There's always a Crysis

Crysis, and Crysis Warhead were primarily known for their system crushing requirements for PC at the time. Even now they are still used for benchmarking machines, and were primarily built for the enthusiast market. They never made it to console.

Their newest sequel however is taking an entirely different turn though.

Crysis 2 is available for X360 and PS3 as well as PC. I mention PC last, because most likely, even though this game has a new Engine for system scalability, it was probably developed with consoles in mind. I mention that mostly for the single player story though, where unlike the original games, the size of the level and the freedom to approach a situation seem severly restricted.

Don't get me wrong, the tools are still at hand, and this time, you can even purchase upgrades on the suit throughout the game, but the levels themselves feel smaller and more confined than the open island terrain of the original two. Its like they built a world the first time and told you to go though it however you like, whereas this time, they show you a world with a path through it. A decent sized path, but ultimately a path that feels like everyone will have the same experience on.

Storywise, the game seems tighter, not veering from super suit vs soldier, to suit vs suit and finally to suit vs alien, this time you know the alien threat is there and coming, and your suit is the best tool you have. I don't know if they checked some concepts, but unless some explanations come up, it also feels like there are a couple of Delta Operators who should be helping out (the guys from the first games).

I can also point out that the game looks beautiful, and while I understand it is not taking advantage of the DX11, the engine scales very well to your hardware for fantastic performance. I've just using a Q6600 and an Nvidia GTS450, but I can run the game at 1920x with very high settings (the next setting up and highest is extreme). The popular Nvidia challenge for having a $600 machine that can run Crysis is almost a non thought here, since it seems Crytek made a huge effort to make sure it's as available to as many people as possible.

If you liked the first game, I can recommend this one. There's nothing quite as satisfying as sniping in the open when your cover is invisibility. It's like all the fun of being a predator without Arnold trying to kill you.