Crysis 2 (PC)

Developer:

Crytek

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Release Date:

2011

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Systems:

Windows, PS3, Xbox 360

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Crysis 2, the second game in the Crysis trilogy. (Warhead's a stand-alone expansion so it doesn't count.)

I also played the original Crysis this week so you might be wondering 'Why the rush?' Well, the game starts on the 23rd of August 2023, so it actually takes place today. So I should really get on with writing about the game and stop wasting time with this intro.

Actually, there are a couple of things I should mention here. First, the game's story was written by Richard K. Morgan, author of the novel Altered Carbon. He also wrote the Syndicate shooter that came out the following year. Second, I want to mention how the game's theme is kind of one note. Well, two notes I suppose. It's like an alarm. It's one of a handful of songs on the soundtrack by Hollywood composers Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, and honestly I prefer Lorne Balfe's theme to that new Dungeons & Dragons movie, Honor Among Thieves.

Alright, I'm not going to be able to get away with just playing an hour or two of this like I usually do, so expect SPOILERS for the entire first half of the game.

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The intro begins with news clips constructed from real-life footage, setting up that things aren't going so great in New York at the moment. In fact, they've already reached the 'stock footage of people rioting' stage.

Manhattan is a magnet for fictional disasters due to being so iconic, even Godzilla took a break from harassing Tokyo to go smash the place up one time, but it has another feature that sometimes comes into play: it's an island. Turns out that there's been a viral outbreak and a group called C.E.L.L. has come in, closed all the bridges, and put the island under quarantine.

It's now August 23rd 2023, three years after the events of the first game, give or take a week, and the submarine USS Nautilus is sailing down the Hudson River on a mission to extract Dr Nathan Gould from the city. At least that's what the text on my screen says.

1 - IN AT THE DEEP END

Hey, it says it on their monitor screen as well. Here's something else I've noticed: my character started off looking down at his legs and when I was given control I checked and they were still down there! That's pretty rare for a first-person shooter.

I'm looking out of the eyes of a guy called Alcatraz, who's a man of no words. Which is weird because Crysis' protagonist, Nomad, talked a fair bit. The justification they're going with in the game is tequila. The dude had so much tequila last night that he's either too hungover to speak or he's given himself serious memory loss and can't remember what words are.

Crysis (PC)

The original Crysis also started off with the protagonist on his way to extract a scientist, only his team was wearing state-of-the-art Nanosuit power armour and I knew all their names. Like that's Psycho on the left and Jester on the right, and Aztec and Prophet are just off-screen somewhere.

Both shots are from the un-remastered versions of the games with the settings on full and honestly, I don't think I would've been able to tell that this came out 4 years earlier than its sequel. These are 2007 graphics you're looking at here.

This real-time cutscene's not skippable by the way, but the videos are.

A few seconds later, someone's yelling for us to abandon ship due to a catastrophic hull breach. On the plus side, the hallway looks awesome in this lighting, especially now that it's filling up with water. The mocap animation looks pretty good as well.

This is a short tutorial section, getting me used to looking around and moving. I even got to crouch and open a hatch. Alcatraz also had to get used to holding his breath as he swam through the sub's flooded bridge, escaped the sinking vessel, and made his way to the surface with the others. Then an alien gunship flew by and shot them all dead.

Alcatraz is just conscious enough to see a dude in a Nanosuit come over and express his frustration that the support he's been waiting for is currently bleeding out in the river. He picks Alcatraz up and the screen fades to black.

Then there's a prerendered video of someone in a Nanosuit kicking ass across New York. Sometimes literally. I tried to take a screenshot that shows off the design, but this pose makes him look like a gorilla.

The Nanosuit is one of the most distinct looking exoskeletons I can think of, as it basically resembles a skinless human body with carbon fibre muscle and ski goggles. The intro to the first game showed what's going on inside as it uses its abilities and we get the same thing here, with close-ups of the surface as it transforms for extra strength or invisibility. It's got some cleverness going on.

And when Alcatraz wakes up he's the one wearing it! He sees a pistol on the floor, lying next to the suit's former owner, and gets a recorded message straight into his eyes.

