Crysis: an impressions, anyone?

[Remus]

My year end new games started to arrive since last week; Cod 4: Modern Warfare, The Orange Box, Bioshock and today i got Crysis. The thing is my rig still lacking 8800GT - which was delayed, so i could only looking the new games or sniffing at the shinny game's boxes, or reading the included game guides....damn...

So, anyone got and played the Crysis yet, impressions/preview? No spoiler though!

[Melvil]

you ain't from around here are ya boy?

[dteowner]

This IS the Non-RPG forum, so it would seem like an appropriate question that just might get an answer or two.

[txa1265]

I have it and it installed, but I have to finish last week's games first ;)

[JDR13]

It's a great game, hands down the best FPS released this year. Gamespot gave it a 9.5, and for once I actually agree with them.

[Prime Junta]

Installing it now. Got the nice metal box too. (Come to think of it, I almost have enough of those to start a collection -- Bioshock, Jade Empire, now Crysis...)

[Lethal Weapon]

I disagree. It's got far better graphics than FC but slightly inferior gameplay. Nothing revolutionary though, and if you've played FC I can't see why you should be playing this, unless you are an FPS freak.

To the OP: I don't see any RPGs in your list. Playing only and a lot of FPSs is a bit of unhealthy IMO. Portal in Orange Box is quite good though, but very short ~ 3 hours.

[Prime Junta]

Not a good initial impression: the installer installed something called "GameSpy Comrade" without prompting -- including (1) desktop shortcut, (2) quickstart tray shortcut, *and* (3) run on startup. Ob-NOX-ious. Oh well, here goes nuffin'...

Oh, and, AVG reports a "threat." So it didn't even start. Wonderful.

[JDR13]

Keep in mind that it hasn't been a banner year for FPS games so far, what can you name that is better than Crysis?

[Lethal Weapon]

That's true. But Gamespot's 9.5 is inflated as usual. 9.5 should be reserved for all time classics.

[JDR13]

That's true. But Gamespot's 9.5 is inflated as usual. 9.5 should be reserved for all time classics.

I agree 100%, out of the hundreds of games I've played in my lifetime, There's less than 5 that I would rate higher than a 9, BG2 and Gothic 1&2 come to mind. I like to think I have very high standards though.

That being said I still think Crysis is a great game, I won't rate it yet because I'm not very far into the game, but I definitely think it's better than any FPS(full length) I've played yet this year.

[Prime Junta]

Initial impressions still a bit "meh." Frame rates don't hold up very well; if I get a broader vista, it gets close to slide show quality no matter what I do to the settings. It doesn't look anywhere near as good as the screenshots either. This may be more sophisticated under the hood, but on my rig (so far) Far Cry plays way better.

I'm pretty sure this is due to some bottleneck somewhere that just needs a tweak to the .ini file (or my GPU driver, or something else) to fix. I guess I'll wait a while until the tweak gurus have got it down.

Come to think of it, I'll have to check if there's been a driver update over the past few weeks...

[JDR13]

Of course Far Cry is going to play way better, that game is over 3 years old. Prima, what are your system specs?

[Prime Junta]

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ OC'ed to 4800+ spec, GF 8800 GTS 320 MB, X-Fi.

Downloading the latest drivers. Perhaps it'll help.

BTW, why do you feel that a newer game should play worse than an older one? Bioshock, for example, played extremely well on my system. Half-Life: Episode 2 looked better and plays better than HL2. Just 'cuz a game is new doesn't mean it can't scale down gracefully to what is still pretty decent hardware -- *and* look better than a 3-year-old game turned up to the max.

[JDR13]

Sorry, I also meant to ask what settings are you using? You're not trying to run it on the "very high" setting are you?

*Edit* Nevermind, I guess I missed the part in your post where you said you tried all the settings.

It runs good for me at 1280x1024 on "high" settings. I have AF maxed out, but I don't have AA enabled.

