In anticipation of Crysis 2, I recently started another playthrough the original Crysis on delta difficulty. This is probably my 9th or 10th playthrough of Crysis, and yet again it delivers a little bit different experience than I've had previously, and surprises me with new situations and outcomes as I experiment with different tactics. That's the beauty of Crysis, the open feel encourages experimentation and the phenomenal AI always keeps you on your toes, making each replay fresh and fun.

As I played several things occured to me regarding the improvements and possible pitfalls i expect in Crysis 2. I'm curious to see what things other people are worried/excited about and who agrees with this stuff. Maybe Crytek will even read this, and take a little feedback to improve an already awesome-looking game...

Ledge Grab: This is Brilliant! Looks like this will add a whole new meaning to mobility *Crytek: Please patch Crysis 1 to add this feature right now.

Nanosuit modification: Again, something I yearned for in the original Crysis. Though it delivers miles of beautiful island to explore, there's often no motivation to thoroughly search every nook and cranny and fully appreciate all of that detail. I hope that harvesting nano-juice or whatever and looking for new mods gives us reason to scour new-york so that we don't miss out on anything, the way other rpg-type games like Fallout 3 and borderlands pull off.

Punching down walls with your fists, until the entire building collapses: Man, this never gets old. Crysis achieves an interactivity during a firefight like few other games. Ferns and branches snap and bend as Koreans prowl through, bullets and grenades send grass and leaves whipping around and knock down trees, and of course most of the structures are completely demolishable. I really hope that the move to concrete skyrises in crysis 2 is compensated for by plenty of interactive destruction. From what I've seen, the extent of this is kicking taxis around, which doesn't quite measure up with the level of crysis 1. Hopefully I'm pleasantly surprised.

Bipedal Aliens: Crysis 1 really shines when your being hunted by a patrol of Koreans and forced to put all of your nanosuit powers to the test in order to evade and quietly take them down. Crysis 1 drops the ball once the aliens show up. For some reason the "advanced" alien weaponry does way less damage than the korean's machine guns, and they just mill around waiting to be blasted. Warhead made a huge improvement in the alien-fighting department, but the new crysis 2 aliens look even better, so hopefully the game stays strong once they start to show up.

"Action Bubbles": I was a little sad to hear that the sandbox-style openness was being scaled down. But thinking about Crysis 1, one of my favorite parts is when your confined to a long skinny canyon with multiple enemy patrols sweeping down it. Though this is probably the most confined of the Crysis levels, it also forces you to engage and/or evade all the patrols and you can get surrounded and trapped if you don't keep a level head and stay moving. I hope they pull this same awesomeness off in Crysis 2 over and over.
That said, another of my favorites is the tank level, which is MASSIVE. Don't think we'll be seeing that scale in New York this time around...

Longevity: I hope it's really long!

Lackluster multiplayer on xbox: What? The controls are clunky? Well this game should be played with a mouse and keyboard anyway. Besides, singleplayer is really where it's at for me, so I'm not too concerned.

"Press left trigger to crawl": After seeing this "quick-time" event or whatever you wanna call it at the end of Gamespot's "now playing" video, I couldn't help but feel let down. How on earth does adding these stupid push-a-button queue's add to the immersion in the game? It does not, and it can hardly be considered gameplay. Just finish the cutscene, and then let me have the reigns, I see the addition of button queue events as a step backwards.

Previews written by people who haven't played Crysis 1: I'm so sick of reading preview after preview on "professional" game sites written by people who say "my computer wasn't good enough, so I never played Crysis..." (Read: I only own an xbox) Also, Crysis is NOT a halo clone! You guys can go ahead and compare it to halo and COD, but how does it match up with the original is what I want to know!

Partial Nudity: I don't really understand the trade-off of limiting your audience so you can add nudity and a slew of f-bombs. In my opinion these features don't add anything to the experience, and I wish there was a language filter like there is a blood toggle. When I play Crysis warhead, I don't even turn the sound on anymore because of the obnoxious and incessant f-word laden radio pvssyr from that pilot guy which has nothing to do with the mission or story, he's usually just arguing with some other disembodied radio-person.

