» Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:59 am First off my name is Chandler, yes I'm using my real name to hopefully add a level of personal connection with this posting instead of just a anonymous username. Let's get started. (Please note that these things have only been noticed in the first couple levels of the game. I'm also going to try to stay in the middle here because I read too many posts that get way out of hand quickly.)
This invariably needs to be compared to Crysis 1 because that was the beginning and the mold of which this was supposed to follow.
Crysis 1:
DX10 support! The scaled differences in the settings was impressive to say the least. When I finally got it working with my 2 8800GT's in SLI it was a thing of beauty.
Save games could be done by quick save or esc and name a save point.
x64 bit support
Great lighting effects, trees cracked and splintered (small ones anyway), you could interact with everything! pick up a branch, pick up a rock, a bird, a tortise, the game world felt real and ALIVE!
Suit modes: I loved switching between speed mode, stealth, strength and armor. Why? because each had such character! speed mode boosted your normal walking speed, sprinting felt like you were the FLASH. Armor was just ok, you felt like you could absorb a lot but nothing too extraordinary there. Strength! Who doesn't want to be IRON MAN/The HULK? bare knuckle punch down a wall! grab a guy and throw him 50 feet or more! hurl a barrel with regular strength or upgrade to pulverise your enemy. Speed worked too, it just threw it at a faster speed. Strength also helped your scope bobbing and laying prone practically eliminated it with strength on. So sit back 1/4 mile and light em up!
You could throw grenades also by the push of a button and not have to explicitly switch to them. strength and speed affected how they were thrown too!
I would just have liked a better suit customization option where you could give a key binding to each suit mode! Then you could use, in my case, the FANG gamepad to place the functions close together and get the needed results like sprint and power jump or just fast cycling between modes. that was my biggest gripe, hard to switch seemlessly between modes unless you got really good and quickly hitting the middle mouse button and twitching your wrist to the right sector.
The weapon customization was awesome and is still about the same in the new game, so doesn't need much critiquing.
Crysis 2:
DX9???! There is enough out there about this now so I'm not even going there, but it should have DX11
Save checkpoints as opposed to save whenever the hell you want! This one really aggravates me, because you could just get done with some group and then a straggler or something blind sides you and bam! start over from the beginning! Also I tried to load a save point and it wouldn't even load it! So that needs fixed!
no 64 bit support?
SLI support seems to be iffy. I have my 2 8800GT's like I said earlier and they run crysis 1 at max settings. Crysis 2 it over heats it and it doesn't seem to be that extremely graphics intensive. Maybe that's Nvidia's problem. Funny enough I took them out of SLI mode, run one card, the other is doing physx or maybe I turned that to the CPU and it runs better!?? Doesn't overheat and give me a blank screen like before.
The lighting effects are about the same. The sun rays are still there, but it's hard for me to tell how different they are. The big thing I notice is pop in, was that due to the console nature and having to shorten the draw distance? Couldn't there have been and option in the graphics menu to change these things, just like there was in the first game and every other PC game before 2008? Nope, no options, just high, very high, and extreme. At least in the first game I knew what that meant in terms of textures, objects, particles, lighting, etc. because I could individually lower them and see what the effect was in game! One thing I did notice is the background image they use for their mirroring effects don't reflect the actual gameworld, it's just an image that's perspective moves! examples are in the reply.
I stood facing a door or a building standing on a curb and the image I saw at first looked good until turning around and further anolysis. The concept works for when you're looking high up at a building but don't put it down on ground level, it just look gaudy.
It's so hard to tell graphics wise what's going on under the hood because there aren't any options!
I know that New York is dying, but there is like no other things that make this world feel slightly alive. Aren't there any stragglers, other than those infected, who maybe trying to run away or are holed up in their place? Shouldn't we see the CELL pulling people out of their homes? Maybe this happens later on in the game. I'll just have to keep playing. It just doesn't seem as alive. It still is plenty interactive but I haven't shot a tree that has come down yet. I see some lying on the ground, but I can't shoot it into individual pieces anymore like I used to.
Suit modes: SIGH, well this one has it's goods and bads. I'm not a game programmer but I am a programmer to some degree, having experience in C++, Java, MATLAB, etc. In the first game you have 4 suit modes to switch between, here you effectively have the same except they're integrated. My first hang up as with many others, in Strength mode if you wanted to jump you lept upwards like an Olympic High Jumper, here you charge up and then spring. But it doesn't seem to be as strong. I could leap like two stories it felt like in the first one. Now it's only a story and a half. You could go around hills and jump your way up the rocks to assault them undetected. I can't even go around a building or up a couple levels. If you wanted vertical gameplay, make the buildings in the area accessible and glass breakable, I could them jump from one building to the next using your speed strength mode and really be a predator, but I'm confined to one to two levels up or in the sewers but when I envisioned them talking about this I really wanted to be able to utilize the buildings like you would in real life! The first one had big open warehouses and buildings with stairs and he would actually use the ladders! It's just disappointing. I understand from some aspects what you're limited too and to keep the environment fun and engaging.
I do like the sliding and firing or the sliding and kick, hold for power kick, although I haven't used it yet. I like the power kicking cars into things or busting open doors. (necessary to get some of the collectibles) I just wish you had the option like in the first to actually select power, speed, etc. Keep it like it is for consoles, they don't have enough buttons to handle it, for PC however give us options! I love options!
