So I played the Crysis 2 MP demo and also bought the game (for under 30$ brand new hehe) 2 days ago and wanted to share my thoughts on the situation and give my review of Crytek and Crysis 2. Feel free to comment but try to keep things constructive rather than belligerent.

Anyways, in an attempt to give my views some context, I have been playing games since the SNES/Genesis until now and really got into PC games right around the release of Half Life. I used to play games quite a bit but tend to moderate my time more strictly since I am very busy. For the past few years, I have limited my game purchases to ~5 games per year. This is actually quite a bit since I feel the gaming industry is going through tough times and developers are not innovating like they used to and big publishers tend to spend less and less money on new IPs (intellectual properties). So I am actually happy when a game flops because I don’t have to waste what little time I have playing it-because I tend to feel obligated to play a game I think is spectacular. I tend to have very high expectations so I don’t commit much time to many games.

An indication of my taste of games:
5 of my favorite games of all time (in no particular order):
-Chrono Trigger, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Half Life/Half Life 2, Battlefield 2, Oblivion
5 of my favorite multiplayer shooters: Call of Duty 1, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 1942, Team Fortress 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2

My views on CRYTEK-a Mid-Tier developer with room to grow

I would like to preface this by saying I am not an expert on the gaming industry. I am in Biotech/Pharma but do have a sufficient background in marketing and strategy. Nevertheless, I do read up on the gaming industry quite a bit and would say it is the industry I am most familiar with outside of my own industry.
I think Crytek are a competent group if we are referring to technical prowess. However, they have major flaws with regards to strategy, some of which have recently been addressed.

Far Cry 1 was a nice looking game-the jungle landscape looked nice. However, there was little variety in the landscape and the game had a horrendous story. As well, the multiplayer was awful. At the time, the competition was Doom3 and Half Life 2. Although much of the initial marketing and buzz was around their game engines, Valve proved to be the winner. The reason was because Valve’s engine was more scalable and they had tighter game mechanics and a compelling story line. Most importantly, the multiplayer was leagues more robust than what Doom3/FarCry could offer.

Crysis/Warhead
Very customizable engine-unfortunately, they alienated most non-enthusiasts by making a game very few people could run out of the gate. Even now, it is the primary benchmark used for videocard reviews. This was a grave mistake since the game was clearly a tech showcase to garner interest in their engine. Unfortunately, unlike other engines such as the Unreal Engine, it was not very scalable. The story was improved quite a bit but it still had significant issues with game mechanics and the multiplayer was fairly poor. They didn’t have as tight of a multiplayer as what you saw from Valve or DICE. Unfortunately, multiplayer was what brought the lasting appeal and sales. They were loved by enthusiasts boasting how awesome their rigs were but were ignored by everyone else. Strip away the nice god rays, awesome foliage, etc. and it was clear the game mechanics showed limited depth. The MOD community was robust but that doesn’t make money. Again, this was just another nice graphics showcase-and another jungle game to boot. It was as if they wanted to show people they could do foliage rendering like no other-unfortunately, no one cared. I am aware they also had awesome physics, particles, etc. but that doesn’t mean they get love across the board or much money for that matter. Also, since the game was mainly relevant as a benchmarking tool and there was little interest in the multiplayer, the game was HEAVILY pirated. Furthermore, PC gamers make up a small fraction of total gaming revenue. Monetarily, this was a horrible idea-especially in an age where a few blockbuster games take the lion’s share of revenue and most other games do poorly.

Crytek’s Position and Needs

Electronic Arts owns the publishing rights to Crysis 2 and is a publicly traded company. This should tell people a lot.

There NUMBER 1 legal responsibility is to maximize shareholder value.

This means increasing share prices and not losing investor interest to rivals like Activision. You rarely do this by making a game for just the PC.

So from a monetary perspective, they would be stupid not to focus most of their efforts for this game on the consoles because it will probably garner a better return on investment.

When it comes to cutting corners when designing a game, the company considers the impact to their bottom line. If they feel they can cut certain corners without much consequence, what reason would they have not to-at least in the short term? However, in the long run, this can alienate your base-the hardcoe fans. This is particularly problematic since the diehard fans are essentially a pool of free marketing. If you alienate your base, it can lead to negative marketing. This may be the long-term story for Crytek. As of right now, Crysis 2 is topping worldwide sales-mainly due to console sales, although this is a pretty slow time of the year as far as game sales are concerned.