Damn, it's Prophet and he's looking rough. Turns out that he was dying from the alien virus and made the choice to pass his mission along to Alcatraz instead. But the suit was so linked to him that even taking it off didn't disconnect him entirely so he had to sever the connection with a gunshot to his head. RIP Prophet.

So now Alcatraz is sealed inside a suit that was worn by a guy dying of a super-contagious virus. That seems kind of bad! At least Prophet's mission for us is the same as the one we were sent here to carry out: locate and protect Dr Nathan Gould.

2 - SECOND CHANCES

Alright, I'm at Pier A, Battery Park, it's 6:37 a.m. and I'm surrounded by dead people. There's also a computer here so I tried activating it and got a bit of an audio diary. It was recorded by a scientist who's complaining that the C.E.L.L. PMC goons have done nothing but rile people up with their brutality and make the situation more tense.

Then I got a call from Gould himself, who apparently knows Prophet and doesn't know there's someone else in his suit. Alcatraz doesn't talk though, so there wasn't much of a conversation there. He does jump though, making it across a collapsed section of floor thanks to the Nanosuit's 'Power Jump' ability. In the first game, I would've had to switch to 'Strength' mode first, but here I just hold the jump button down longer. It reminds me of how Jedi Outcast simplified Jedi Knight's Force powers, and it works just as well here. Though there's a bit of an awkward delay when using it.

I left the building and hit a checkpoint. The first Crysis had quicksaves and checkpoints, but they've simplified that as well. Annoyingly.

Well, at least the trees haven't burned down yet! The Statue of Liberty's not looking so great however.

Out of curiosity, I loaded up Google Maps to see how closely this resembles the real life Battery Park. I figured that it had to be closer than Deus Ex's attempt, and the answer is... a little bit. That skyscraper on the left is correct and they were right about it being next to water. The rest of it is more inspired by the real location, however, and the Statue of Liberty's been moved a mile and a half to Governors Island.

Anyway, my Nanosuit's done a bit of a System Override to make me stop and learn how to use my suit visor, which is basically the game's version of the binoculars from Crysis and Far Cry. The suit's deep semi-robotic voice reminds me of the mech in Titanfall 2, except I won't be getting out of this one. Also, I can't switch the suit voice to female anymore, which is something else they've streamlined away.

I can use the visor to scope a place out and tag hostiles, and it certainly seems like these C.E.L.L. operators are hostile by the way they're executing people in the street down there. I can also see where the ammo boxes are, which is good as Prophet was down to his last bullet.

Damn Alcatraz is a lot squishier than his stompy footsteps make him feel. Sustained machine gun fire from close up will sort him out fast. Fortunately, he has regenerating health like Nomad does in the first game, so I just have to avoid being shot for a while and wait for the blood to clear from my visor.

I'm currently power-jumping from rooftop to rooftop, sniping all the enemies in this outpost. The game's a lot more of a regular military shooter than I remembered it being, though I've got the freedom to move around this small area however I want without being led from point to point and yelled at if I go off-script.

I'm also crouched right now, so I'm halfway to being stealthy. Unfortunately, the other half is 'not being seen' and I messed that part up. In my defence, these enemies have amazing vision. Much better than mine. I mean, can you see the enemy in this shot? There has to be one, I'm being shot by them, you can see the tracer fire. In fact, you can see them all lined up on the minimap, a bunch of little red triangles. I could really do with a little Far Cry arrow above their head once they've been marked like that.

Yeah, the hardest part of these fights so far is spotting the bastards. He's not even that far away here and you can still barely see him.

I've got incoming fire shaking the screen around while I'm trying to aim at distant white dots hiding next to white walls. Alcatraz has fantastic accuracy though, as his bullets tend to go exactly where the crosshair's pointing. That wasn't always my experience while playing Crysis. The game also feels slicker than Crysis, like I'm playing with speed mode on all the time, but also heavier somehow. I'm more aware that I'm confined inside a chunky suit.

Anyway, I just wish the game would reserve the massive sprays of blood for when enemies are thoroughly killed. I keep thinking I've gotten someone with a skilful headshot, but then they just get back up and I have to put two more rounds into them to encourage them to finally give up the ghost.

This is my first look at the 'city' part of New York City, and damn, that's actually pretty awesome looking, especially for a game from the PS3 era. This isn't even the remastered version... though I suppose it does have the high-res texture pack installed.

