Crysis 2 PC edition OT

I'm still trying to figure why Crytek is treating its core audience like second class citizens. Did they get butthurt by all the misguided internet warriors complaining that Crysis wouldn't run on their 8800GTX at max settings and 4xMSAA?

I still have much respect for them, but I sense the feeling is no longer mutual.

 

the bullet shell is so flat, so its just a texture plastered on flat sueface?

 

I'll have to try those settings though generally I definitely see what you're saying about the colortone and distant buildings.

Agreed completely. Hopefully it gets better towards the middle and end once the ceph show up and some powers get upgraded.

 

The game gets A LOT more intense later on. I also thought the human fighting was rather dull...things change once the aliens start bouncing off the walls

 

I agree with this, and the human enemies become more fun to fight against once you get past the first couple hours and you have many more fun weapons and add ons available.

I just beat the game a few minutes ago infact.

What the game did right:

The story, despite leaving out some things I wanted to know, I thought was good, but the way it was told I think was better. I liked Prophet in the first Crysis, and I absolutely love him in Crysis 2 as well as his sheer importance to the story.

Weapons all felt really good to shoot, and there was a nice variety. Personally I loved the two .50 cal pistols in the game, forfeiting assault rifles for them.

I did not miss the very open level design of the first game while playing. Yes, it can add variety, but the focused combat was alot of fun, though thinking about it I did miss the exploration aspects of the first Crysis as well as the natural settings. The levels were very well laid out combat set pieces, with enough freedom to keep you from feeling closed in.

Crysis 2 felt like an amalgamation of Halo plus the original Crysis.

The soundtrack was excellent, and the sound design was pretty good too.

As for what I did not like:

Human AI was pretty dumb and at times very cheap as well as glitchy. There were "seams" in the AI where they would stand for a second before they went to the next action (like taking cover after I shot their buddy). At least they kept the pressure on, but then again I played the game on very hard.

Animations in many ways were very "off" or too quick among NPCs.

I experienced a fair number of glitches through the game, including getting slammed into a water laden area by a Ceph, only to be stuck underneath the level itself wondering how to get out.

Graphics while by no means bad, at many times were weaker than the first game, notably textures and and some of the modeling. Obviously, Crytek was pining for better AA and motion blur as well as colour grading. I was disappointed to not be able to run the Extreme settings @1080p, but the Very High settings ran just about perfect. When I first started playing the LOD got on my nerves, with so much pop-in, though I eventually got over it. I was pleasantly surprised at all the special effects and particles in the game. Mostly I miss the parallax occlusion mapping and sub-surface effects for the human characters though, as I didn't see either in C2.


So all in all, it's less ambitious in most regards compared to the first game, and lack of DX11 out of the box is disappointing but not a deal breaker. It's mostly of how Crytek wants to pander to the console crowd and isn't pushing the PC version as much as they could to look head over heels better due to the extra assets they would need to create (I think the lack of parallax occlusion mapping ties directly towards this). As a game though, it is very entertaining and fun to play. I played the game in three very long sittings over the past three days and I was consistently engaged the whole way through.

I would rate it in the 85/100 area for being a very good game in terms of consistency and fun, but won't go further due to it's lack of real innovation.

 

I did test it myself in the spot you suggested, but didn't see anything moving to determine if the reflections were real time. Also, I was using the config settings you posted earlier which r_WaterReflectionsMinVisiblePixelsUpdate commented out. However, I set the variables you suggested and found a life preserver to toss in the water, and sure enough it was reflected in the water.

Anyway, shame they couldn't have done a better job on the rest of the reflections, It often looks like they weren't even trying. For instance see here, where what is shown in the reflection can be seen just further down the way, and there is isn't even anything reflective there to justify the position the cubemap was generated from.

 

The cube maps really did start to irk me a bit. I would've thought Crytek would've try to create a new standard. I really loved how GTA4, at least on the PC, tried to do realistic reflections for all wet/shiney surfaces in the game, at least to decent degree instead of relying ancient cube maps.

 

Lol is that screen for real?... wow Crytek... lol.

..and here I was coming to ask those who have played it if the world generally has more or less Parallax mapping.

 

Yeah, wow. That looks so bad, so 1999.

 

Didn't they leave out parallax mapping altogether?

 

Well clearly POM and basic bump mapping. I hate the sewer grates too...totally flat.

 

So is it official then? Only DX9 level shaders? Not even DX10?

 

It would seem so Bludd.

I found that forcing triple-buffering seems to help with the microstuttering on CFX. I haven't done a fraps interval test to confirm it, but it seems better.

I think Mobius1aic's description of "Crysis 2 felt like an amalgamation of Halo plus the original Crysis" is pretty dead on but leaning more to the Halo side.

Also, I frickin' HATE the CoDMW2-style endless respawns! If a post has 30 soldiers on duty I don't want to kill 90 simply because I'm exploring the whole map! In this sense the Halo games crush Crysis2 - fast, endless respawns a la CoD are meant to force you on a fast pace forward which Halo manages to do without the crazy respawn technique. This was one of the best parts of the original Crysis as it gave you time for slow exploration.

 

I'mre-playing Crysis 1 at the moment because of all this. It's still an absolutely frickin amazing game, both visually and gameplay wise. Shame Crytek had to cater for the console crowds this time.

 

Yeah, I hate respawns


It would be cool of some guys could remake some Crysis 1 levels with CE3

 

Can quicksave be activated via console?

 

I thought the quality if inland water was improved drastically, the ocean waves have been pared back, but then I wouldn't expect the ocean waves in NYC to be as varied and wild as the ones in some unknown island cut off from the rest of the world

In any case, the water interactivity has improved a lot....at the very least.

 

Why? To see just how shite cryengine3 really is? Crysis 1 with no shaders, no POM and crap reflections?

No thanks. I'd rather see Crysis2 ported to the old engine with updated textures & visuals.