Core 2 Duo 6700, 2 gigs, and Radeon X1950XTX

[Prime Junta]

The newer drivers made a lot of difference. I'm initially running at everything set to "medium," and it runs (mostly) OK. Still looks worse than FarCry, though, which is a bit of a disappointment.

[curiously undead]

my impressions is its games such as this (technology and graphics over substance and story) that add nothing to pc gaming other than the need for people to upgrade their os and hardware and are if anything a serious bane to those who wish to see pcs rather than consoles be the driving force.

no need for me to try the demo as the 8 bucks i payed for far cry would have been better spent on a homeless person.

guess i'm just a hater today...

[JDR13]

Hmmm, I wonder why it's running so bad on that card, an 8800GTS is actually a little faster than my X1950XTX. I wonder if it's the 320mb of video memory, as opposed to 512mb, that's holding you back.

There's a big difference in quality between the "medium" and "high" settings in that game, on "high" it looks better than Far Cry imo. The "very high" setting looks absolutely incredible, too bad there isn't video card out there that can run it with decent framerates.

[JDR13]

my impressions is its games such as this (technology and graphics over substance and story) that add nothing to pc gaming other than the need for people to upgrade their os and hardware and are if anything a serious bane to those who wish to see pcs rather than consoles be the driving force.

no need for me to try the demo as the 8 bucks i payed for far cry would have been better spent on a homeless person.



Seriously, what impressions are you referring to if you haven't even tried the demo yet? You obviously don't know anything about the "substance and story" of Crysis, so why attempt to put it down?

[Prime Junta]

Hmmm, I wonder why it's running so bad on that card, an 8800GTS is actually a little faster than my X1950XTX. I wonder if it's the 320mb of video memory, as opposed to 512mb, that's holding you back.

There's a big difference in quality between the "medium" and "high" settings in that game, on "high" it looks better than Far Cry imo. The "very high" setting looks absolutely incredible, too bad there isn't video card out there that can run it with decent framerates.

Yep, I tried it at "high" and it did look good, but very stuttery. I've tried turning individual settings up and so far all of them have caused a significant drop in frame rate. I'll have to experiment more to find the right balance of settings; I'm sure there's one out there.

[Prime Junta]

BTW, is there any way to disable the intro videos? I find it really obnoxious that the game makes me watch the same damn animated EA logo over and over again, without the option of Esc-ing through.

[curiously undead]

you can learn a lot through the eyes and mouths of others JDR.
what do the developers talk about-graphics and gameplay.
what do the "review" sites talk about-graphics and gameplay.
what do the "fans" talk about-graphics and gameplay.
using the block of wood atop my head i managed to come up with the notion that if "substance and story" were more than nominally present in the game, surely people would be blabbing about it. i'm not just basing it on the fact that none of you are mentioning it but, i see little to believe otherwise and gamespot slapping a 9.5 on a game the day of release screems stay the hell away from this in my book. edit: or if you prefer bandwagonbackscratchbullocks

[JDR13]

Lol, EA is famous for their annoying animated logo.

Try here, http://www.tweakguides.com/ for some tweaks as well as how to disable intros.

[JDR13]

using the block of wood atop my head i managed to come up with the notion that if "substance and story" were more than nominally present in the game, surely people would be blabbing about it. i'm not just basing it on the fact that none of you are mentioning it but,

Then try using that block of wood atop your head to realize that most of us aren't far enough into the game yet to tell much about the story. The game was just released within the past week after all. ;)

So far the story is quite good though imo.

[woges]

The game is quite impressive, so jaded some of you.

If it's a bit low on the framerate side first thing I'd try would be all settings high and turn shadows to low (shadows are always a system hog).

[woges]

BTW, is there any way to disable the intro videos? I find it really obnoxious that the game makes me watch the same damn animated EA logo over and over again, without the option of Esc-ing through.

Try your space bar for that.

