[360, PS3] Crysis 2

[djskribbles]

but his 'opinion' seems like he's stating a fact.

IMHO, while C2 visually looks as impressive as anything I've seen on console, it seems like it's a game that's a little too demanding for the current consoles. While the game is playable, the framerate isn't very good and is very inconsistent, and framerate should be a factor when comparing visuals, especially on a console. Some parts are even borderline unplayable (albeit, very few). There's also a lot of pop in, and the level of polish isn't quite as high as other AAA shooters.
As a whole, I still rank it up there with the best, but I definitely wouldn't say there's no equal.

 

[Scott_Arm]

but his 'opinion' seems like he's stating a fact.

We shouldn't have to precede everything we say with "In my opinion." It's fairly obvious when someone is stating their opinion.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I think much of the arguments stem from the fact that prior to Crysis 2, the best looking games were more or less accepted to sit on the PS3. C2 calls that into question which doesn't sit well with some people for obvious reasons.

 

[London Geezer]

Sorry to intrude the very constructive discussion, and please let's not make this an OMG KZ3 VS C2 discussion but... since there is no way i'm buying both right now, and since i'm a total noob as far as FPS's go, can someone explain to me which one i should pick?

I mean in terms of fabulousness? Easiness, pick-up-and-play-ness...

I was this close to getting KZ3 but darn, playing in a derelict NY just looks so cool.

I really care 0 about super duper tech graphics etc etc... i'm talking about - shock! horror! - the game...

 

[Neb]

Correct shallow DoF will have only one distance in focus. If it is simple outer blur there will be continuous range of depths in focus with outer areas being blurry. In shots I have seen, Crysis 2 has latter.

Look you can harp all you want with fake information but C2 uses Bokeh DOF both for consoles and PC with dynamic camera adjustable strength whenever DOF is used, period. Even distand DOF is Bokeh DOF it's just so soft it looks more like blur. Atleast for PC it also ranges from 32 to 64 sample Bokeh DOF, damn high sampling rate for a game.

 

[joker454]

That would be such an awesome launch title. Something like 1080p at 60fps with Crytek's MLAA-like edgeAA might be completely possible, depending on the power

Honest question...instead of waiting until 2014 for next gen, and then waiting and hoping that a game like C2 gets re-released and upgraded one day, why not just play it at your listed specs today on pc? It really doesn't cost that much anymore and you can play comfortably from the couch with a 360 contoller like I do. All videos cards, even cheap ones, can connect directly to tv's via hdmi, it's really easy. It will feel just like you are playing on console, except with next gen console visuals today.

Played some more last night as well, I'm really liking this game more and more. I love the varied paths and solutions to problems, and the nanosuit is awesome. I had some trouble on one section, going over this bridge with enemies and a tank on the level below, kept trying from above and it wasn't working. So instead went into stealth mode and sped along to an underground tunnel, came up behind them and solved that area. There were other ways to approach it as well, I love that about this game, I can sit back, evaluate the terrain and try varied approaches. I've been on a stealth kill kick lately, sneaking up on everyone and killing them silently in stealth mode just because I can. I'm kinda seeing why perhaps they got rid of the speed ability on the nanosuit. Looking back it was really an overpowered ability I think, and it probably would have made it really hard to balance C2.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Honest question...instead of waiting until 2014 for next gen, and then waiting and hoping that a game like C2 gets re-released and upgraded one day, why not just play it at your listed specs today on pc? It really doesn't cost that much anymore and you can play comfortably from the couch with a 360 contoller like I do. All videos cards, even cheap ones, can connect directly to tv's via hdmi, it's really easy. It will feel just like you are playing on console, except with next gen console visuals today.

Played some more last night as well, I'm really liking this game more and more. I love the varied paths and solutions to problems, and the nanosuit is awesome. I had some trouble on one section, going over this bridge with enemies and a tank on the level below, kept trying from above and it wasn't working. So instead went into stealth mode and sped along to an underground tunnel, came up behind them and solved that area. There were other ways to approach it as well, I love that about this game, I can sit back, evaluate the terrain and try varied approaches. I've been on a stealth kill kick lately, sneaking up on everyone and killing them silently in stealth mode just because I can. I'm kinda seeing why perhaps they got rid of the speed ability on the nanosuit. Looking back it was really an overpowered ability I think, and it probably would have made it really hard to balance C2.

Yeah there's a few parts where you can stealth past everything and no kill anything.

I was trying to go through the whole game stealth + kill everything when possible. But ran into a problem when I ran into enemy devastators. You can't one shot kill those bad boys. Also be aware that just like in the first Crysis, a silencer greatly reduces the damage a weapon does. For some situations though it's still advantageous to use one as it doesn't break stealth.

