Crysis 2: Everything that's Wrong with Gaming Today

If you have rummaged through earlier posts of mine you'll note that I have become somewhat of a PC gamer. I enjoy PC games more these days with their mod communities and customization, mouse control especially for games like this, and the online communities are generally older and easier to get along with.

Crytek made an amazing game some years back called Crysis. It was the Mount Olympus of graphical benchmarks for PC's. To this day it's used as a benchmark to see just how good your PC is. Though it is being slowly replaced by Metro 2033 and Witcher 2, it had a really good long run. Graphical benchmarks aside, it was an amazing adventure. Beyond its lush landscapes lay a great foundation of gameplay, utilizing suit powers and allowing the player to plan how to attack every situation. I played through it 3 or 4 times and always doing things differently each time. The story was simple, but compelling and succinct. It made sense and didn't leave you scratching your head. The ending was a cliffhanger and left us really wanting Crysis 2. Let me just say that not only wasn't this cliffhanger resolved, it was left entirely ignored as if it never happened.

So Crysis 2 finally comes and Crytek brings the game to consoles. This of course is an immediate detriment to PC gamers. Crysis 2 by comparison to Crysis looks awful. The textures are not nearly as crisp, the environments are unimpressive, and the scope of the game in all has shrunk significantly. They all but abandoned the first game's story for console gamers who had no history with the first game. You could play Crysis 2 without ever playing Crysis 1 and not be lost. What doesn't make ANY sense though, is if you HAVE played Crysis 1 you will be SO lost playing Crysis 2. If I went back in time and didn't play Crisis 1, maybe Crysis 2 would make sense....maybe.

Gameplay:

Crysis 2 is flat out a downgrade in every conceivable way from Crysis 1 and the gameplay is no exception. In Crysis 1 you got FULL suit control. You could switch from Power, Speed, Armor, and Stealth whenever you wanted, and use them strategically as you want. In Crysis 2 there is no Speed or Power anymore. Speed is the WORST offender in my opinion because it's permanently on. Every time you run your suit power drains. What sickens me is you aren't even running in what Crysis 1 would consider "speed" mode. In Crysis 1 you ran like a rocket. It was brief sure, but it was a great way to bum rush a guy or escape a heavy firefight. In Crysis 2...you just run, like ANY normal human being yet your suit energy gets drained. This is supposed to be the SAME suit from the first game right? How then did it suddenly get shittier? Well it did and we're stuck with it.

Losing Power annoys me too. With Power on in Crysis 1 it was a gamble, you did more damage but were highly susceptible to dying really fast. I loved this gamble myself. Often I would use it against tough foes that took too long to kill, and I'd quickly use Power mode to dispatch them. It felt great, like a strategic move in combat. It was risky and fulfilling. Do we get ANY of that in Crysis 2? Nope, there is no Power mode.

What Crysis 2 does add are suit upgrades with RPG experience points and it added stealth killing. The stealth kills are fun admittedly but it wasn't anything you couldn't also do in Crysis 1. Instead of sneaking up on guys in Crysis 1 and unloading a silencer in them, in Crysis 2 you get to just press a button for a cinematic stab to the neck. The suit upgrades is the bigger addition however it's utterly stupid. The upgrades you get are mostly pointless. The only ones that make a big impact are the stealth ones, such as longer stealth power and silent steps. With those two equipped you are basically invisible to enemies. All the other upgrades are super shitty and don't matter. Like enemy sensor. I never actually got that one because your mini map displays your enemies, what the hell is the point?

Other minor additions to gameplay is being able to run and slide or jump and use a foot stomp move. I barely used either feature as they were pointless and more than not left you open for attack rather than safely shooting behind walls.

The enemies in this game were shitty too. Also, no final boss fight really pissed me off. Just like Bioshock 2, it made no sense. Crysis 1 and Bioshock 1 BOTH had final boss fights. Their sequels did not. WHY? But anyway in Crysis 2 you fight normal humans for a few hours then it's all aliens, of which there are only 3 types and 1 giant robot walker thing and you only fight 2 of those so I don't really count it.

