Crysis 2 – Review (PS3)

Crysis 2 was one of the games I had played last year at Eurogamer and had been extremely concerned by the quality of the build. It repeatedly froze up or had massive amounts of pop in. So it was with a little apprehension that I put the disc into my PS3.

Thankfully Crytek had done a superb job of tidying up the mess I played. During my playthrough I experienced a few minor issues here and there but nothing out of the ordinary.

Graphically the game looks cool, although there was still some random pop in on a few occasions. A few times stuff ‘popped in’ while I was actually in a room! On the whole though Crysis 2 is a great looking game, though according to a few articles I read it doesn’t quite match up to the graphics of the original PC only game.

Storywise the game takes place in New York in 2023. The city has been overrun by aliens and a military group ‘CELL’ has been drafted in to try and police the anarchy that has erupted.

Following a botched rescue attempt on Nathan Gould, you (Alcatraz) end up wearing a new Nanosuit and head out to meet up with Gould.

Along the way you’ll be taking on both the aliens (Ceph) and CELL members and the story plays out around you. Everyone thinks you’re the suits previous owner and you end up as everyone’s target.

The Nanosuit is a cool idea, giving you lots of options to approach situations (Stealth and Armour being the main two) and as you upgrade it more features, such as bullet trails so you can see which direction you’re being fired at or the ability to walk silently, are available.

It’s great in theory but in practice you probably won’t ever explore the features that much as you’ll find your system and stick to it.

There isn’t much direction from the game on how you should approach situations – freedom is a great asset to a game but here, with no guidance at all, it becomes the game’s biggest stumbling block.

As you’re not forced to experiment there is no need to change your tactics. The moments where you stand on higher ground, bring up your visor interface and the game gives you some options on how you can tackle the situation *should* be great. But this is the only game I’ve known where those areas are open and the enemies below have super sight/hearing.

The amount of times I was considering what to do and was forced to take the opposition on with brute force because I’d been spotted was unreal. Sure you have your stealth cloak but, in my opinion, the game would’ve been stronger if it wasn’t reliant on you cloaking yourself for those parts.

The online multiplayer is fun, with everyone having the Stealth/Armour abilities right from the off and the maps are pretty cool – especially as many of them stretch over many levels. There is your usual upgrade / rank up system in place but I’m afraid the game just didn’t grab me that much on the multiplayer front.

Overall Crysis 2 isn’t a bad game, it just needed to guide the player a little more. Force them to use a few of the different powers so they would be tempted to switch them in and out. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to that’s played it stuck with a system. It reminds me in a lot of ways of Prototype, which was another ambitious game that could’ve done with reigning in slightly.

Rating: 7/10

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