Review - Crysis 2

THE original Crysis was a game I could only admire from afar. It looked incredible but as I wanted to play it the fact that it was a showcase game for high-end computers meant I was never going to. Crysis 2 is the best of both worlds in that regard - it's still an amazing looking game, but it's available on home consoles so I don't have to break the bank and buy a new computer. Too bad it's just so generic and lacking in so many key areas.

Taking place in the near-ish future Crysis 2 puts you in control of Alcatraz, a US Marine sent to New York City to investigate the collapsing city and the ensuing large scale panic. Soon after your arrival you are given the Nanosuit 2.0 by its former owner who then gives you some vague messages about "the best he could do" and then proceeds to shoot himself in the head. A nice welcome as you can imagine. You're then sent on your way to explore the decimated city and put a stop to whatever is causing this wide-scale destruction.

And that's about it for the story. Well there is a little more, but so little effort has been put into the narrative it's hardly worth paying attention to. So many times I found myself utterly confused by the different human factions' objectives, and even the invading aliens (the Ceph) seem to be a little lost with no clear reason to be in New York City. Yes, it's global domination they want, but their methodology seems pretty stupid. I mean their campaign never seems to move forward, it's just invade and wait. And how come you never talk? It's so frustrating when you are being asked questions and even being called Prophet, the name of the Nanosuit's last owner, and you won't even take five-seconds to correct them. A silent protagonist is fine, but don't draw attention to it. It's just lazy writing.

And while they were at it would have been nice if they could ditch the generic gruff Army dudes just looking to protect America and hating you for no good reason. Surely they can see you're their only hope? Please, make me care about theses people and this conflict, otherwise don'r bother. It's a game about the destruction of humanity and you failed to make anybody likable enough that I actually wanted to save them. Say what you want about game like Gears of War's story (ie it was awful), at least I cared about the four main characters a little, which is more than I can say about anyone in Crysis 2.

Also, about four or five times in the game you are robbed of your powers while foot-soldiers drag you around and beat you. Nevermind the fact that I'd just killed about a hundred aliens a few minutes ago, now you're a hobbling cripple because they hit you with an EMP or something. Seriously, why didn't the "advanced" aliens try this? Video games like this should feel empowering, but I just felt numb.

The semi-open nature of the game is its biggest strength. The large scale environments lend themselves to a variety of play options, and thanks to your Nanosuit you can jump huge distances, sprint at great speed, deflect enemy bullets and turn invisible. This all comes in handy as your main opponents, the aforementioned Ceph, are actually pretty challenging. Fortunately you can choose to play in total stealth, guns blazing or something in-between. Well, that's sort of true, but the only real way to play this game is as a deadly lone wolf as playing fully in stealth is not a viable one. For starters sneaking always works best in third-person because you need to be aware of your entire surroundings, in first person you can only ever know about what you are looking at. To combat this you can tag enemies, so that they show up even when you're in cover, but too many times you'll be spotted from behind or some other angle that you just can't check quickly enough in a first-person game.

That could be forgiven, but what cannot is the fact that the only way to gain experience points to spend on upgrades is by killing enemies. Because of this there is no incentive to go completely stealth unless you plan on being under-powered the entire game. What would have been nice is if there were ways to use stealth to set up traps for enemies and use the decayed environment against them. But that's not the case here - your best option is to go invisible, draw one squid away from its group, perform a quick stealth kill, rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. There are a few vehicle sections to break up the action, but they're rarely fun or last very long.

Looking back there are a few great moments in Crysis 2, but most of them are to do with giant buildings collapsing or watching the city become flooded - things that look great, but don't add to how well the game plays. There's so much more I wanted to do in this game, but just couldn't. The environment, for all its destruction, is just so static. Why can't I blow up huge sections of it to take out alien squads? Why can't I be rewarded for going completely stealth and taking out as few enemies as possible? Why do I feel like I have such narrow tunnel vision when I should be looking around and discovering new areas in this big open world? So many missed opportunities.

When the end credits started I had no desire to start all over again, which is a shame because it would seem logical that a game boasting wide open environments would be one you'd want to revisit. But it's not. I'd seen all there was to see in on play through, and I really didn't care enough to do it all again. Crysis 2 does have some great moments, but I can’t help feeling there’s a lot missing, holding it back from being better than your average first-person shooter.

GRADE: D

Crysis 2 is out now on the Xbox 360, Windows PC and PlayStation 3. Review written after the entire single-player campaign was complete. No multiplayer was played; the review reflects the only single-player experience on an Xbox 360. Review guidelines