Set in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan over-run by a military dictatorship
and a subsequent alien invasion, the game offers players a fairly
innovative premise in terms of presentation. Instead of merely offering
the usual mindless shooting, the game puts you in the center of a
government conspiracy with undercover and clandestine operations going on
surrounding your mission. You aren't precisely a government agent, but are
instead working for an underground group who is looking to unravel the
mystery surrounding the alien invasion. It unfolds slowly at first, with
the first few levels offering more of a training exercise than a real
game. Getting through the introductions and the game improves in a hurry.
The story and game picks up significant momentum once the alien invasion
of Manhattan begins in earnest. This is all presented to the player in a
series of cut-scenes between the action that sets up an interesting
backstory, introduces some engaging supporting characters and brings to
life some underlying motivations that make Crysis 2's storyline a bit more
interesting than the usual run and gun shooter. The production values in
these sequences are quite impressive, and the coherent narrative that runs
through the game is effective in keeping the player motivated throughout.
It's not all storyline and cinemas in
the game, because Crysis 2 delivers some fairly intense action sequences
that are both challenging and highly-polished. The game offers a good
balance between running and shooting, but there's much more to it than
that. While you're given a few super-human abilities and high-tech
hardware, your opponents significantly outnumber you which means you'll
need more than brute force to survive the battle. Learning to avoid
conflict, attacking quickly and getting out of the way of fire are the
keys to the game, and give Crysis 2 a surprising amount of depth and
strategy. Most of the levels are laid out before you in simple terms, with
a series of objectives to complete. You don't necessarily need to go in
the same path or a pre-ordained order, but it helps to come up with a plan
ahead of time. Enemy forces are seemingly everywhere, and learning where
they are and avoiding detection makes a huge difference. Trigger the
alarms in one, and reinforcements converge on your position almost
immediately. This means you'll need to find cover, but this can be
penetrated by stronger enemy fire and the intelligent AI means enemies
will quickly converge on your location if you stay there too long. Players
can also use nearby objects, such as gas cans which explode when hit to
take out enemies from a distance. While your opponents are fairly lethal
if you aren't careful, their sheer numbers means that they leave a lot of
supplies when you pick them off. You can use this to your advantage and
stock up on a number of weapons such as sniper rifles, machine guns and
other objects. This sounds fairly standard for the FPS genre, but Crysis
2's biggest selling point is that it makes the player themselves into a
weapon.
While the character codenamed Prophet is
the nominal focus of the game, Crysis 2's actually revolves around the
Nanosuit 2.0. This advanced piece of technology is a powerful body armored
suit gives you some incredible special abilities. You can use this as an
added advantage in your quest to survive the ordeal. As seen in the
opening moments of the game, its been foisted on you by an unknown
military organization and fused with your character's DNA. It works in
conjunction with your body to give you several superhuman abilities. One
of the coolest is the strength it gives you, which allows you to pick up
heavy objects, such as cars and throw them at enemies. This can be quite
effective in clearing out sections. However, these aren't used as much as
you'd like in the game. Foe the majority of the play in Crysis 2, the suit
serves two basic functions. These are enhanced armor, which protects you
from enemy bullets, giving you extra endurance during battles. The other
major function is the stealth ability that allows you to become invisible
for a short time. Both of these give you powerful weapons that you can use
to evade detection or last longer. However, using these drains your suit
energy, which is limited and not completely perfect. Using both at the
same time puts further pressure on your resources. Once your energy drops
too low, you cannot use these Nanosuit features, so you need to use them
wisely. You also can't act like you're invincible either. For example,
firing your gun while in stealth mode will immediately reveal your
location to nearby fors while the armor mode can survive standard blasts,
it doesn't offer much protection against massive explosions. These
abilities can be enhanced by gaining upgrades and other items later in the
game. When your Nanosuit runs low on energy, you can reboot your energy
level by taking a moment out of range and waiting for it to restore your
health. If you are knocked out and your energy is completely drained, you
can restart the level at the last saved location, which helps to keep your
progress fairly consistent. Save points are fairly frequent in Crysis 2,
so you won't get blown back too far in the single player campaign.
Most of the game takes place on foot as
you traverse the streets of Manhattan, decimated by a series of
devastating attacks that seem to have wiped out much of the civilian
population. Most of the action takes place in buildings and streets, where
you have to traverse through and find checkpoints and other objectives.
