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The Story
An unknown object (not an asteriod because it didn´t cause enough damage) hits an island in the Pacific, and the North Koreans send their army to investiage the issue, and so does China and the US sends two carrier there as well. The tensions between the NK and US are close to a war, so the US starts a CovertOp and sends in Jake Dunn (our character) and a small team to infiltrate and investigate the situation on the island. He and his team make a HALO jump at night and unlike in "NOLF", this isn´t a special level but we actually fall several miles thru air and the beautiful volumetric clouds and can steer our ´chute onto the island beneath us. There are no annoying level loadings and every object casts his own shadows which move accordingly as the times passes by just like in real life.
At first Dunn and his men are sneaking thru the jungle, listening to what the NK soldiers are saying, and investigating artifacts in a similar way like you can do in "Condemned" with a scanner and after sending it to your carrier you´ll receive ammo drops or weapon modifications.
Page 30 (Picture description: Notice how the dynamic sun movement changes the "mood" of the exact location. In the evening the jungle casts long shadows and a moody scary scene while middays the jungle has bright vibrant colors. All pictures are not pre-rendered but actual ingame pictures.)
Although the first actions of you and your team are covert and sneaking, soon you will take good use of your arms (pistols, MPs, assault rifles, sniper). All weapons are 3D objects and can collide with trees or other solid objects, so if you want to actual hit your targets, better make sure your rifle is lined up properly. (the way it is explained, it seems that the game helps you to line it up automatically as well. thats my guess though)
More details on the physics
The physical realism in Crysis is very amazing and doesn´t end at at the guns, but every object that looks like it can be moved, can actually. The times when a single leaf/branch stops the player are definitly over. Actually almost every object is destructable. We are droping trees and crush fences, detonate houses and even "damage" grass and leave trail behind us as we go thru the jungle. As we crouch into the grass, we actually feel safe because unlike in Far Cry, the AI does not see thru the grass but it does notice unnatural movement of the grass, and starts to investage the area.
The weapons
Almost every weapon in Crysis can be customized. You can either mount silencers, scopes, lasers. Jake itself is a mod-able weapon, he wears a Nano Muscle Suit. This suit does not only give him some armour and enhances his strenght and speed but the player can actually move the suits energy to either increase the armour/shield, speed, strenght. You can assign hotkeys to this energy management system and quickly change the settings of the suit. For a retreat you´d for instance try to maximize running speed etc. The suit can also heal you but of course all actions with the suit cost energy, but after a while it re-charges itself.
Page 31 (the KI Koreans are smart, they re-group and attack the people in the "building" simultaneously)
The suit can also help Jake to sneak around (costs energy as well) as it can reduce his noises, but if you forget to turn it off and fire a loud weapon, you can see how you waste your suits energy.
Holiday on ice
An AC might be a standard item in almost every car, but even Jakes suit has one as well and it will soon save his life. Because the unknown piece from outer space is not an asteriod but actually an alien ship who want to terraform the earth into an ice world. In a scene all out of sudden the aliens fire their ships ice cannon and parts of the jungle are now iced. This happens realtime ingame, the level doesn´t reload or anything like that. We can see how the area/island gets iced further and further as the time passes by. Game designer Bern Diemer told us "there won´t be any pre-rendered video clips that pull the player out of tense and nervwracking scenes". (similar like COD I guess)
The enemies become allies
After the surprise attack by aliens, the US and North Koreans now are allies and try to fight off the threat to all humans together. You might be now wondering if NKs have no bad feelings about Jake all out of sudden? They do. In Crysis the former enemies don´t forget what you have done. A Korean general knows exaclty what you have done with his soldiers. Have you killed many of them, especially out of situations where you suprised them, he won´t co-operate with you completely and might keep imporant information for himself or even "hiddes" equipment or ammo. All major NPCs have this kind of "memory" in Crysis and with the right actions Jake can even end up in a romantic relathionship with a hot female soldier. The main plot isn´t affected by this but the various side plots increase the replay value of Crysis tremendously.
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Page 32 (picture: for the night we have mounted a silencer on our rifle. Our compass seems to be broken because the sun goes down in the north)
"Farewell brothers"
Crysis even remembers our most spectacular attacks. When we fraged several aliens at the same with a well placed ´nate, a young soldier told us his amazement shortly after. Thanks to this we feel like a part of this world, that we can affect it and get to know the characters and therefore its even a little painful if our fellow mates get killed. The KI teammates however act independently and the player can´t give them any orders or commands. The devs told us they wanted the gameplay to be concentrated on Jake Dunn and our fellow soldiers don´t affect the main plot anyway. If they get killed they are simply not available in the next misson/chapter. So when things get really bad and your whole team is dead, you´ll end up celebrating your victory alone at the end of the game. BTW, we found our young soldier later on half way iced inside a huge ice block.
Cold War
The aliens have 2 primary weapons, the "Molecular Accelerator" shoots ice nails and doesn´t need ammo but far more spectaculor is the "Molecular Arrester". With that one we can freeze our enemy and split him into little ice cubes .... in realtime. If we get iced ourself, the Nano suit can safe our life if it has enough energy and the action can continue. Our suit has another advantage in the war against the aliens. He can drop our body temperature so deep that the alliens won´t see us anymore (they only see thermal vision). This obviously works only a short time, uses a lot of energy and can cause damage to Jack. The suit has also an emergency function where it sends out a shockwave and all enemies in area (maybe 50m around us) can´t fight us for a little while. The suit can also malfunction and take a little longer than usual to recharge after using the emergency function.
Freeroaming
In Crysis there will be huge partly metallic enemies who Jake has to climb on (with magnetic shoes lol). Jake won´t be walking the whole time on ceilings and walls unlike the hero in "Prey" but later on he will be "floating" inside the alien ship because it won´t have any gravity.
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Page 33 (Detail in Crysis is not a rare thing, notice the labels on the missiles, the starting officers vest and btw, Jake can pilot these VTOLs himelf. Other picture: Not only the sun is casting dynamic shadows, but so do explosions and fires)
The battles in air will be similar amazing. Yes Jake won´t only to use jeeps, or small vehicles, but also helicopters and high-tec jets. There won´t be any noticeable dead ends of the levels, but just like in FarCry when you leave beyond the limit you will either be stopped by the own troups, the aliens or a tropical storm.
A short vacation
As intense the Crysis adventure feels, its also short like it. The game is about 10 hours long, and frustating scenes like in FarCry won´t exists, in Crysis we are allowed to save our game at any time. Crytek wants to improve the multiplayer as well, and will include DM, TDM, CTF, and a more tactical mode similar to BF2 but unlike holding positions, it will actually be special artifacts that give the team special abilities, like weapons, upgrades, vehicles. The opposing team can steal these artifacts and vice versa. There won´t be any aliens in MP and a coop mode for SP won´t most likely be added either.
Destination unknown
While the guys from Crytek are still far from an official release date, CEO Cevat Yerli was optimistic: "The work on Crysis advances nicely and we are aiming at an release in Q4 2006." The red box also said that the game is finished around 60%.
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