OVERALL, they have technical prowess but lack the depth to make a game with lasting appeal and tight multiplayer game mechanics. As well, as I will explain, Crysis 2 was not the most elegant multiplatform release. They need to take a page from Valve, DICE, and even the former Infinity Ward on how to release multiplatform games w/o alienating the base.

Crytek are definitely not in the same league as other developers like Bioware, Bethesda, DICE, and Valve. However, they are young and I hope they learn their lesson.

NEXT, I will give my REVIEW/thoughts on Crysis 2.

MULTIPLAYER

Note that I am all about teamwork and playing a role in multiplayer. I want some degree of teamwork and common goal-setting that is not superficial-which is why I like games like the battlefield series and team fortress 2.

Firstly, the controls feel sort of rounded-out and not very sharp. It has nothing to do with framerate since my framerates are consistently over 40fps and I have tried it on multiple rigs. The same problem was experienced with Crysis 1 so no surprise.
People seem to be concerned to much with their own stats and perks and are not very invested in the teamwork aspect of the game. Outside of simple changes like the use of weapons (shotgun vs. sniper) and modifications, there is very little in the way of differentiation in terms of the role one plays.

The MAPS are uninspiring for the most part. When designing the maps, they rehashed too much material from the singleplayer. The real problem with the maps, however, is the lack of practicality with regards to how it affects strategy and gameplay. Consideration should be given to advantageous positions, choke points, flanking, etc. However, except for a few maps like Skyline, I don’t see much attention to such details. Too often, there are clearly advantageous spots that have little or no flaws. As well, the maps make it very difficult at times to take your blindspots into consideration. You can rarely account for who is behind you, beside you, etc. This is especially troubling considering the lack of teamwork. I simply hug the corners of walls and run from spot to spot cloaked and take out stragglers and that has worked well so far but it is unfortunate I have to resort to this strategy so often. As well, the maps seem rather dull and not very complex. The geometry is lacking and there was not much attention to detail.

Balancing is also a serious issue but this was addressed by the community so I won’t bother. Hopefully, this can be addressed via patches.

On a side note, this may be a pet peeve but I find the whole air-stomp and sliding abilities slightly moronic.

Technical Issues.

The choice of using Gamespy was hilarious. Gamespy is simply horrible. There are too many bugs and issues with connections. The latency is just horrible. Too often I get killed by someone I knew I should have killed. The replay indicated I was shooting to the person’s side rather than at the person. These obvious issues with latency are troublesome and should have been addressed prior to release. The hitboxes are also fairly inaccurate-although that doesn’t even matter considering the poor latency. There clearly isn’t much difference when considering shots to the feet vs shots to the chest or torso. Damage is not head vs. the rest of the body-differences in region need to be taken into account. The lobby system is also buggy. Also, there are too many issues with hackers and piracy. These issues are too paramount to be waved away as mere issues expected during release.


GRAPHICS

I will start off by saying DX11 should be a minor concern in comparison to some more pressing issues. I would rather Crytek release DX11 support after fixing issues with balancing, hackers, latency, and general bugginess.

In addition, DX11 support won’t magically make this game look spectacular-although it already looks very good. I would much rather have higher resolution textures. Again, this is not a pressing concern when one considers more relevant issues regarding game mechanics.
I also do not understand why they did not add an interface to modify graphics settings than can be modified through console or a .cfg file. Common sense settings like contrast adjustment would have also helped.

The Importance of Proper BETA testing

Had Crytek released an OPEN multiplayer BETA many months before release, they could have had many of these issues fixed. As well, they could have released a second multiplayer demo a month before release in order to showcase improvements they have made since the BETA to illustrate commitment to their fans.

Cultivating a robust online community
Crytek needs serious help when it comes to PR. There is not nearly enough interaction with the online community and it seems feedback is not taken seriously.

If you want an example of what I mean by proper dialogue with an online community, check out the battlefield bad company 2 forums. Or better yet, check out the Star Wars the Old Republic forums. The public have been engaged on an intimate level about almost every major development in the creation of the game and BIOWARE has a source of real-time feedback as a result. They have users asking almost every day when the open beta was released because the developers have gradually built up anticipation from the day the game was announced.

The Open Beta months ago point and the Gamespy being a joke part are too true.

Everything else in your post probably is true too, it was just too long for me 2 read atm :p