[Prime Junta]

Can't space-bar past the EA logo, nor past the "Crysis (c) 2007" one.

Thanks for the tip re shadows. I'm starting to get satisfactory performance out of it, by:

(1) Updating to the latest beta drivers.
(2) Installing the Windows hotfix that addresses virtual memory.
(3) Running it at 1280 x 1024 on my secondary monitor (it looks like crap on my main one)
(4) Running the DX9 version rather than the DX10 one
(5) Setting shadow quality to Low, everything else to High.

Yeah, perhaps I am jaded. However, I have been playing FPS's since Wolfenstein 3D, and despite the refinements (more destructible terrain, smarter squad AI) this is still very much more of the same. Even if I enjoy playing as the bad guys...

[Remus]

How many hours from start to finish on normal difficulty, include doing most of the sub-objectives given on each mission (if available)?

[woges]

I've played a lot of fps' over the years inc Wolfenstein 3D; I loved the first Quake. Those are probably more my kind of fps' - old fashioned gameplay I still seem to enjoy more.

This is pretty well done though; more realistic, a simulator almost. It plays pretty well as well and there is real satisfaction from pulling of a long-range headshot with the aim wobble it has. It may not be the most exciting or imaginative game around but it's certainly good at what it does.

[Prime Junta]

This is pretty well done though; more realistic, a simulator almost. It plays pretty well as well and there is real satisfaction from pulling of a long-range headshot with the aim wobble it has. It may not be the most exciting or imaginative game around but it's certainly good at what it does.

There's no disputing that, for sure.

[mute]

I must say that i was dissapointed with Crysis. Although, i have been looking forward to it as one of the few FPS game i wanted to play.

I don't get a feel for it, and seeing gamespots hilarious review about awesomeness and really taking the genre forward (how?) i grow tired of the game.

I did one fault however. I did buy COD 4 as the guys at simhq.com was raving about it. And going from that FPS experience to Crysis was like playing far cry again. Nothing new.

If i hadn't played COD 4 before i would probably liked it better. :)

I am no FPS fan so my view shouldn't be considered when buying or liking this game.

[woges]

Yeah, it's a little dull, like a super Counter Strike. Lots of people like that though. So how is COD4? Never played any of them.

[JDR13]

I was disappointed that they changed the series away from a WWII setting in COD4. It was my favorite WWII series of games before that.

[woges]

Gears of War is a lot of fun imho. Playing co-op with my lady atm- I'm dieing more than her.

[mute]

COD 4 is intense. Its heavily scripted, no open solution. You go where you suppose, shot at the enemy and move on. But, COD4 is one of the few games i will replay. The single player experience is very rewarding. Like beeing in Ridley Scotts movie "Black Hawk Down..."

Being short on time, i am one of them who think shorter game is good. SP campagin can be played through within 5-7 hours... what i have read. Escpecially short FPS games help me not loose my interest.

The missions in COD4 is very impressive. The landfall (from sea) with a massive armada with helicopters, Its just "right". I have no clue how the multiplayer aspects are in cod 4, but i will soon find out. Hopefully on a private server. One mention against COD 4 multiplayer is "small" maps. Don't know if thats right.

COD4 is like a interactive movie. Good looking, intense action, and ju just want to see what happends next.

But, like i said. If scripted actions isn't your cup of tea move elsewhere. I realy really like the move to modern warfare!! :)

Oh - you asked if it was good.

Back to Crysis...which is more open in design and will probably let other people enjoy it better. Its not depended on scripting as heavily as COD4.

On my medioker machine (AMD X2 4000, 2GB ram, 7800GTX) COD4 is a beautiful looker. Crysis withits poppin texture is annoying. A better computer and the graphics in crysis is probably better...

;)

[txa1265]

Yeah, it's a little dull, like a super Counter Strike. Lots of people like that though. So how is COD4? Never played any of them.

CoD4 is extremely intense - it is a very 'light M', but the action is non-stop and you feel like part of an actual squad in a very nice way. I like it quite a bit.

