Yes! Finally!
Anyway...
I have been waiting for Crysis 2 for some time now, after playing the original Crysis on the PC I was always wandering what Crytek could achieve on consoles. For me, Crysis isn't about the game itself, I don't care about that, what I care about is the technical side of the game, the graphics and the engine.
When I first popped Crysis 2 into my XBOX 360 I was impressed with the graphics, I wasn't blown away like the original Crysis but the game was still pleasing to the eye. I was also impressed with the scale of the game and the environmental detail around New York city, but then I encountered my first issue. The framerate at certain points near the start of the game was hitting the low 20's and I found this fairly dissapointing. I adjusted to the controls fairly quickly and it wasn't long before I started to take advantage of the nanosuit capabilities. A few hours in I also noticed that a fairly decent plot was starting to develop, which isn't very common in the genre.
Roughly at the mid-point of the game I was very impressed, the gameplay didn't seem too bad at all, after buying Crysis 2 solely for the graphics, I was actually playing it through because it felt like a decent game. While I was dissapointed with the linearity of the game and the fact you couldn't free roam around New York, there was still freedom in the way you could scale buildings and structures so you can approach the enemies at any angle.
The graphics, however, had taken a turn for the worse, not on a technical level, but the general aesthetics of the game. After a few hours I began to develop eye strain. The main problem with Crysis 2's graphics is the blur, not only is the motion blur too heavy but even when you are standing still, it feels like you are looking at the game through a foggy window. This was made even worse by the fluctuating framerate, which was even more of a problem than it was near the start of the game. The HDR (lighting) and SSAO (shadowing) were too heavy, walking in and out of a shadow felt like stepping in and out of a cave, not only was this very unrealistic but the high contrast puts a lot of strain on the eye and distracts you from the gameplay. I can't count the number of times I was killed by an enemy because I couldn't see them, either because I was dissorientated or because the shadow detailing was weak.
The one reason why I bought this game was the one reason why I almost sold it...
As I progressed through the latter half of the game, the game slowly began to fall to pieces. The story wasn't being explained as well as the first half of the game and it wasn't long before I ignored the story completely. The gameplay became repetitive too, I just kept on repeating the same process of shooting aliens in the head from a long distance and moving through one part of the game to the next, the environments were starting to lose detail and imagination and I was slowly losing motivation to play the game.
Luckily, certain sections of the game kept my attention. There were many epic sequences, from the flood, to the night-time firefight in Times Square, to Central Park raising into the sky near the end. The sheer scale of these scenes began to show off how good CryEngine 3 was and it kept my attention right up until the end.
Although I was dissapointed with Crysis 2 overall, It was still a blast to play at times. The graphics and engine still impressed me, despite the poor aesthetics of the game at times.
(For those who are too lazy to read the whole review)
Positives
- The graphics and the engine are impressive.
- The gameplay can be surprisingly fun.
- Certain scenes are absolutely epic.
- The story is fairly decent.
- The nanosuit adds a lot of variety to the game.
- The game gives you many different options on how to approach the enemy.
- The game becomes progressively worse.
- The aesthetics of the game are very inconsistant.
- Environments start to lose detail and imagination at the mid-point of the game.
- Inconsistant frame rate.
- Gameplay can easily become repetitive.
- You cannot free roam through New York.