I could just carry on taking screenshots of empty streets with nothing going on... and I'll have to at this rate, as I can only get a few minutes of slick gameplay before the game breaks down into a slow-motion mess and needs to be restarted. Not sure what's happening there.

Okay I tried applying a patch that lets it use 4GB of RAM and it seems to be behaving itself now, so I can finally continue on down this street and... oh it's sealed off. Seems that I'll be following a very linear path.

"Checkpoint reached", that's what I like to see. Especially as I've probably only got 0.2 seconds before the enemies chatting to each other down there spot me up here and come kill me. They're very observant, and I haven't gotten into the habit yet of activating my suit's built-in invisibility cloak.

I like that the game's still offering me hints like 'press the Open Visor key, idiot', as there's a lot to remember. For instance, I've just learned that if I use the aim button next to cover I can move the crosshair to lean around the side a bit; it's very slick. I've also found a box of grenades, so now I'm learning about them as well. This doesn't seem to have a dedicated 'throw grenade' button, which is weird because the original game does. I've got a button to equip grenades, but they're just another weapon I can cycle through like the guns. It's awkward.

SOME SHOOTING LATER

Oh cool, a subway level; one of the staples of modern-day first-person shooters. It's like a sewer, except you can imagine it smells slightly better and there's probably a train parked in here somewhere. I've found an ATM machine I can play with at least! I'll have to remember this when I put together my '30 Best FPS Train Station Levels' article, which I'm not actually doing. Even though it would give me an excuse to play a lot of games...

Wait, hang on, the level's already over? But I didn't do anything! I just walked past a few completely unresponsive civilians and some creepy alien bugs and then I left. It was just a creepy horror interlude to set the mood I guess. Crysis doesn't really do this kind of stuff, in fact you barely go indoors at all in that game.

Oh this is cool, I like this. Give me more maps in games. No seriously, I want a map button. Crysis had a map button! It's seems that I'm heading up Manhattan Island to reach Gould at his safehouse.

The unnecessarily scary suit voice also informed me that it's intercepted an enemy transmission from a guy called Commander Lockhart to his C.E.L.L. personnel. He's just letting them know that they still haven't found a cure for the virus, so evacuation's off the table and they'll just be murdering everyone with any sign of infection from now on. That includes the guy in the Nanosuit they still think is Prophet.

3 - SUDDEN IMPACT

The game's definitely the type that'll drag your camera away to show off something awesome you might have otherwise missed. Like a spaceship getting shot down and slamming through a skyscraper. The developers spent ages on these set-pieces and they want you to see them!

Right now I'm on William St in the Financial District, apparently, and Gould's just called up to tell me to put locating and protecting him on hold for a moment. I need to get to the crash site before C.E.L.L. does, and obtain some Xeno-Tissue. It's my absolute highest priority, and they've helpfully put a big arrow on the parking garage to draw my attention to the fact I can go through there. Oh hey, I just spotted a $uper$avin' Supermarket; I'm going to pop in and do some quick shopping first.

Sometimes even little things can break your immersion. New York is under quarantine due to a deadly virus, there's total panic, riots in the streets... and the only thing left in the shops are toilet rolls? They'd be the first thing to go!

Alright, my next stop is the multistorey car park, which is something else I've seen show up in a few first-person shooters.

SOON, AFTER THE MULTISTOREY CAR PARK

Man, this section was really short as well.

But hey I found a Scarab assault rifle. This is basically identical to the Scarab rifle I was already holding except for one crucial feature: it's got a silencer. This means that now I have a silencer, and I can attach or remove it any time I want using this handy weapon attachment menu. It's the same as the menu in the first game, except now it shows weapon stats.

I also found some car keys, which is interesting as all I ever found in the first game were guns, grenades and ammo. It's apparently a collectable that serves no purpose whatsoever, so I'll have to keep an eye out for more of them.

SOON

Damn, got enough eyes there mate?

Well, the crashed ship turned out to be a bust, but I've come across an alternative source of Xeno-Tissue. In fact, it jumped onto Alcatraz and hit him so hard that his suit's rebooting. I guess this is going to be an epic battle between me and a super-tough, super-agile, alien super-solider then.

