Without being too generic on the focus of Crytek's development aims, if I had to pick two principle aspirations for the development of Crysis it would be to push the bar of hardware capabilities by producing a higher quality level of visuals, and to incite a sense of first person immersion through direct control. Both of these aspects were reached accordingly to this with Crytek's reputable original, but very much at the expense of people's system capabilities – if you wanted to run the original Crysis and be inspired by its mind-blowing engine you really had to have the computer system for it. Now, to hear that Crysis 2 was coming out with a new and improved engine and that it was built for the Xbox 360 and PS3 was astounding on its own terms, but it also brought a sense of scepticism; the single striking question of how this game would even compare to the standards of the Crytek Engine on 5 year old machinery? Thankfully I'm able to reach a partial verdict on this question due to its presence at the Eurogamer Expo this year – 5 months before its release date.
Like many of the 2011 releases found at Eurogamer this year there wasn't really much to show of Crysis 2 in the form of mode variety and narrative setup, Crysis 2 offered a multiplayer team deathmatch mode on a few constricted maps, and that was all I had to play with. What was shown in this limited hands-on though gave me a fair indicator of what Crysis 2 will be like. To state off the bat and answer your likely pending curiosities, Crysis 2 on the console looks noticeably downscaled compared to the PC version, it shouldn't be a surprise and it wasn't at all. Having played the PC version at the event as well, the environments were at a lower resolution, it was less sharp, and the draw distance was a little on the blurry side on the Xbox. It's also worth noting though that this isn't the fairest of comparisons as the PC version had the singleplayer on show, but it's unlikely we're going to see such an enhancement in graphical prowess from the 16 player multiplayer game to singleplayer for the console.
That being said, Crysis 2 isn't at all an awful looking game, it's still far from that. The character models look great and show off some impressive and convincing animations, even more so from your controlled player – nothing is more satisfying than performing a 50 foot jump off of a balcony and then holding the right analog button for your soldier's fist to pummel into the ground, it looks effective and feels heavy. The environments offer a great variety - even if they all exist in city environments - and react well to bullet damage with chunks of debris falling everywhere. There are also a lot of impressive light contrasts when moving in and out of buildings. Crysis 2 is a game that 'feels' convincing and reels in a sense of force and purpose to its otherwise quite basic setup.
I was able to get a go of one of the two gameplay modes announced recently and this was the Team Instant Action mode. This was literally their equivalent of team deathmatch and although it doesn't yield much in terms of mode features or mechanics the main aspect that shook up Crysis 2's multiplayer, and the whole game for that matter, are the suit capabilities. On the game's start I was able to choose from several preset classes; all the standards of Assault, Scout, Sniper, Support etc, and they offer you starting weapon sets suitable to those types. All players have the ability to use infiltration that allows you to activate a camo mode, this comes in useful for players who are very close range and like to take their enemies in one shot. The other mode is the armour mode; this is essentially the opposite and allows you soak up bullets by instead draining energy. Of course both modes can be mixed and matched, but I found the machine gun based players suited the armour and single shot (shotgun and sniper) users are more suited to the infiltration mode. You are also able to sprint, jump particularly high, and hit the ground with force, and all of these abilities were rather easy to master and made the basic gameplay of 'kill the other team to win' compelling.
My first hands-on with Crysis 2 had been underwhelming on first impressions, but once you discover your character's super soldier like abilities, the responsive and impactful environmental effects, and some accessible yet power wielding controls, Crysis 2 is a ride worth following through. The graphical quality of the game might not have lifted the bar in terms of standards, and games such as Gears of War do seem to hold the reigns still, however, there's still at least 5 months worth of development and polishing to do, and I say that's more than enough time to play a game that looks great without the pending worry of under spec hardware.
irect link to vid- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCfOPVplb-U