Okay well that's all I can think of for now. I'm really excited to play this game, please support crytek by actually PURCHASING it... They're one of the only developers left who hasn't given PC-gamers the shaft even though so many PC people have shafted them by pirating their software.

The partial nudity is probably going to be in the form of an advlt bookstore. Which will contain beer, aliens and some hidden strippers in the back.

"Press left trigger to crawl": After seeing this "quick-time" event or whatever you wanna call it at the end of Gamespot's "now playing" video, I couldn't help but feel let down. How on earth does adding these stupid push-a-button queue's add to the immersion in the game? It does not, and it can hardly be considered gameplay. Just finish the cutscene, and then let me have the reigns, I see the addition of button queue events as a step backwards.

They are called 'quick time events' and I dont like them either.

I see the partial nudity thing as a good way to prevents parents to buy the game to their less than 17yr kids. In an other way, the multiplayer character that say s*** when he dies isnt really necessary, players can swear themselve over the VoiP

It'll be different. I liked Crysis, and I like what I've seen of Crysis 2. I don't really mind if the two are terribly different (besides, the first one had its flaws...).

I also can't stand quick time events, and I hope that Crysis 2 features a lot of destructability like the first one offered.

I agree 100% with your points.

This whole "partial nudity" thing has been causing quite a stir in the community, frankly I think it's unnecessary since the only reason the statement is applied to Crysis 2 is because it has a mature rating. I think you're all reading into it a bit too much when it will probably be a poster in the game that nobody notices. I mean come on, this is Crysis we're talking about.

This whole "partial nudity" thing has been causing quite a stir in the community, frankly I think it's unnecessary since the only reason the statement is applied to Crysis 2 is because it has a mature rating. I think you're all reading into it a bit too much when it will probably be a poster in the game that nobody notices. I mean come on, this is Crysis we're talking about.


Chances are its just going to be a random wardrobe malfunction. That or they are actually showing alien physiology to the point where you can tell if they are male or female.
Which would be a twist. Or maybe the partial nudity is where one of the C.E.L.L. guys are taking a leak into the Hudson. Like the "Heavy Dude" who was taking a leak on the dock in Crysis.

"More Heavy Dudes over here"

Haha.. That guy cracks me up.
If I recall correctly wasn't it Cevat who called them Heavy Dudes at E3 when they showed off the first concept of Crysis?
Back when there was a little more blood?

It doesn't bother me. I've played many games with that and although it's a not a huge immersion factor I like how it gives the story more to work with.

For example, let's just say you were on scaffolding and the cord holding it up starts to break. You now have to grab on to a window ledge before it comes crashing down. That brings a ton of action to an already shaky situation. I like how it can bring in new elements without going into a cut scene that can feel disconnected.

my random guess on partial nudity - when they strip Alcatraz to put him into the nanosuit...

and the crawl thing the OP mentioned.. i don't like those "key presses", to make it worse that reminded me of another CoD reference, MW2 ice climbing section

Edit : after reading Aegis's post below, i am changing QTE to key presses

THEY'RE NOT ACTUAL QUICKTIME EVENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!112345
You're given UNLIMITED time to press the key. It's IMPOSSIBLE to fail. You CAN'T fail. If you DO fail, then you svck AT ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. I'm not saying "har har, if you can't react within 1 second you suxxx, noob." What I'm saying is IF YOU CAN'T REACT WITHIN AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF TIME YOU CAN'T EVEN FUNCTION AS A PERSON AND SHOULD JUST STOP.
It's there for immersion, and it WORKS. Instead of leaning back and watching a cutscene, you still have a tiny degree of control.

The first "quicktime event" of Crysis 2 is very, very, very, very, very, VERY awesome. It completely immerses you in the game.

Also, Crysis 1 had "action bubbles". It was based completely off action bubbles.

THEY'RE NOT ACTUAL QUICKTIME EVENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!112345
You're given UNLIMITED time to press the key. It's IMPOSSIBLE to fail. You CAN'T fail. If you DO fail, then you svck AT ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. I'm not saying "har har, if you can't react within 1 second you suxxx, noob." What I'm saying is IF YOU CAN'T REACT WITHIN AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF TIME YOU CAN'T EVEN FUNCTION AS A PERSON AND SHOULD JUST STOP.
It's there for immersion, and it WORKS. Instead of leaning back and watching a cutscene, you still have a tiny degree of control.

