Groupthink: Crysis 2

Posted on 22. May, 2010 by Mark Cullinane in Console, Hands-on impressions, PC, PS3, Previews, Xbox 360

Crysis, we’re told, is the nanosuit. Forgetting that plenty of other
protagonists are clad in bespoke GM leisurewear, perhaps it’s just
that Crysis doesn’t have any other qualities? Nevertheless, as
Crytek’s Clint Dempsey lookalike told us, players tend to combine
their superpowers in three distinct ways. Using the jump and cloak
powers lets players play as Predator, the character in the Arnold
Schwarzenegger film of the same name, so synchronicity with that
franchise could well be the reason for setting a sequel in the city.
Secondly, players used the tracking and sneaking powers to take out
enemies one a time, like a hitman in an Arnold Schwarzenegger film.
Finally, players would just jump into the middle of a gaggle of
Koreans and kill them all, like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sadly none of
the playing styles seem to match up to Arnie’s later, more comic
canon. Not quite so flexible now are you, nanosuit?

In what seems to me a frank admission of how easy the game was,
Dempsey says that rather than dying, players felt they had failed when
the strategy they attempted didn’t work. So now it’s easier to combine
and customise powers. Apparently.

The demo we witnessed took place at a single intersection on Wall
Street. It made me wonder about the size of the levels; what we saw
was heavy with atmosphere and tumbling debris, a whole load of physics
objects and chunks being blown out of masonry. Put it this way: we’re
unlikely to see that level of detail in a fully explorable Manhattan,
and there’s no talk of separate console and PC versions. There were a
couple of nice moments; both involving a fall. First, the drop from
high up onto a first- or second-floor awning; legs buckling beneath
and hairline cracks appearing in the thick glass at your feet. Each
impact, including this, is punctuated by both camera shake and some
sign of digital interference, and there’s a nice feeling of weight to
your character. (Although the objects thrown around the environment –
a chair, a parasol – span about with typical weightlessness.)
Secondly, thrown out of a wildly spiralling helicopter, you’re thrown
to ground with real momentum, and it’s vertigo-inducing to see your
dark shadow approaching as the ground comes up to meet you.

What exactly defines the Crysis series in the gaming public’s consciousness? According to Crytek’s Nathan Camarillo it’s your characters clothing.  Funny, because I thought it was one of two other things: the idiculously inflated technical requirements for the game which mean that many modern machines still can’t play it, despite it being released nearly three years ago. Or how about Crytek’s obsession with island locales? Both have been abandoned. In the case of the former, the move to consoles has happily ensured less egregiously indulgent hardware requirements.

But moving from an island setting to New York of all places? The island is gone, according to Camarillo, because players reported that that they weren’t connecting emotionally with the setting whatsoever.  I resisted the urge to raise my hand and suggest that surely this is reflective of failures on the part of the writing team to put together a compelling story rather than failures in the imagination of players. He went on to argue that New York was selected as the new base of operations because of its familiarity and emotional resonance.

Frankly, it smacks of a creative cop-out, but we’ll reserve final judgement until we actually get the game into our hands. Watching Camarillo play (on an Xbox 360 unit) reveals a handsome looking (but not remarkably so) title with rock-solid play mechanics. Yet, if Crysis 2 has a spark of ingenuity that is going to raise it to the top of its genre, it wasn’t immediately clear what it is.

Crytek’s track record suggests it should be more than just another sci-fi shooter with a besuited faceless protagonist, but it is unclear at present where Crysis 2’s soul lies, or whether it’s been beaten into submission by game design by focus group.