» Thu Sep 30, 2010 6:12 am Best graphics and environment. The tropical and open environment really get to show off the graphics quality. Water, grass, trees are like OMFG. And there's a lot more psychic-enablef objects to play with than in Crysis 2. Crysis also has quite a lot very nice and detailed textures. The drawing-distance in Crysis 1 seems to be far better than in Crysis 2. You can even see a lot of trees on the mountains far far away from where you are.
The story might be a little disoriented, but it still gave me the chills, and kept me going on all the time. I was really excited about the fate of the protagonist, Nomad, and the rest of the squad along with the continueing revealing of the aliens and their tech.
I didn't really enjoy the multiplayer in Crysis 1, it's nice in it's own way, but it kinda gets boring after a while IMO. The maps are way too big, so it takes very long time to get from a place to another. And way you managed weapons and such was a little bit... ummm bad. But it was certainly exciting in the beginning.
Crysis 2
It still has quite good graphics, but it somewhat feels a little downgraded and incomplete. Open environment with exploration was one of the major things that made Crysis what is was. I also miss all the psyshic-enabled objects. There's a few in Crysis 2, but Crysis 1 had A LOT more; many barrels, you could break every tree, drive trough houses or punch the walls down etc. But there was a few amazing scenes; the bridge collapse scenes, tsunami, helix crash, out-of-window sequence and central park event.
But to review Crysis 2 for what it is, and not what it's not, I'll state these things:
The story in Crysis 2 is really nice. It seems well planed, and although I miss the open environment in Crysis 1, the choregraphed sanbox (Open-linear-hybrid, although mostly linear) makes the story progression quite better. There's more story events and scenes and the story just seems more solid. It gave me chills thourough the whole story, and I'm considering to replay again soon, when I have time. By the way, I don't understand why they removed quick-save. That's just stupid. And the check-point system doesn't work well because they are too rare, so if you die, you are pushed back a lot and it's just annoying that you have to re-kill 15-20 enemies, especially if you've been playing on hard difficulty or if you just long time and approached them with stealth.
I like the multiplayer in Crysis 2. It is, with no excuse, similar to the Call of Duty's franchise style, but that doesn't really matter. When rating games, I don't compare to other games, I rate the games for what they are. Crysis 2 is more than CoD style. It involves alot more adaption and strategy, plus even more customization (suit stuff). It has nice game modes, some which are quite original. And the maps are quite varying and decent, with good vertical play which opens up a new deph of strategy.
The game was launched with heavenly amounts of bugs, which is just sad. Although I have not had any problems logging into multiplayer and play, I haven't received my limited edition bonuses and I've experienced a few minor bugs that was a little irritating.
SUMMARY
Crysis 2 is a very good game, but it lacks quite much stuff. It really feels the game is kind of a downgrade from Crysis 1. That happens. I've seen it happen to other game series too. I understand that Crytek wanted to move the franchise in a new and fresh direction, being New York city, and urban enviroment, but I really think that wasn't too good. It just doesn't fit to the Crysis arc. I really hope any future Crysis games will return the franchise to the open and tropical enviroment, for that my ladies and gentlemen, is Crysis at it's best!