[VPeric]

How many hours from start to finish on normal difficulty, include doing most of the sub-objectives given on each mission (if available)?

Around 8-12, depending on how much sightseeing you do.

As such, it's way too short for me to even consider getting (let alone spend hours tweaking my computer to run it - in fact, I believe a lot of people spend more time benchmarking it than actually playing it).

[akarthis]

It's a good game.Very good,you could say,but to be honest if i compare far cry and crysis,Far cry wins.That of course doesn't mean i didn't enjoy crysis

[Remus]

Just finished the game, and indeed the second part (against the aliens) kind of taken slightly different direction in gameplay, especially the "Core" level. The last 4-5 chapters feel suddenly accelerating forward and shorter compare to earlier chapters. However these contributed to more packed action scenes or intense feeling, which quite blend in with near end plot as in any action story. I think overall Crytek succeeded on many levels and certainly see improvements against Farcry, albeit not considerable.

It's spectacular when come to graphics. On 22" 1680x1050 widescreen, with anti-aliasing off, shadow on and put half of the advance settings to "very high" while the rest at "high" level - the new nVidia G92 8800GTS 512MB managed about 10-30 fps. It's not as smooth as butter, and stuttering occured especially in heavy fight scenes with huge aliens and soldiers shooting, blasting, explosions went off, etc.

Meanwhile the Sound effects, dialouge, ambient and combat music is very good if not awesome - especially on X-fi plus the Logitech z5500. It almost like you're in movie theater and you could hear the realistic sound of heavy rocks falling from hundred feets above, the noise of exploded helicopter crashing down near you, or the floor rattling sound of big aliens walking by, splashing of water, sound of rocket fired off, bullet whizzling by, or aliens shooting you from behind - fantastic stuff!.

PS: I'm fine with the ending, as it's not ending anyway (the game is part of trilogy) but quite a lot people complaint about it. It make you feel want to kick more alien asses!.

[fatBastard()]

Well, I'm probably out of sync with most people here but I found Crysis can best be compared to the movie Independence Day. The looks of it is spectacular, filled with special effects, big explosions and huge alien ships. However, strip away the flashy graphics and you're left with an empty shell of mediocrity.

Sure the suit gimmicks are fun for a couple of minutes but in practicality only the camouflage is actually usable due to the extremely low energy supply. Even in the middle of all the graphical splendor I found myself yawning hoping it would be over soon so I could uninstall it and move on to something interesting. The sad thing is that I'm usually very fond of shooters, but there simply wasn't anything in Crysis that caught my interest.

A least it was a Christmas present so I didn't waste my money on it.

[JDR13]

I'm shocked that so many people are claiming they thought Crysis was lackluster, what are you comparing it to in 2007? It's debatable whether or not it was the best FPS of the year, but it was definitely better than 95% of the other FPS's released in 2007, there's no doubt. Only Bioshock, COD4 and the Orange Box even come close imo.

[Dez]

Best shooter i've played in a long time. Heck I'd say it is a lot better than overhyped hl2. I'm already replaying Crysis, but this time on delta difficulty setting. I really love the atmosphere in crysis. Few maps really feel like there is a war going on and the player is in the middle of all chaos..it has open and huge levels, little scripting, good A.I, fun vehicles, weapons which aren't pea shooters like the guns in hl2 and awesome physics.

Storyline is quite rubbish though, but who cares when gameplay is so much fun, right? :D

[Lucky Day]

I had the chance to play this finally last month.

I didn't see the crunch lag that everyone talks about at school at work. I also noticed the incredible physics engine I heard about didn't seem to exist.

It was in Multiplayer that the guys noticed that its turned off by default. Turn off that physics engine and there isn't all that number crunching it needs to do.

When I went to try it I nearly threw the controller at the screen. There was no way to remap it to turn using the keyboard. The freshmen sneered at me for even suggesting it.