15.9 hours played
Written 7 days ago
After all those years, first Crysis still holds as a great sandbox shooter game. It offers pretty fascinating variety of enemies to fight, good environments which allow variable, creative approach to the objectives, surpisingly well done attachments system, vehicles, physics, and, of course, very pretty graphics. Even story, although generic and simple, shines by having several unexpected and very cool moments, and by being exceptionally epic.
Main fun certainly comes from the creativity allowed by the environment, nice asrenal of weapons and magnificent nanosuit. Each time new foritifed position of an enemy encountered - there will be different ways of approaching: rushing in through the main entrance while blasting everything in sight; ramming in at 80 Km/h on a vehicle; blowing half of the place up from a distance using explosives; carefully taking out targets with a sniper rifle; constantly attacking and retreating, each time finding different infiltration points to wreak havoc among the enemies; sneaking in under cover of a cloaking mode and quietly clearing the place; or maybe simply taking defensive position and shooting adversaries with a mounted machinegun while they willingly come to you. The possibilities are many and exciting.
But It wouldn't have been even half fun without another fine part of the game: AI of NPCs. While they can be dumb in some cases, most of the time they are acting like a coherent unit, constantly searching surroundings, are very careful and willing to sneak up on you, or hide around the corner, or use the numerical advantage to swarm player in a bad position. And if that doesn't work - well, they are not too proud to avoid calling reinforcements or using grenades. They are cunning, have good sight and more than challenging enough to keep firefights interesting.
In fact, on higher difficulties they are extremely dangerous, so much that Crysis turns from an average shooter into a stealth-action. Armour falls apart after several shots, speed mode leaves you too vulnerable, and power mode is a waste of energy. The only way to survie is to not be seen, to take out each adversary from the shadows, or from the great distance, and then - to move to the objective slowly, thoughtfully, listening to every rustle to understand if there is an enemy left, because even one sneaky guy with a cheap rifle can easily make lots of holes in your extremely expensive nanosuit, turning it into a scrap. On highest difficulty cloak is your main tool, and optical scope - pretty much mandatory attachment of any gun. And it's fascinatingly fun!
Only then and there the truth opens to your eyes: Crysis IS a stealth shooter, and a perfect one. There are tons of places to hide, more than enough firing positions to switch between, and AI is just forgiving enough to not immediately notice your location, but to give time and space to plan next move, and take out several more targets. There are few rules to success: don't be greedy or hasty, aim at the heads, and always be in motion. Danger awaits everywhere, yet you are the apex predator here, you have the best tools available, and you must make the most of them. Use your mind, and victory will be achieved. The stakes are high, but so is the reward: each cleared out point of interest brings lots of joy!
Hunt-and-hide style of gameplay is extremely addictive, and is the must to try at least once, because only in the most dangerous situations it is clear how many ways of completing the objective are created by the developers, and how satisfyingly sandboxy Crysis is.
Thanks to that freedom of approach, great detalisation in every aspect and awesome difficulty, Crysis proudly stands the trial of the time, and is highly recommended to connoisseurs of shooter genre.