Crysis Warhead

The combat in Warhead is similar to the original, only the Nanosuit’s been tweaked to move more seamlessly from one mode to another. Even the vehicular controls have been tweaked hugely, setting to rest one of my few complains with the original.

The main difference between the gameplay of Crysis and Crysis Warhead is the incredibly fast pace of the latter. In Crysis, you were surrounded by a vast expanse where you’d sneak around the island for a while, before catching the enemy by surprise and unleashing hell on them. Very few bits were linear (at least in the first half of the game), so you’d end up wasting time navigating the island, and moving from one objective to another. In Warhead the action is pretty much non-stop and you’ll barely get time to breathe between fights.

This could be attributed to the personalities of the protagonists in both games – Psycho is far more aggressive than Nomad, so Warhead’s far more of a robust action game than its predecessor. Which reminds me – even though Psycho isn’t the main protagonist of the Crysis series, his character’s far better drawn than Nomad's. Maybe Crytek’s keeping Nomad like an enigma, or Nomad’s just a little shy when it comes to revealing stuff about his past, but as of now it's far more immersive to play as Psycho than it was playing as Nomad. 

To sum it up, Crysis Warhead is a far tighter package than Crysis was in every way possible, making it a truly worthy expansion. That’s saying a lot, since Crysis itself was an amazing game that deserved every bit of the hype it generated. By the looks of it, the entire Crysis series has moved from being a technological marvel, to being one of the best shooter franchises for the PC, which makes it a kind of high-budget underdog. Also, this was the first project handled by Crytek’s Budapest studio. If this is how awesome their first project is, I’m sure as hell looking forward to what they have for us next!