Crysis 2 had issues, however it obtained one factor proper: destruction

From the archives: This story initially ran in PC Gamer (UK) #279.

Crysis 2 will get lots incorrect. Its AI is criminally silly. Its story is a convoluted mess. Its characters are hackneyed archetypes. Worst of all, its narrower environments and extra restricted nanosuit limit the potential for emergent play, which was the essence of the unique recreation. As far as sequels go, a lot of Crytek’s design choices for Crysis 2 are totally baffling.

Yet for all its errors, Crysis 2 will get one factor proper: destruction. From its low-key starting to its apocalyptic remaining act, this grim fairytale of New York is a master-class in catastrophe fiction. If you embrace this theme of obliteration moderately than preventing it, Crysis 2 is at instances much more pleasant than the unique.

The recreation places you within the boots of US marine and persona vacuum Alcatraz. Within 5 minutes he’s seen half his platoon massacred by the alien menace often known as the Ceph, been shot half to items himself, and been given the duty of saving New York by Prophet, the nanosuited squad chief from Crysis 1.

Crytek recognised that essentially the most attention-grabbing side of the primary recreation was the nanosuit, and so constructed Crysis 2’s story virtually totally round it. The nanosuit is the sport’s actual hero, synthesising a treatment for the alien virus because the story progresses.

Alcatraz is merely a bag of leaky meat who offers the swimsuit with locomotive skills to get from goal to goal. Our FPS protagonists are sometimes outlined by their fits and little else (Half-Life and Halo are two notable examples) so why not give the swimsuit a number of the credit score for as soon as?

The nanosuit is the hero, Alcatraz a bag of leaky meat

It’s a enjoyable concept, however Crysis 2 fails to stroll its discuss. During play it really reduces the swimsuit’s performance from that of the primary recreation. It decreases the variety of energetic skills from 4 to 2, armour mode and cloak, whereas velocity and energy turn into passive skills with little influence on the way you play.

There are not any partitions to punch by, and chucking objects and enemies about is fiddly and unsatisfying. You can Power Kick automobiles and sure objects, which feels good. But having performed the sport 3 times, I’ve by no means as soon as used this efficiently in fight.

Cloaking, in the meantime, is nearly too efficient, letting you waltz previous enemies as they overlook about you the second line of sight is damaged. It’s all the time tempting to use Crysis 2’s synthetic idiocy, however I’d strongly advise towards it, just because a pure stealth method isn’t the way in which to get essentially the most out of the sport.

Instead, use Cloak to navigate your technique to the closest mounted machine gun. Tear it off its mounts. Then activate armour mode, determine a goal, and let rip. Feel the kick of the HMG judder up your mouse arm because it spits bullets the dimensions of desk knives, hearken to the stomp of your ft because the nanosuit’s hardened shell collides with the tarmac. Marvel as CELL troopers and Ceph alike crumble within the face of your cruel onslaught.

This is what Crysis 2 is admittedly about: superb devastation, utilizing your cloak to position your self able of supremacy, after which ripping by the enemy ranks earlier than they’ve time to blink. It merely takes some time to make this truth apparent.

Yet there are glimmers of a love for breaking issues within the first few hours. Early on a beleaguered alien spacecraft smashes right into a skyscraper, tearing an enormous gap in its higher flooring. A few ranges later, an entire part of the FDR freeway collapses earlier than your eyes, leaving a thick cloud of mud that you need to use to quietly decide off mercenaries investigating the trigger. Yet these are merely scripted vignettes interspersed between lengthy stretches of small-arms fight, as you evade and have interaction teams of CELL mercenaries in your mission to fulfill up with a hacker often known as Gould.

It’s solely whenever you regroup with the marines, round a 3rd of the way in which by the sport, that Crysis 2 kicks into its highest gear. The acquainted grid-like streets of Manhattan are remodeled into canyon-like gouges within the earth, as town is slowly torn aside by the alien’s root-like virus dispersal pipelines. Your arsenal turn into extra highly effective and your enemies bigger and extra quite a few.

Additionally, your position within the recreation turns far more defensive, as you help the military with the evacuation of town. A standoff towards a thunderous assault by the Ceph concludes with you bringing down one in every of their mighty gunships, whereas the perfect stage within the recreation —’Unsafe Haven’—sees you preventing by the Ceph battle-lines with a view to prime and detonate demolition prices on a multi-storey constructing, bringing it crashing down throughout the Ceph’s artillery trajectory.

It’s this gradual escalation that makes Crysis 2 so satisfying for me. The metropolis’s destruction turns into an inversely-proportional development tracker. As the battle turns into increasingly determined, town turns into much less and fewer recognisable. It’s harking back to Half-Life 2’s ‘AntiCitizen One’ and ‘Follow Freeman’ chapters, however drawn out over an extended interval. Also, moderately than being on the assault, you are on the again foot, merely making an attempt to purchase time as you try and get town’s populace to security. Crysis 2 excels at making the Ceph really feel like a real menace, all the time able to matching and exceeding Alcatraz’s personal superhuman capabilities.

Unfortunately, whereas the mid-to-late part is superb, the ultimate mission is an enormous anticlimax. Once once more it permits you to breeze previous a lot of the enemies, and the ending is a giant dollop of nonsense that leaves you mystified and disenchanted.

Although I just like the slower begin, and admire it for not frontloading its motion, that failure to construct to a satisfying climax damages the sport significantly.

In the tip, Crysis 2’s limitation on emergent play proved to be an error in judgement, one which Crytek tried (and failed) to rectify within the undercooked Crysis 3. But there are nonetheless moments of greatness in there. Crysis 2 will get lots incorrect, however we shouldn’t let that obscure the issues it obtained proper.