Crysis 2 - Maximum Satisfaction

Crysis was a game well known for its visuals as well as its open ended gameplay. As a marine strapped in a million dollar Nanosuit on a fictitious island, players could analyze and approach an enemy encounter any way they wanted to - be it will deadly stealth or excessive force. With the move to a more concrete jungle, developer Crytek have sacrificed that beloved open ended mechanic but Crysis 2 still remains a gorgeous and an enjoyable shooter that thankfully will not melt your PC this time round.

Crysis 2 takes place nearly three years after the events in Crysis, where New York has been hit by a deadly virus and an alien invasion. Most of the citizens are dead, and the few that survived are dying painful contaminated deaths. You are Alcatraz, a special ops dude sent in to survey the situation and provide back up to a certain scientist but obviously things don’t go quite as planned and you end up in a world of hurt. As fate closes one door, it opens up another for you and hands you the Nanosuit leaving New York’s salvation in your hands.

Please don't see me

Like its predecessor, Crysis 2 is all about the Nanosuit. Thanks to its plethora of abilities, it allows players to adopt and run with their very own style of gameplay, opening the door for multiple play throughs. Most of the suit’s abilities are back from the first game so you can run fast, cloak yourself, jump real high and hit real hard. Where the first game tied it all down to the mouse, Crysis 2 allows players to map the suit’s abilities to the keyboard. This kind of a streamlined control scheme actually facilitates gameplay so instead of clicking the middle mouse and then choosing cloak from a dial, I simply hit “E” and bam, invisible man in the house. This definitely adds a layer of swiftness to the game where players truly feel like predatory hunters.

Get to the umm dropship nao

Unfortunately the new system is also a bit imbalanced. Shooting even a silenced pistol while cloaked rapidly drains your energy, and unless you get to cover quickly, you’ll soon be visible to all and sundry. This could be the game’s way of challenging me but at the same time, Crysis 2’s enemy AI is so dense, I rarely felt threatened or challenged. In fact there were times I felt bad killing them. Most enemies were so clueless as to what was going on they just stood on the battlefield as I ran around with reckless abandon slaughtering their mates. Even after blowing up cars near some their guard posts, they never budged an inch. And then there were times during intense firefights when I saw certain enemies running away – into walls. Their stupidity also shines through some of their voice communication that either makes no sense or is totally inappropriate for a given situation. Also if I stealth kill some dude a mile away, how is it that his compadre suddenly decides to ask him if he’s all right at that very same moment. Am I fighting psychics now?

Fly away

Things do improve a bit when you start battling the Ceph but besides their acrobatic, fast movements they charge at you in a straight line, making it very simple to kill them. Besides the run of the mill grunts, you’ll face some mini bosses who once again can be killed pretty easily thanks to their lack of brain cells. After around an hour into the game, you’ll be able to upgrade your suit using nano catalysts dropped by dead Ceph making you an even more powerful force to reckon with. Now if I was challenged by the game, this would validate my upgrades but running around virtually invincible wasn’t a whole lot of fun.