Crysis 2 (doesn't seem to look bad as initial reviews claimed)

[Ferzerp]

As it's now back on Steam, sans SolidShield (aka Tages), I decided to pick it up. I remember on release complaints about how bad it looked, but it seems to look pretty nice to me. Or is that just from the changes that have been made since the original release (the new textures and DX11 patch)?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Crysis 2 got dumped on because of the over-inflated opinions of the original crysis that people had.

The only place crysis 2 is worse than crysis 1 is in level design. Gameplay, graphics, and art direction all improved. The story was better too.

I have high hopes for Crysis 3.

 

[Gordon Freemen]

First one looked better IMHO.

 

[dagamer34]

There's a lot of needless tessellation in Crysis 2, and the game doesn't really take full advantage of DX11 either: http://techreport.com/articles.x/21404

Simply put, it's a game that looks great on PC, but was still designed for consoles. However, people seem to have this silly infatuation with Crysis that I don't understand. It ran horribly on 2007 PCs at high settings, so that makes it a good game (or even a good benchmark)?

 

[Gordon Freemen]

There's a lot of needless tessellation in Crysis 2, and the game doesn't really take full advantage of DX11 either: http://techreport.com/articles.x/21404

Simply put, it's a game that looks great on PC, but was still designed for consoles. However, people seem to have this silly infatuation with Crysis that I don't understand. It ran horribly on 2007 PCs at high settings, so that makes it a good game (or even a good benchmark)?

I bought the 8800GTX 768mb on the day it launched $700 on the best, fastest and worlds first DX10 GPU in fact I pre ordered it just to make sure I could see DX10 Crysis in all it's glory then it realize a short time later that Crysis needed much much much more power than the fastest GPU on the planet 13fps max in Crysis and I was choked LOL.

 

[shortylickens]

I didnt think much of the game play in Crysis so I dont see any reason to buy a sequel.

 

[BrightCandle]

Crysis 2 was a corridor shooter where Crysis was open. But I think graphically once you install the high res texture pack and run the ultra mode it looks about as good as the original did. But you have to remember it didn't release like that, it released with much lower quality textures that looked much worse than the original Crysis.

 

[mwmorph]

Some personal screenshots from when it was first released, these were all on maximum settings:

Comparison Crysis 1 which came out 4 years before that:

The biggest issues at launch were IMO abysmal texture quality, extremely low polygon count on the geometry and the fact that Crysis was no longer Crysis, but Battlefield:Modern Near Future Warfare 2.

Crysis 1 was open world, my greatest memories in that game were being legitimately scared of helicopters and the Korean nano suits because thay could kick your ass in a second flat. Also, I had the choice of approaching a checkpoint at any angle and using the environment to my advantage. If I didn't like a particular approach, I could decide to go to a nearby cliff, go prone, snipe somebody on a mounted gun and then relocate. If things got too hairy, I always had the option of running into the water and swimming away until the alarms stopped going off and search parties were out of range. There was an actual challenge, not because like in Crysis 2, some enemies just took so many bullets to down but because the AI would actively work together and hunt you down. There were unscripted ambushes in the forests and t was unpredictable.

Admittedly the alien part of Crysis 1 was sort of shitty though. The Aliens just weren't fun, so what does Crytek do? Nothing but alien meat shields in Crysis 2. IMO, a FPS should not make it feel like you're shooting BBs at things. Challenge because it takes a full magazine to down something is not fun, it's just a shitty grind. Challenge because a squad of N. Koreans are flanking you while you're pinned down by a MG nest is interesting.

Crysis 2 in comparison was small and cramped. The horizontal area was not all that small, but you lost all freedom of movement. You couldn't have nearly as much freedom going up or down. The tactical visor thing was also a joke, it amounts to A) Shoot these guys from here or B) Shoot these guys with this other weapon over there every time, all the flexibility and actual gameplay went out the window. Also, everything was always scripted. You either almost always knew, were told about or could see enemies up ahead, or you ran into a scripted ambush.

Crysis 2 was a lot more action, but with almost none of the tactical gameplay I enjoyed so much, it is essentially Halo in NYC executed piss poorly.

 

[Ferzerp]

Crysis 1 was open world, my greatest memories in that game were being legitimately scared of helicopters and the Korean nano suits because thay could kick your ass in a second flat. Also, I had the choice of approaching a checkpoint at any angle and using the environment to my advantage. If I didn't like a particular approach, I could decide to go to a nearby cliff, go prone, snipe somebody on a mounted gun and then relocate. If things got too hairy, I always had the option of running into the water and swimming away until the alarms stopped going off and search parties were out of range.