Actually he seems fairly mundane. We had a bit of a shoot-out that was pretty easy on normal difficulty, then I walked over and harvested his Nano-Catalyst.

Hey, now I can get a suit upgrade! There are four slots for active upgrades and I can switch between three upgrades in each slot. Except I can't, because I only had enough Nano-Catalyst to buy 'Threat Tracer'.

Crysis didn't do upgrades, but this has gone a bit RPG like the Far Cry sequels, with skills I can get with experience points from alien kills. C.E.L.L. kills still get me nothing though, except for some ammo and maybe a new gun. It's starting to seem like I can only carry three guns though, so I'm disinclined to switch.

Speaking of Far Cry sequels, I'm going to dig out this image again, showing Crytek's Crysis series (red line) compared to Ubisoft's Far Cry series (green line)

Crysis was a very demanding game with huge open outdoor levels and tons of foliage to hide in, a lot like Far Cry. Both games are even set on beautiful tropical islands. The trouble was that Crysis was too demanding for PCs of the time, never mind other systems, so Crytek was missing out on all that console money.

They came up with a clever plan: to make a stripped-down, streamlined, console-friendly Crisis 2 with confined environments. Meanwhile, Ubisoft Montreal used dark magic to make a fully open-world Far Cry sequel with even more advanced foliage effects and got it running on consoles! Far Cry 3 is even set on a tropical island, Far Cry 6 as well. It kind of makes Crysis 2 feel like a bit of an outlier, with its linear city levels and complete lack of boats. Instead of becoming bigger, it's become more Modern Warfare.

I like this new nano vision mode; it's way more interesting to look at than night vision. I'm currently watching a war between C.E.L.L. troops and Ceph aliens, though you'll have to take my word for that. It's always fun when the enemies in a game encounter someone they hate even more than they hate you, and switch their focus to them instead.

Oh, see that red damage indicator that's pointing slightly to the left? That's a nice feature, I'm glad the game has that. It's pretty standard at this point, but you can never take these things for granted, especially with older games.

Another level done, another video interlude. Gould's trying to figure out what's going on with the suit all of a sudden. It's like some kind of contingency routine built into the suit's deep layers, apparently! Personally, when alien Nano-Catalysts start giving me suit upgrades I don't question it. Injecting them into the hero's body so that they can shoot bees out of their hand or whatever, that's a concern, but I've been collecting suit upgrades since Metroid with no problems.

Alright, I'm back to heading to Gould down FDR and I ain't turning this game off until either I meet up with the guy or he gets killed off by something horrible. I'm just getting that kind of vibe about his fate. I mean the game started with everyone in New York dying of a virus, an entire submarine crew getting massacred by aliens, and Prophet shooting himself, so there's a bit of a pattern there.

4 - ROAD RAGE

That's a nice futuristic 2023 helicopter they've got there, but I don't appreciate how the game's forcing me to stare at it while Lockhart and Strickland have an argument about whether Prophet should be taken alive or dead. Oh, the enemies all speak English in this by the way. They don't switch to Korean or whatever on harder difficulties like in Crysis 1.

Hang on, Strickland, that's a familiar name. Strickland was one of the characters giving me orders in the original Crysis. Though he was killed by a giant robot spider, and this is a woman, so I'm thinking it's a relative.

Lockhart's got a bit of a vendetta developing against Prophet (actually Alcatraz) due to him pulling a Gordon Freeman and actually killing the soliders sent to murder him instead of falling down and bleeding to death like the civilians do. So I get the feeling we're not going to be calling a truce with C.E.L.L. any time soon. I can't just put a rocket into their helicopter either though.

The game's definitely not 100% authentic to New York. Like here I am on FDR heading under Manhattan Bridge, except it looks like Williamsburg Bridge, which is further down. 

Oh here's something I should probably mention that's fairly relevant to the gameplay: I can switch my suit to armour mode which basically turns my energy bar into an armour gauge. In Crysis, armour mode was basically the suit's default state and my energy recharged quickly when I wasn't taking damage, but here turning it on stops the energy recharging, so I have to turn it off to get my armour back.

Armour mode is handy for times like this, when I'm being shot at by two trucks with mounted guns. The distracting hexagons are there to stay by the way, as they're letting me know I'm protected. Those trucks are about to disappear though, as I tore a massive gun off its mount and I'm about to open them up.

