Crysis: Hands-On (Part One)
Could this be worth upgrading to Vista?
Tags: Crysis Categories: PC Previews, Previews
Posted by Tracy Erickson on Jul 20th, 2007
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This is what PC gaming has been waiting for. Running on a high-powered Toshiba Satellite notebook packing a brand new DirectX 10-capable nVidia GeForce 8700M GT card, it can only be said that Crysis looked no less than stunning. The top shelf graphics accelerator had no issue churning out the visuals and handling the game’s physics; amazingly enough, all from a notebook. That alone makes Crysis, as well as nVidia’s new cards, worthy of anticipation.
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Crysis chronicles the events of the year 2019 in which an asteroid plummets to Earth’s surface. Landing on a remote island off the Korean peninsula, the North Korean government immediately seals off the territory in an effort to stymie foreign intervention. Not willing to allow the communist regime to examine the asteroid exclusively, the Pentagon deploys a small squad of Delta Force operatives to the site.
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You’ll take the role of one of these operatives assigned to infiltrate the North Korean base, reconnoiter the asteroid, and return the intelligence to the Pentagon. The mission doesn’t go quite as planned though, with the asteroid opening up to unveil a massive alien spacecraft. Immediately following the reveal is a flash freezing of the surrounding jungle, signaling the extraterrestrial threat. Now, you’re charged not only with quieting North Korean forces, but also preventing a potential alien invasion.
Fortunately, the Pentagon has equipped you with the latest in military technology to get the job done. You’ll traipse through the North Korean jungle wearing an experimental nanosuit granting enhance combat abilities. Five abilities, or “modes” as they are referred to, lend a helping hand: strength, speed, armor, weapon, and cloak.
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Activating a mode provides a boost to that action; for example, strength enhances your ability to pick up heavy objects and hurl them at foes, as well as perform devastating punches. Speed mode allows you to run faster and jump higher, whereas armor simply boosts your defense. Weapon mode is particularly useful when taking out enemies since it augments your attack power. The most devious of the bunch, cloak mode, actually allows you to fully blend into the surrounding environment. While it’s only available for short increments of time, cloak mode turns your suit into location-sensitive camouflage effective when hiding or ambushing enemies.
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As you’d expect, Crysis will come packed with several multiplayer modes in addition to the single player campaign. Online matches will support 32 players across three game types: instant action, team action, and power struggle. Both action modes are synonymous with deathmatch, while the power struggle mode being kept a secret. Crytek is also promising a modification kit either alongside the game’s retail release or in the months thereafter, which should open up tons of user-created content.
What should make multiplayer interesting is the ability to tap into nanosuit powers during matches. Crytek assures us that it’s finely tuning the use of these powers to ensure that there’s not an unfair advantage to using the nanosuit against players who don’t. The concept of sniping competitors while cloaked or knocking back opponents using strength mode is quite the satisfying notion.
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There’s absolutely no question in our minds that Crysis has the potential to save the stumbling Games for Window brand. As one of only a handful of PC-exclusive titles coming out this year, it looks brilliant and plays even better. While we’re interested in exploring more of the campaign to see how well the story evolves, Crysis appears to have the makings of a great game.
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Tags: Crysis
Posted by Tracy Erickson on Jul 20th, 2007 and is filed under PC Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
