even mention it in the sequel. That's just bad form. And as for justification B, if we're expected to read some poorly written piece of fan-fiction that doesn't even come with the ($60) game to fill the many plot holes, well then I call that an indication of poor script-writing, as well as an affront to the people who paid good money for what they thought was a finished product. A shameless cash-grab.

Crysis may not have been an innovation in story-telling, but the plot was engaging because of the way the story unfolded and because of the unique atmosphere - not this Michael-Bay-bombast-explosion-in-your-face-every-five-minutes-high-octane-slop that is clearly aimed at short attention spans. Crysis was slow to unfold, but the gradual build-up, the heightening atmosphere of uncertainty, encouraged the player to think about what is going on around him(or her, maybe) rather than just use WASD to crawl from one explosion to the next.

To me, it's clear that Crysis was aimed at a more advlt audience and Crysis 2 is aimed at the console market, which is largely comprised of teenagers. No offense to teenagers, I was one once and I distinctly remember going to see Independence Day in theaters and loving it. I just feel like they have enough Halo clones already, and Crytek should have left Crysis the way it was.

for me, Crysis 1 is clearly better. i haet consolitis. i can smell it from a million miles... and it is smelly