The aliens are admittedly more fun to fight in this game than Crysis 1....but they don't make ANY friggin sense story wise. They look COMPLETELY different from the first game. They are literally a completely different species in my opinion. What's really dumb though is they're basically de-evolved from the first game. In Crysis 1 all the aliens flew around, in this one they are biped...WHY? Why did the aliens get worse all of the sudden? They JUST started their assault on earth after being awoken and suddenly they opt to NOT use their airborne comrades? Where are they? Did I really kill all of them in the first game?

Really I can't get over how completely different they are from the first game. As far as I can tell it was never explained why they look so different. In the first game they were basically robots, in this game they are full on aliens. It just doesn't make any sense, and you'll hear this complaint A LOT in my review of the story.

Story:

It didn't make ANY god damn sense!!!

SPOILER ALERT

In the first Crysis, at the end of the game we see our hero going back to the Island from whence the aliens came to stop them, then the credits rolled. Ok, are we caught up now?

END SPOILER

In Crysis 2 we open to...New York with a band of half-wits trying to defend it. They immediately get pwned and Prophet is inexplicably right there to fish what will become the main character of this game out of the water. Prophet kills himself and gives the new guy the suit.

Right there I had to stop the game. I had SOOOOO many issues with this after playing Crysis 1. First off, why aren't they on the island again? Where is Nomad from the first game? He's never spoken of, he's the main god damn character! It's as if he never existed at all! What the hell! My second issue is how in the holy fuck does Prophet give the new guy the suit? It's explained in the first game how these suits are symbiotic to the host and if you die, the suit literally burns you to ashes leaving no trace of your existence.

My question is how the FUCK did he get the suit off? He shouldn't be able to! Crysis 2, later in the game even points this very fact out all by itself. At one point the evil dude of the game goes to GREAT LENGTHS to take the suit off of you to use if for himself. He has a SHIT ASS TON of equipment lined up to get the damn thing off of you. He doesn't succeed by the way. So here we have Prophet in the opening of the game taking the suit off bare handed and later in the game they revert back to the first game's claim which is you shouldn't be able to take it off through normal means.

That was JUST the first FUCKING cinema and already I found like 4 plot holes. Not withstanding the incomprehensible nature of our new alien friends, this game may as well not have been called Crysis 2 at all. Just to tie it up, do we ever find out Nomad's exploits on the Island? No. Do we ever figure out just how in the hell Prophet got off the island? No. The island was supposed to be VERY important, and instead we get a defend New York story with none of our Suit wielding combatants like Nomad or Psycho (who by the way was the best character in the series).

Ugh, ok so I accept that I'm some new guy, fine. So immediately you're contacted by some random hippie character who still thinks you are Prophet. And as before you're a silent protagonist so he never opts to tell this hippie dick that you are NOT in fact Prophet. This will present another glorious plot hole later. First I'd like to identify, not exactly a plot hole but something that REALLY pissed me off.

So the hippie guy wants to meet up with you ASAP. You go through many stages trying to get to this dick fuck. Finally, in one level he is surrounded by the enemy on all sides and you have to break in and save him. You break in, shoot up all the dudes, but the hippie guy is nowhere to be found. Ok, so I think he gets captured, big whoop.

THE VERY NEXT CUT-SCENE:

Hippie Guy: "I fucked up"

I don't remember the exact next quote but he basically says he "fucked up" and left the place he was surrounded on all sides by to....get this...try to save his girlfriend..or go to his girlfriends house...something like that. I about shit a brick.

1. How did he escape? If he was in SO much peril HOW did he get out?
2. His girlfriend is never mentioned again.
3. If his ultimate goal is to meet up with Prophet WHY not wait?
4. Again, suit guy is a very good bodyguard. Wouldn't it have been smarter to wait for him and then save the girlfriend? YES!!

Fuck me this is beyond stupid.

So here's that plothole that I mentioned earlier. You FINALLY meet up with hippie guy who when he meets you is immediately thrown that you are NOT in fact Prophet. So much so, he suspects you are there to kill him and then he pulls a gun on you. This is where the idea of having a silent protagonist is utterly retarded. He could have told the hippie guy from the start what happened, and avoided this ugly incident. Furthermore, he doesn't even explain himself when the gun is on him. The suit RANDOMLY projects the game's first cinema which is a recording Prophet made...on the suit...which he wasn't wearing at the time...I have no idea how that worked....Anyway, so Prophet's message plays which gets the hippie guy off your case and he trusts you now. Thank god Prophet had the foresight to know he was recruiting a fucking mute and made that message!