Oh, out of energy again. Funny how often that happens when I'm being reckless.

Energy regenerates quickly when it's not being used, I don't have to consume batteries or chocolate bars or whatever to get it back. It's basically like a stamina meter. The only annoying thing is that there isn't something telling me when it's full again, like a little beep or a circle around the crosshair. I have to glance down to the bottom right of the HUD and check the meter. 

In Crysis 1 you either switched powers with a wheel menu, which felt like shifting gears in a car, or you did a series of button taps. Now it's just one button for 'cloak' and one for 'armour', which is much less awkward. Especially as I can combine them with other powers and do super jumps while invisible etc.

The suit visor doesn't just let you tag enemies and spot weapons, sometimes it'll even put some yellow symbols up with tactical options attached; hints about how to get through each step of a situation, like 'stealth', 'grenade', 'observe' and 'avoid'. I might actually need them this time, as I'm struggling here.

I'm supposed to be breaking through the checkpoint and acquiring a vehicle, though I can just walk right around it on the pavement if I want. Trouble is, I keep getting Alcatraz killed and I'm not sure how I'm screwing up. This is the first bit of the game that's given me any real pushback on normal difficulty. Fortunately, restarts are quick and checkpoints are fair so I'm not feeling any frustration right now.

Okay it turns out that the problem I've been having is that there's an APC hidden in plain sight at the end of the road, and it'll cut me up in seconds if it spots me. At least now I know where I can find a vehicle, which is good because the objective marker is pointing to a cracked wall and I'm going to need some firepower to break through.

If you're wondering why I'm trying to aim through an invisible sight, that's because I'm being clever. Moving with the cloak on drains energy and firing while cloaked uses it up entirely, but I've got plenty of time to stand here and line up my shot. Fortunately, no one's deducting points for me being cheeky with my sneakiness and toggling the cloak off just before I pull the trigger. This means I keep the suit energy and if I'm quick I can switch the cloak back on again without anyone being any the wiser!

In fact, the game doesn't care what I do. I can sneak past everyone, kill everyone, it's all the same. I won't earn any bonus XP, no one's going to comment on it. Lockhart has a vendetta either way.

SEVERAL DEATHS LATER

Oh, I see. I wasn't supposed to steal the enemy APC and use it to blow up the cracked wall, I was supposed to get around to the other side of the wall and find a second APC parked there! Then I use that to shoot the cracked wall so that I can drive it out onto the street. Okay, now things are making more sense.

It's rare to see something actually get demolished like this in the game. In Crysis, you can go into a shack and knock down the walls with a shotgun. Or lob a grenade in and watch the pieces of corrugated metal it was built from rain back down in a beautiful display of simulated physics. This doesn't do that.

Man, I love the explosions in this. Turns out that APCs blow up really good if you hit them before they get you.

Lockhart got on the radio to his C.E.L.L. forces, demanding that roadblocks be set up every half-mile. They'll have to be pretty damn quick with that though, as I'm racing down this road and I think I was only about a mile from Gould's place when I started driving.

Man, it's so weird to be travelling along the water in a Crysis game without being harassed by a boat. I'll get over it though.

5 - LAB RAT

Hey, it's that bridge again! I think this really is the Williamsburg Bridge this time though.

Gould let me know there's been a change of plan. C.E.L.L. are onto him so he had to move to another safehouse. Unfortunately, he accidentally left the new address on his computer at his old address. Whoops. So I need to get in there and wreck his computer before C.E.L.L. gets into it.

It's funny how much the game likes to put me in a position where I'm looking down at the next area I'll be fighting in. It's very helpful though, especially as I like to tag enemies when I can. I just have to remember to use the cloak mode when I'm scoping the place out, because enemies love spotting me across the map. Plus it'll help if I can remember to switch to armour mode before leaping down, as falling damage can kill you.

Hey, there's a proper sniper rifle up here and it is a joy to use. It's so steady that I'm chaining headshots together without even holding the button to stabilise it. I guess that's my final weapon set decided on then. I've got a rifle, a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher, so I can't carry any more and I don't see any reason I'd want to swap any. Well, unless I really need to move faster, as running speed depends on the weapon I'm using.

