Crysis 2

Crysis 2 is the sequel to Crysis (2007) and its expansion game Crysis Warhead (2008). Developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts for PC PS3 and Xbox 360, Crysis 2 is a first person shooter game of the science fiction genre.

The game is set in New York after it has been evacuated due to an alien invasion by the Ceph (jellyfish - like creatures encased in exoskeletons) and takes place in the year 2023 (3 years after the original Crysis game). In the midst of a city in chaos, operating under martial law, with the powers - that - be ordering executions of the infected inhabitants, you take on the persona of a Force Recon marine deployed to rescue an important nanotechnology scientist, Nathan Gould, from the city. He is the only one who can help you destroy and rid the planet of the terrible Ceph. You are "Alcatraz". With the help of your special Nanosuit 2 which gives you special powers; the ability to sprint fast, jump high, the temporary powers of invisibility and immunity from attack, plus the use of amazing on-board binoculars, you must set out to undertake your crucial mission. You will need to use stealth, sharp tactics and intelligence to stalk your enemies, locate the best sniper positions and find any spare weapons and ammunition you might need. Use all your skill and advantages to fight against any threat, and these will include Crynet Systems (who are after your suit), the military and their vehicles, as well as the aliens.

Crysis 2 sports stunning new graphics and improved sound. It can be played in single or multiplayer mode. It was released on 25th March 2011.

• George Orton September 19, 2012 360

  ****

  "It's like putting lipstick on a pig."
  
  That odd turn of phrase - taught to me recently by an American fried of mine - essentially means that no matter how much you dress something up, you can't overcome its fundamental nature. In England, we have a similar (but ruder) expression involving polishing something, which isn't suitable for repetition here. Suffice it to say, however, that both phrases came into my mind with alarming frequency whilst playing Crysis 2.
  
  You see, Crysis 2 is a very pretty game. In fact, it might still be the best-looking game - and certainly the most beautiful first-person shooter - to have been released on the current generation of consoles, despite first appearing more than a year ago. From as early as seeing the slickly-designed title screen, these fantastic graphics are the first thing that catches your attention once you boot the game up, and it takes several minutes to actually catch your breath and realise that, yes, the whole game really is going to look this good. Textures are incredibly detailed, character movement is smooth and authentically human, and lighting effects behave in an incredibly naturalistic way - all of which help to create the game's highly-convincing illusion of a heightened sci-fi reality.
  
  On a design level, the game is also impressive. The super-soldier nano-suit that blesses you with the various abilities that you use in the game might be little more than a modern mash-up of a handful of other great designs (think Iron Man and RoboCop, with a hint of GI Joe thrown in) but it still manages to look cool and stylish in its own distinctive way. And the locations that you explore in the game are immediately impressive and engaging, especially the first glimpses that you get of a ravaged New York in the wake of an alien invasion.
  
  However - as you might have guessed from my opening comments - all of this flash and style conceals a surprisingly mediocre game that boasts some great ideas and a decent enough storyline, but which sabotages these positive elements with flaws that conspire to make it rather dull and frustrating to play.
  
  Really, everything bad about the game is represented by the opening few hours of play. After a reasonably exciting opening sequence that shows how your character became bonded to the nano-suit, you're thrown into a huge alien-ravaged city that's as pretty as you could imagine, but which doesn't really offer anything interesting for you to do. A fairly dull tutorial (they're necessary evils, but they can still be accomplished more interestingly than is managed here) gives way to a long sequence in which you have to try to navigate around the city's various obstacles and checkpoints based on orders that come through your radio, given to you by one of the most boring and functional characters I think I've ever encountered in a game.
  
  It wouldn't be so bad, but it's not even as if the game tries to spice up these early scenes with any real action. Enemies are so thin on the ground that at first I thought there was some kind of glitch in the game that had removed all of the characters except me. Whilst a level that involves walking around a giant empty city might be a great way to show off your game's graphics, it doesn't make for a fun gameplay experience. And when the enemies finally do show up, they don't do much more than fire off a few rounds at you and then stand about waiting for you to shoot back and kill them. For a game that's been praised for the advanced AI of its enemies, I wasn't impressed.
  
  Something else that irritated me is that the gameplay of Crysis 2 is so linear. Despite offering the promise of an open-world-style exploration experience, there's really only one route through the levels - and often, that route isn't made particularly clear, meaning you have to do a lot of running around and chasing up dead ends before you work out where the game wants you to go. Most other games do a far better job of giving you subtle pointers as to where you should be headed or what you should be doing: perhaps this one just wasn't tested enough for the programmers to be aware that players needed more guidance.
  
  All that said, there are some redeeming features. After the first few hours of gameplay, things do get a bit more exciting: the plot becomes more fully-developed and you start to interact with some slightly more interesting characters, as well as some slightly more challenging enemies. But by that point, you'll probably already be so irritated - and/or bored - with the game that it would have to do something pretty special to win you back over. Truth be told, I'm baffled as to why a game like this would sell itself short by opening with several hours of such dull material (it'd be like a big-budget sci-fi space-opera movie opening with an extended discussion of local tax affairs and trade negotiations - if you can imagine such a thing), and it never really recovers from it.
  
  Which is a shame, because there are some good ideas in here that are crying out to be executed a little better. Most notably, the nano-suit's various combat modes (including a stealth/invisibility mode and a movement-restricted armoured function) open up some interesting strategies, giving you several ways to approach the game's action setpieces. However, even then there's a sense that the controls for switching between these functions could have been made a little smoother, and the details of how they work could have been tweaked just a little bit to make them more user-friendly and satisfying. It just adds to the impression that the programmers of this game have prioritised its graphics above everything else, followed by its high-concept plot, with the actual gameplay experience coming a distant third.
  
  So there you have it. Crysis 2: It's like putting lipstick on a pig. It may be very expensive lipstick, and it might be a pretty smart pig - but it's still a pig. It might be worth a look just to see how good current-generation graphics can get, but if you're looking for a really good first-person shooter, you'll be spoiled for choice with a host of alternatives that are superior to this.

• Crysis 2 E3 Teaser "The Pinger" 360PS3PC | 00:52 Play Trailer
• Crysis 2: The Nanosuit 360PS3PC | 02:17 Play Trailer