Sounds like another lost sale to me because of DRM. Wow. People who are going to download it, get it anyway, and legitimate customers like me skip your product because it seems to think it needs to be able to install unneccesary always resident bits that have nothing to do with playing the game itself. Nice.

How have the companies that write this stuff (the DRM) managed to convince publishers that they're a good expense?

 

[-Slacker-]

Crysis 2 got dumped on because of the over-inflated opinions of the original crysis that people had.

As it should have been. If you're going to make a sequel, make sure it's better than it's predecessor. Or don't make it at all. Or make it but expect people to piss on it.

 

[shortylickens]

Oh and Far Cry 3 looks like it may not suck.

 

[SickBeast]

Oh and Far Cry 3 looks like it may not suck.

When is Far Cry 3 coming out?

*edit* nevermind - it's coming out in September.

Also I found this video:

http://ca.ign.com/videos/2011/06/06/e3-2011-far-cry-3-gameplay-demo

Graphically it looks like a souped up Crysis 1.

 

[gorcorps]

IMO most people weren't comparing vanilla to vanilla when talking Crysis 1 and 2. Everybody modded the first one to look awesome, but without mods it hasn't held up as much as people claim.

Crysis 2 was open enough to be better than other shooters, but you aren't as free as the original Crysis. Still... I finished Crysis 2 and did NOT care to finish Crysis 1, so take that as you want.

 

[Fire&Blood]

The biggest issues at launch were IMO abysmal texture quality, extremely low polygon count on the geometry and the fact that Crysis was no longer Crysis, but Battlefield:Modern Near Future Warfare 2.

Crysis 1 was open world, my greatest memories in that game were being legitimately scared of helicopters and the Korean nano suits because they could kick your ass in a second flat. Also, I had the choice of approaching a checkpoint at any angle and using the environment to my advantage. If I didn't like a particular approach, I could decide to go to a nearby cliff, go prone, snipe somebody on a mounted gun and then relocate. If things got too hairy, I always had the option of running into the water and swimming away until the alarms stopped going off and search parties were out of range. There was an actual challenge, not because like in Crysis 2, some enemies just took so many bullets to down but because the AI would actively work together and hunt you down. There were unscripted ambushes in the forests and t was unpredictable.

Admittedly the alien part of Crysis 1 was sort of shitty though. The Aliens just weren't fun, so what does Crytek do? Nothing but alien meat shields in Crysis 2. IMO, a FPS should not make it feel like you're shooting BBs at things. Challenge because it takes a full magazine to down something is not fun, it's just a shitty grind. Challenge because a squad of N. Koreans are flanking you while you're pinned down by a MG nest is interesting.

Crysis 2 in comparison was small and cramped. The horizontal area was not all that small, but you lost all freedom of movement. You couldn't have nearly as much freedom going up or down. The tactical visor thing was also a joke, it amounts to A) Shoot these guys from here or B) Shoot these guys with this other weapon over there every time, all the flexibility and actual gameplay went out the window. Also, everything was always scripted. You either almost always knew, were told about or could see enemies up ahead, or you ran into a scripted ambush.

Crysis 2 was a lot more action, but with almost none of the tactical gameplay I enjoyed so much, it is essentially Halo in NYC executed piss poorly.

Crysis 2 was the only Crytek game I haven't played so I bought it on Friday and finished it today, in 3 sittings total. Before I even tried it out, I installed the 1.9 patch, DX11 Ultra upgrade and the hi res texture pack. Maxed out the settings on my i5 2400, 8GB RAM and 5770 expecting a slide show, surprisingly it was playable enough to finish the single player campaign without lowering the settings.

Agree with all your points. Visually, it's a great looking game but not consistently, there are few things that look sub par.

Gameplay is worse than Crysis 1, even the old Far Cry may play better.
While COD games are "just" corridor shooters, they do a better job at it.
Crytek sucked at making this corridor shooter. To make matters worse, they give you uber abilities via nanosuit, which exposes the shortcomings even more. "Hmm, I can use my uber jump to get on that upper floor". Oh wait, the game doesn't want me up there even though I'm clearly able to jump high enough to reach it. At least the generic shooters don't even try to entertain the idea of jumping where you don't belong or open doors that you aren't supposed to open. I can't even count how many times I strayed off the path because I was misled by the suit abilities.

The AI was good though, something Crytek appears to have nailed down a long time ago. Soundtrack was cool and the voice acting was ok. The script was a mess though, kill marines/help marines deal weird, Hargreaves situation was lame. Aliens were annoying, especially the ones that drop 500 catalysts.
The whole deal with the prophet was a complete miss and the endgame video with Prophet only made it worse.

When Crysis 3 comes out, I'll likely buy that too but I'm preparing to disappointed.

 

[Ferzerp]

The AI was good though, something Crytek appears to have nailed down a long time ago.

