Almost 3 years ago, a game that would push PC hardware to extents never before

was released. Many observed the spec requirements and looked at their PC in shame. The lucky few that did get to play it often thought "graphics" when Crysis was brought up. Hell, the leading factor for me to put money down on Crysis was the graphics only a rare few get to see (and a sweet deal from Steam!). But what about the game itself potential buyers thought? Are graphics the only thing Crysis is good at? I thought the same questions as I loaded up Crysis for the first time. I went in thinking this will only be a glorified tech demo. Boy was I wrong.

 

 

 

You play as Nomad, a super soldier in the US Marines of the future. Your mission is to explore and retrieve a group of scientists off a North Korean island. Along the way, you discover that you have a much greater enemy than the Koreans.

 

You have many skills and advantages due to your nano-suit which basically transforms you into a kick-ass fighter. Your nano-suit powers aren't that original, but it's safe to say no other FPS before had put all these powers together for you to experiment. Your energy meter above your health meter allows for you to use your powers. Once it goes down to 0, you have to wait until it recharges. You have your basic mode, armor mode, which allows your energy meter to take some of the damage that your health meter would take otherwise. Then you have strength mode, used for jumping extreme heights or throwing enemies far away. You also have the speed mode and invisible mode at your disposal. Speed mode allows Nomad to sprint and run faster than ever. Invisible mode is self explanatory, turn invisible to steer clear of enemies.

 

 

Sure, the powers sound cool and mixing them looks like a lot of fun, but that's where Crysis bears its flaw. Yes, I did have a lot of fun turning invisible when an enemy jeep saw me and crawling a vantage point to finish it off, but that's mainly the entire game. There are certain times when Crytek makes the player use his other powers such as putting high obstacles and telling us to jump over it using super strength but I didn't use it that much after the tutorial. I see where Crytek wants to go with it, and I'm sure they'll make improvements in time for Crysis 2. I would have liked areas where stealth was extremely favorable and not using it would lead to certain disadvantages. But this was not the case and I used armor mode 65% of the time, invisible mode about 20% of the time and speed to get around.