Crysis
Crysis. 4 years ago Crysis was released for PC with a graphics engine that was so detailed and realistic that it turned the most powerful gaming PC's of the time into sludge and reduced them to slide show presentations. ;-)
Since then the question to every new PC purchase has been 'Yeah, but will it run Crysis?'. Having finally gotten my hands on some hardware that will indeed run Crysis, I can finally see what all the hype is about. :-)
Crysis is a game where you play as an elite special forces team member that is sent to remote forested island to rescue some hostages from the North Korean military.
What makes Crysis different from every other game out there is your special nano suit. The suit has the ability to grant you: Armour that can stop bullets, Super speed that is so fast the forest literally blurs as you run, Increased Strength so you can jump 2 floors or pick up a person and throw them like a rag doll and finally a Stealth Cloak that makes you invisible.
The catch to all this power is that you can only use one suit power at a time and only for as long as your power meter is full (it goes down as you use a power). Don't worry it recharges when you stop using the suit powers.
This makes for a really fun game as you can use the suit powers to attack a situation however you want, adapting your strategy on the fly. Crysis will generally have a big open area full of enemies and you will need to take them down anyway you can.
So you might use super speed to run up to the perimeter guards and take them out. Then step to the side and cloak yourself as the other alerted guards run to the front gate. You sneak behind them and shoot them in the back. Next you jump on the roof of a nearby building to look for any other guards and then engage armor mode as you start taking fire and finish off the final guard.
The other great thing about Crysis is the weapon customization. If you pick up a gun with a laser sight, you can now equip a laser sight on all your weapons. Any accessory you pick up on any weapon can then be used on all your weapons due to the modular nature of the games weapon system.
Add in an awesome sci-fi setting where aliens are involved and you have a great game. :-)
Yes the graphics are amazing, even after all these years. Crysis will run on most modern PC's with a decent video card, though you will always need a high end PC to run it at its highest settings and see the photorealistic visuals.
There is also a great physics engine at play and the game is essentially a sandpit that allows you to do whatever you want. :-)
The one weird thing for me was getting used to PC controls via keyboard and mouse. After all these years I can definitely say I prefer the console controller as it feels more purpose built and can vibrate when things happen, which I really missed. Crysis 2 comes out on consoles so this little foray back to the PC side of the fence is only temporary.
Overall:
Great game and glad I finally got to play it. Yes the hype is well deserved and the graphics can be insanely detailed, though the really great thing about Crysis was your nano suit and the way it let you mix things up and change your approach to any given situation on a whim. This makes for a lot of fun and variety. :-)