It's a fairly structured experience, though some areas provide you with
alternate routes such as subway tunnels or sewers that you can use to
evade detection. To keep things from getting a bit too repetitive, several
sequences allow you to take control of different vehicle types ranging
from tanks to police cars. This usually means you are facing off against
some heavy armor, and means you'll have to destroy them before they
unleash missiles on you as well. Surprisingly, these aren't as much fun as
you'd expect, probably because it feels like a comedown to merely control
a tank instead of having the abilities the suit provides. Most sections of
the single player game unfold at a fairly good pace, and since your next
objective and the distance to it are clearly labeled on the Nanosuit's
HUD, you never really feel lost or confused as to what to do next. The
game's level of difficulty depends on the level you select during the
game, and making progress depends mostly on your skill and endurance. Most
of the human military enemies you face put up a good fight, but the real
challenge comes when you face off against the alien foes, which are much
less predictable and more dangerous at close range. This makes them
particularly difficult to take on when they come at you in swarms. Crysis
2's solo campaign offers a consistently good amount of challenge and
offers some truly difficult gameplay on the higher settings, making for a
satisfying experience no matter your own skill level.
As stated earlier, the Crysis series has
its roots in the PC realm and while the console ports of the games aren't
ever going to be precise, the PS3 version at least does a decent job of
bringing this high-tech title to the masses mostly intact. The controls
are mapped to the standard Dual Shock effectively, with movement
controlled by the analog stick while the shift buttons control firing and
the use of the stealth/armor abilities. Players use the d-pad to configure
the Nanosuit on the fly which makes the interface feel nearly transparent
and quite simple to use after a shallow learning curve. The game loads
relatively quickly in most cases, making for a decent experience overall.
One aspect of the game most players will want to know about are the
visuals. Crysis 2's epic scale makes for a cinematic FPS experience that
rivals the best seen on PS3 to date, and is about on par with the likes of
Killzone 3, though the fact that it's rendering a real-world location
gives it a slight edge in terms of presentation and impact. The game's
detailed rendering of post-apocalyptic Manhattan is quite impressive. The
pacing is also well done, with starts and stops in the action that give
you breathing room, through never placing you too far away from some
intense action sequences.
In addition to the grind of regular
battles, there are some very cool set-pieces and dramatic boss
confrontations throughout the game which punch up Crysis 2. This lends
things an even more epic feel, which is enhanced by its hyper-realism,
giving players a strong sense of place and allowing them to immerse
themselves into the action almost immediately. You definitely feel like
you've been thrown in the middle of a war, with the city's towering
skyscrapers teetering on their edges while ominous wafts of smoke appear
everywhere. The game has a strong sense of itself and definitely makes you
feel like you're actually in New York City. Even ordinary objects such as
vehicles, road signs and street layouts appear authentic and show a great
attention to detail. An impressive array of visual effects such as
lighting and character animation appeared smooth throughout while the game
moved at a consistent frame rate. For the most part, the experience was
highly-polished. However, we experienced the occasional glitch with the
graphics which detracted from the overall feel slightly. The good news is
that the player will most likely come away extremely impressed by the
level of immersion Crysis 2 creates. It definitely forms an immediate and
somewhat sinister overtone right from the beginning, and this realism goes
a long way in making for a more believable gaming experience.
Between its superb visuals, which create
a breathtaking vista of a real city under siege, and its unique gameplay
features, highlighted by the powerful Nanosuit, Crysis 2 delivers a deep
and challenging FPS experience that brings some unique elements to the
table. It definitely has a layer of strategy in managing the Nanosuit's
upgrades and abilities, and there's some stealth action you'll need to
perform in certain sections. However, the game delivers some fairly
intense battle sequences as well, which require a great deal of skill and
fast reflexes in order to defeat. Its single player campaign unfolds at a
decent pace and offers some really interesting storylines and plot twists
to keep players interested and engaged in its narrative throughout. While
some concessions have been made in some relatively minor aspects, this is
still a very impressive technical achievement by any measure. Crysis 2 is
an excellent title in most aspects, and one that brings a largely
undiluted experience to mainstream consoles in spectacular fashion.
-
Michael Palisano