It's at this point I mentally gave up on the story. The game drags on and you meet the old guy who started the suit program and wants the suit for himself to live longer and save everyone from the aliens. Once he fails to get the suit off he suddenly turns good guy and helps you out through the end...it's senseless just like everything else. I mean, your character had no reason NOT help stop the aliens in the first place. Why wouldn't the old man just wait for your character to stop the aliens then take the suit? No he has to fuck you up a bit, realize he's being a dick and then assist in you in the mission you were already fucking on in the first place! FUCK this is dumb!

Oh, and at one point in the story they threaten to nuke the aliens if you don't succeed in your mission in a certain time limit. In the first game it is discovered that nuclear warheads EMPOWER the fucking aliens. It gives them ENERGY! HOW was this forgotten? Did they just not tell anyone?

"You know sir, I think it'd be a good idea to tell the rest of the military that nukes don't work on these aliens."

"Nah, fuck that, let them figure it out."

Now, granted they never launch the Nuke so I didn't get to bitch about yet another plothole where the Nuke fried the aliens (which it shouldn't) so that's good they avoided that. But for them to even suggest a nuke makes me want to punch small baby Panda's for just how fucking dumb it is to suggest.

It actually gets dumber. The very end of the game made zero sense. Maybe I have to watch it again, I don't know. I still can't piece together exactly what happened. But basically you complete a mission destroying some alien power towers, get launched out of the last one and a cinema plays showing you rise up and Prophet's voice plays and he says he's Prophet...So Prophet came back to life? ....Somehow? WTF?

End Credits...

My only thought was what the hell did I just see? And I turned the god damn abomination off and played something good....

Sound:

Great sound as usual. Loved the gun sounds and I really enjoy Crysis's soundtracks. They are all fitting and give an air of futuristic war. It's good shit, can't say much else. Oh, -10 points for your main character causing plotholes because he's a silent protagonist. Yeah, that's in the sound department. Oh, and the voice acting in general was terrible. WHERE THE FUCK IS PSYCHO? He would have made this game a billion times better. "C'mere moppet!" - Psycho says to a Korean.

Graphics:

I went over this a bit earlier, but the graphics are worse than Crysis 1 by quite a bit. That's not to say the game looks bad though because it doesn't. I'm not a graphics whore by any means, but it would be embarrassing to me as a game developer to say that a game I made 4 years ago looks better than a game I just made. I mean it will confuse people in the future I bet. Playing Crysis, then Crysis 2 and saying "What the hell is this garbage?" Kind of like watching the old Star Wars movies and then the new ones which look better despite being prequels. It's all kinds of fucked up.

Multiplayer:

I actually tried to get into this, but it's too terrible. Finding a game is really hard, and most of them don't start. Furthermore, this game is bugged to hell and 90% of the time the game does NOT recognize that I'm online. I have to reboot the game 9 out of 10 times before Crysis 2 goes "Oh, yeah I see now, you ARE online! You can play now." I have no idea how to fix this error. From what I understand though it doesn't approve of Wifi connections. Sadly that's the only connection I have so fuck it, can't play online.

Conclusion:

I titled this with "Everything that's Wrong with Gaming Today." Specifically what I mean is Crysis 2 catered to console gamers and abandoned its core audience which is what a LOT of developers are doing these days in different ways. Whether it be to the casual crowd, or selling out making yet another FPS game, developers these days just don't give a shit about their fans. It's like when Epic Games called their fans thieves and refused to continue the Gears of War series on the PC. People pirated Gears of War on the PC and it didn't sell well, so Epic just said fuck you to PC gamers. It doesn't help that Gears of War is one of the shittiest PC ports in existence either. So really it's their own damn fault.

Also, the crappy story. Games these days are so poorly written, far worse than even the bad translated games of yore. I don't think developers hire writers anymore, really I don't. They probably let the clerical staff, or the janitor write some shit down and they use it. That's what this game felt like. It felt like whoever wrote it honestly never played the first game at all nor knew it existed and probably wondered why the executives kept insisting he title the game "Crysis 2."

This game should not have been called Crysis 2. It should have been called "Aliens fuck up New York," it would have made SO much more sense.

*This game sucked*