The first "quicktime event" of Crysis 2 is very, very, very, very, very, VERY awesome. It completely immerses you in the game.

Also, Crysis 1 had "action bubbles". It was based completely off action bubbles.

This my friends in the type of person quick time events appeal to.

Nice post, although I don't find myself agreeing with all of it. I fail to see why you would need to have played Crysis 1 in order to write a preview on Crysis 2. Sure, you won't appreciate details of the story or intrinsic parts of gameplay that are 'unique' to the franchise, but for the majority of their audience, the main concern is gameplay; which is something they will be able to do adequately, having played a ****-tonne of games.

It's similar to the 'weight' of Killzone controls, which is described my most simply as 'controller lag'. For the hardcoe audience, this was a liked feature and they miss it since it has been toned down. However, unfortunately for them, the hardcoe community don't make up the majority of sales figures.

You can't compare C2 to C1 if you haven't played C1.

Who needs to do that though? Comparisons are overrated and don't mean anything to the wider console audience who have never played C1.

The gameplay should always take prominence over nostalgia.

Yeah, except when you end up with situations like C&C4. "Improvements" sometimes just aren't needed.

MMAMIckey you're point is good, this time around it makes sense to try and expand the audience as much as possible, which definitely means going beyond the fanbase of the original. However, this shouldn't be at the expense of people who are big C1 fans, so sites like pc-gamer and ign or gamespot that have pc-specific sections shouldn't have a problem making that comparison.
Either way, gameplay is the bottom line as you said and I completely agree with that!

This my friends in the type of person quick time events appeal to.

LOL! thank you!

That's the beauty of Crysis, the open feel encourages experimentation and the phenomenal AI always keeps you on your toes, making each replay fresh and fun..
The first time playthrough of Crysis is interesting and fun but after that the AI are predictable and often always in the same place, so the outcome is often the same. I like the way the korean flank YOU the player in-game but that is about the best artificial intelligence you get to see imho. Maybe Crysis 2 will improve on the enemy A.I?, but very difficult to program/code to look natural and convincing in computer artificial intelligent driven games.

The first time playthrough of Crysis is interesting and fun but after that the AI are predictable and often always in the same place, so the outcome is often the same. I like the way the korean flank YOU the player in-game but that is about the best artificial intelligence you get to see imho. Maybe Crysis 2 will improve on the enemy A.I?, but very difficult to program/code to look natural and convincing in computer artificial intelligent driven games.

I've seen the AI form a loose formation and sweep toward the last location you revealed yourself to flush you out. They scatter out of the way when you charge with speed mode or chuck a grenade, and then regroup and focus fire at you once you're surrounded, chuck grenades over huge rocks and stumps when you try to camp there for too long, call reinforcements with a flare gun when you make too much racket. The AI is by no means perfect, but I've played enough fps games to say that it is very impressive especially compared with every COD game.

Anything can have better AI than CoD games, because CoD games are practically interactive movies.

Yeah, except when you end up with situations like C&C4. "Improvements" sometimes just aren't needed.

OMG C&C4, they Uber failed on this one ! came from the 3 that is near perfect, and then you have the 4, i just can't find any word to describe how bad the game is.

Great writeup, Natemare. I'm still playing Crysis, and have enjoyed adding in the latest high-res nanosuit mods and using the 3rd person mod out there to check out the suit while playing. I'm with you on your points there, including the excess of obscenities. It's not good business sense to drive off paying customers with that kind of thing. Especially since the gaming industry is so profit driven now, Crytek it would be foolish to lose that potential money because of course who is going to love awesome tech suits as much as a kid? Think Star Wars Crytek.

That's hilarious. You want to turn Crysis into a T-rated game?
I have to wonder just how horrible your life must be that you're offended by blood and cursing. Tell me, do you also take Jack Thompson seriously?

The partial nudity is probably going to be in the form of an advlt bookstore. Which will contain beer, aliens and some hidden strippers in the back.

*Shake it baby!*