One cool thing I noticed just recently with devastators (perhaps it applies to all aliens). Is that when you kill them, the alien eventually goes poof like in the first game. But its power assisted armor remains until you leave the area.

Regards,
SB

 

[nightshade]

So I finally got my PS3 copy as well, played the first 2 levels and Dear God ! If the framerate wasn't so horrible I could almost give the shoddy excuse for IQ a pass (the aliasing isn't the issue here but the blurriness is). Say what you will, but I find the combination of blurry IQ, bad framerate and stretched HUD along with the lens flare to be pretty damn disorienting. Well, doesn't matters as I have the PC version to satisfy my hunger for visuals, one could say I almost knew what to expect from the console ver. but yet I bought the PS3 version cause I'm an achievement/trophy whore.

Its funny that I find this to be blurrier than Xbox 360's Black Ops, which almost manages to fool me a good few times into thinking I'm playing at 720p. Even Vanquish which runs at the same resolution ie. 1024*720 looks considerably sharper to me. Now I donno how much of a difference the extra 11.2% of pixels in the Xbox 360 version will do, but I'm pretty sure that it won't be able to touch Hal Reach IQ still cause of all the Edge blur and temporal AA used in Crysis 2.

 

[Cornsnake]

There really is a lot to like about this game. I'm loving the freedom it gives you. All the suit powers, switching weapon attachments on the fly, finding alternate routes.

The stealth still feels a bit awkward to me though. Enemies seem to spot you from a great distance, and I hate having to wait the stealth kill prompt to appear when sneaking up behind an enemy.

The infinity spawning that happens sometimes is completely ridiculous. I had enemies spawn from a small building in the center of the map, while I just sat back from a distance gunning them all down as soon as they walked out the door. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve with that because it adds nothing to the game.

Graphics wise, outside of the blurry image, I think it still looks great.

 

[Neb]

Setup your system for best IQ.

To ensure a correct set-up, the user can follow these simple steps:
1. If the TV supports HDMI 1.3 or higher:
 360: pick “Expanded” in console dashboard display setup, in reference levels
 Ps3: enable “RGB full range” in console display setup
 If incorrect settings are used, the brightness calibration icon might be always visible (too bright), resulting in a lack of contrast (insufficient darks) and visible (color) banding. This very likely also means the TV does NOT support HDMI 1.3 and higher, or is not properly detected by hardware.

2. If the TV does not support HDMI 1.3 or higher:
a. 360: pick “Standard” on console dashboard display setup, in reference levels
b. Ps3: disable “RGB Full range” in console display setup
c. If the user has the wrong setting, the brightness calibration icon will always not be visible, or almost invisible, resulting in crushed darks.
3. Another common mistake from users is not picking the correct resolution to match the display's native resolution, resulting in an additional image upsample from the TV. If the display monitor's native resolution is 1080p, the user should pick it as default on either XBox 360 or PS3.

 

[nightshade]

Blurry IQ and bad framerate are pretty much the only complain I have from the console version, and thankfully the framerate gets quite a bit better after the initial few minutes, I hope it improves even more, though I won't really complain if it stays where it is right now. As for the IQ, its undeniably blurry, I'll mention again that aliasing is not an issue here but rather just the blur and the HUD scale.


I think the graphics itself are great and the gameplay is pretty damn satisfactory, Crytek almost much never gets the credit for making a stylish game with solid gameplay, the game just oozes style !!

 

[dragonelite]

God dammit i hate this separated release dates.
First i have to read Us people impression, now today uk folks impressions and stuck here waiting almost a week for my copy that arrives tomorrow and because of project drama i'm stuck at school tomorrow morning.

Spoiler

If i can find the energy to train tomorrow morning 6:15 am,Crysis 2 will have all my attention around 3 pm. If i can't find the energy im gonna blow off some steam after school. /rant over prerelease hype stupid asp website project.

 

[nightshade]

I used Shopto, the shipped my PS3 copy yesterday.
And here's something even more funny, my PC version was also unlocked today itself as it was available for download and the game didn't do any release date check, if it did then it wouldn't have worked as 25th is the official release date.

 

[Delta9]

Its funny that I find this to be blurrier than Xbox 360's Black Ops, which almost manages to fool me a good few times into thinking I'm playing at 720p. Even Vanquish which runs at the same resolution ie. 1024*720 looks considerably sharper to me. Now I donno how much of a difference the extra 11.2% of pixels in the Xbox 360 version will do, but I'm pretty sure that it won't be able to touch Hal Reach IQ still cause of all the Edge blur and temporal AA used in Crysis 2.

The game looks really bad at image quality.