I don't know that I would agree with you there.

"We got a man down!"
"Do a sector sweep"
"All clear"

Really? I just killed your buddy, and after one tiny sweep you're going to go back to normal?

It makes stealth kills with a silenced weapon laughably easy (until you can no longer one shot things).

 

[Red Storm]

Crisis 1 is still the best looking game ever released.

Crisis 2 was just another corridor shooter.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Crysis 2 was the only Crytek game I haven't played so I bought it on Friday and finished it today, in 3 sittings total. Before I even tried it out, I installed the 1.9 patch, DX11 Ultra upgrade and the hi res texture pack. Maxed out the settings on my i5 2400, 8GB RAM and 5770 expecting a slide show, surprisingly it was playable enough to finish the single player campaign without lowering the settings.

Agree with all your points. Visually, it's a great looking game but not consistently, there are few things that look sub par.

Gameplay is worse than Crysis 1, even the old Far Cry may play better.
While COD games are "just" corridor shooters, they do a better job at it.
Crytek sucked at making this corridor shooter. To make matters worse, they give you uber abilities via nanosuit, which exposes the shortcomings even more. "Hmm, I can use my uber jump to get on that upper floor". Oh wait, the game doesn't want me up there even though I'm clearly able to jump high enough to reach it. At least the generic shooters don't even try to entertain the idea of jumping where you don't belong or open doors that you aren't supposed to open. I can't even count how many times I strayed off the path because I was misled by the suit abilities.

The AI was good though, something Crytek appears to have nailed down a long time ago. Soundtrack was cool and the voice acting was ok. The script was a mess though, kill marines/help marines deal weird, Hargreaves situation was lame. Aliens were annoying, especially the ones that drop 500 catalysts.
The whole deal with the prophet was a complete miss and the endgame video with Prophet only made it worse.

When Crysis 3 comes out, I'll likely buy that too but I'm preparing to disappointed.

Not sure how you played Crysis 2 with HD textures and tesselation "maxed" out with a 5770. My 5870 got about 10 fps at 1920x1080 with everything cranked and a 2500k at 4.5ghz.

7970 runs it quite well though.

 

[BD231]

Crysis 1 was a sh tty game. It doesn't look nearly as good as people give it credit for and the effects/atmosphere/story were far better in Crysis 2.

 

[thetechfreak]

Crysis 2 gave me a headache. The starting levels with the objective of Finding Gould was bad IMHO.
Graphics, well they were good. But it's the story too which matters a lot. Felt the story was just a way for Crytek to get us ready for the multiplayer.

 

[Edge1]

This thread is a pretty good example of why I value this site, especially mwmorph's post. I now know I'm not interested in Crysis 2 and won't waste another second considering it.

 

[TechBoyJK]

This thread is a pretty good example of why I value this site, especially mwmorph's post. I now know I'm not interested in Crysis 2 and won't waste another second considering it.

It was a pretty good game, imho. Worth a play through, especially if you get a good deal on it.

 

[Veliko]

Crisis 1 is still the best looking game ever released.

Crisis 2 was just another corridor shooter.

I think the definition of 'corridor' is being stretched to the point of absurdity here.

Crysis was a great-looking, but average game.

Crysis 2 was a good-looking, but above-average game.

Linear/non-linear doesn't even come into it.

 

[Red Storm]

I think the definition of 'corridor' is being stretched to the point of absurdity here.

Crysis was a great-looking, but average game.

Crysis 2 was a good-looking, but above-average game.

Linear/non-linear doesn't even come into it.

Crysis 2 was more linear compared to the the original. Me and my brother both played through Crysis 1 and I watched him play all of Crysis 2 and we both agreed the first was better. Better graphics, better setting, more open (more freedom to approach things how you want and from where).

 

[Veliko]

Crysis 2 was more linear compared to the the original. Me and my brother both played through Crysis 1 and I watched him play all of Crysis 2 and we both agreed the first was better. Better graphics, better setting, more open (more freedom to approach things how you want and from where).

So you haven't actually played Crysis 2 yourself then?

'More linear' is not the same as 'corridor', and neither is it a sign of a game's quality.

 

[Red Storm]

So you haven't actually played Crysis 2 yourself then?

'More linear' is not the same as 'corridor', and neither is it a sign of a game's quality.

I sat and watched the entire play through. I was interested in the story but all the trailers and changes made me not want to actually play it.

It was more linear than the first, and played much more like a lot of the "corridor" shooters that are made today. It most definitely is a sign of the game's quality for those of us who enjoyed the gameplay and setting in the first.

Fact is, they couldn't do another open island/jungle setting like the first and get the same level of graphics with consoles, so changes were made.