 

[Ruskie]

Yea,they clearly cut a 10% from that resolution,but game still does not have bad IQ.Although,this is consoles top,nothing more can be done on them if you are going for what Crytek are doing.100% dynamic lighting and shadowing,plus all graphical bells and whistles that you can mention in quite big and unpredictable environments you can't really ask for more.512 mb and bandwidth they have is simply not enough...

 

[nightshade]

Still screens for a game that uses TAA isn't quite the best way to represent how it looks like while playing....as far as IQ is concerned.

Yea,they clearly cut a 10% from that resolution.Although,this is consoles top,nothing more can be done on them if you are going for what Crytek are doing.100% dynamic lighting and shadowing,plus all graphical bells and whistles that you can mention in quite big and unpredictable environments you can't really ask for more.512 mb and bandwidth they have is simply not enough...

But there is always room for optimization, especially when you consider that..especially considering its their first shipped console tittle. So I won't say this is absolutely definitely and exactly the top.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Indeed, thier next game will likely look even better.

 

[Ruskie]

Still screenshots for a game that uses TAA isn't quite the best way to showcase how it looks like in a moving image....as far as IQ is concerned.


But there is always room for optimization, especially when you consider that..especially considering its their first shipped console tittle. So I won't say this is absolutely definitely and exactly the top.

It's not,but like Grandmaster said,once you are moving and post processing is on it seems less likely you will notice blurriness or jagged edges.

Well,yea there is room for optimization but I'm saying more about general visual top.I'm looking at new KZ3 and UC3 and while there is clear improvement(especially in KZ case) its still more of the same.

Maybe reaching 720p and frame rate capped at 30fps but that already seems like to much to ask if you look how they perform at these resolution.To draw 20% more pixels and get ~20%-30% better performance that should be hell of optimization.Note that Crytek didn't leave any graphical feature away from consoles.Everything is there and everything is high quality.We should wait for BF3 to see what other guys have wrapped but to me it seems like they are reaching top also(smaller maps compared to PC,less players).

 

[joker454]

The stealth still feels a bit awkward to me though. Enemies seem to spot you from a great distance, and I hate having to wait the stealth kill prompt to appear when sneaking up behind an enemy.

The infinity spawning that happens sometimes is completely ridiculous. I had enemies spawn from a small building in the center of the map, while I just sat back from a distance gunning them all down as soon as they walked out the door. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve with that because it adds nothing to the game.

Well remember stealth isn't invisible, it obscures you so that you are tough to see if you are moving slow. If you are speeding around everywhere in stealth there still is a chance you will be seen as you are still making a streak across the landscape.

I don't like the stealth kill prompt either, it should just let it work when I'm close enough.

I hate infinite spawning as well, I don't get it's purpose aside from adding frustration as I sit there and go through all my ammo, and then realize that oh, infinite spawn dumbness At least if someone wants to implement that then make it patently obvious that reinforcements are arriving. Like fly a helicopter in to drop more people, I'm ok with that, it's at least a visual cue to let me know that more will keep coming until I get outta there.

3. Another common mistake from users is not picking the correct resolution to match the display's native resolution, resulting in an additional image upsample from the TV. If the display monitor's native resolution is 1080p, the user should pick it as default on either XBox 360 or PS3.

That last tip is correct for 360 but wrong for ps3. Yes on 360 always leave 1080 on if your tv is 1080 capable and never touch that setting again. On ps3 it's totally different, there are some exceptions but by and large you do not want to enable 1080 mode on ps3 for games because some games will try and do a fast upscale to 1080 on ps3 which can heavily degrade image quality, and partly degrade framerate. What you need to do on ps3 to make sure you have best quality on most games and movies is go to display settings and disabled 1080 mode, then go play your game. If you are going to play any movie (dvd or bluray) then go back to display settings and re-enable 1080 mode. Make sure to check that setting before playing any game or movie on ps3 and you can be more sure that the game isn't shooting itself in the head by trying to do a software upscale, and your movies will look at their best. If you no longer use your ps3 for movies (i use a htpc for example for blurays) then just disable 1080p and always leave it off. If you know of a game that for sure natively supports 1080 then turn it back on before you play that game, then after you exit that game disable 1080 mode again.

 

[djskribbles]

Setup your system for best IQ.

For PS3, that's not really the proper setup. Just because your TV has HDMI 1.3 inputs, doesn't mean you should set it to Full. In fact, many TVs (HDMI 1.3 or not) only support RGB Limited while others support both. RGB Full is a PC standard (0-255) and Limited is the video standard (16-235).
The most important thing is to match your PS3 with your TV; if you do that, it will essentially look the same whether you have it at Limited or Full.

I have my PS3 and TV (calibrated) set to Limited (16-235) and everything looks fine. I think the reason why most PS3 captures look washed out, is because they set their capture equipment wrong.