 
I got caught out on this level a few times, because there are more enemies lurking around than I was expecting. I'd clear out most of them through meticulous sniping, then run down to shoot the survivors and end up getting overwhelmed by a couple of squads that walked out from behind a barrel or something.

One time I tried leaping into the water out of curiosity, and it turns out that Alcatraz can swim just fine. It's just a skill he never has reason to use, as the water's basically just there as scenery and all I can do when I'm in there is find a place to climb back out again.

Alright, I've made it inside Gould's abandoned safehouse building. Just ignore that guy up there. He startled me so I picked him up and threw him into the wall so hard that his head got embedded. It reminds me of the times I used to pin enemies against the wall with bolts in F.E.A.R.

Gould's computer is upstairs so I need to take the lift up there and then break it. I guess once that's done I just leave again.

Bloody hell, they're attacking me with a helicopter! Why don't I ever get to fly a helicopter?

Fortunately, I'm not entirely defenceless here as I swiped a mounted gun before I came up in the lift. A quick burst of fire and Azure Seven's going to need another gunner.

Unfortunately, this is a proper boss fight, with phases, and waves of enemies turning up in between, so now I have to deal with all of them as well. I'm feeling kind of stressed out right now!

Crap, they're attacking me from up on the skylight! Those are some beautiful shadows though. I like how brightly lit walls have a glow to them. It makes me want to shield my eyes even though I'm looking at a monitor screen.

I have no idea how long I've been fighting this boss, but when you're being harassed by a gunship and waves of enemies dropping grenades on your head, minutes feel like hours. It's a bit intense. Honestly, this is the only part of the game so far I wouldn't want to replay, but then I'm always like that in boss fights. I hate feeling like one screw-up is going to mean replaying the whole thing over again, and I hate it even more when that's exactly what happens.

But nope, I survived, I shot the helicopter with a missile and this level is now done.

HOLY SHIT IT'S COMING THROUGH THE WALL!

Oh fuck am I glad I turned armour mode on. I really didn't need to have to do all that over again because the wreckage of a helicopter came hurtling in through a window and flattened me. Azure Seven really made a mess of the building though; there's a hole here where the floor used to be and I'm thinking that's my exit.

SOON

It's finally happened, I've finally met an NPC! There are no dialogue options though, in fact Alcatraz doesn't even talk. Like Gordon Freeman, the best I can do is stroll around and go snoop on the dude's cephalopod. I'm just glad to finally meet the mysterious Dr Gould and even more glad he didn't shoot me when he figured out he's been talking to a complete stranger all this time. Weird how he didn't notice that Prophet had stopped replying to him.

Then C.E.L.L. burst in and we had to make a run for it. This is the part where I figured I'd have to actually start protecting Gould, but nope, he went a different route! I'm completely off the hook! THERE IS NO ESCORT MISSION HERE! So that's cool.

7 - DEAD MAN WALKING

The game's always putting me somewhere that I can scope out the level and have some fun with my sniper rifle. 

Hang on, I recognise this place. This level was in the CGI intro! I thought the intro showed Prophet kicking ass before Alcatraz took over, but it seems I'm the one who's going to be running across that bridge over there and taking on a helicopter. I've still got my rocket launcher, I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

8 - SEAT OF POWER

I can't tell if Alcatraz holding an imaginary gun is a suit error or a game error. Either way, some events happened during the last level and things have gotten kind of bad.

I'm eight levels into the game, not quite halfway through, but it seems like this is the point where the aliens make their move and the gameplay becomes more about fighting monsters than fighting men. Crytek did this in Far Cry, they did it in Crysis and now they're doing it again here! Traditionally this is where the game starts going downhill, but I've never seen this part of Crysis 2 before, so I don't actually know if the alien levels are bad this time.

I'm already three hours in, but I guess I'll have to keep playing just a little longer.

Man, the city is a mess right now, with buildings collapsing around me. It reminds me of the earthquake levels in Duke Nukem 3D, except with bits of alien machine arcing across the wreckage like roller coaster tracks.

But here I am again, looking down on the next area, picking my targets, so the gameplay hasn't changed all that much. These aliens are a lot more human-like than the floating squids in the first Crysis, so I can still take my time and use stealth. Or use my sniper rifle.

Though hang on, are their corpse sparkles disappearing after a while? I need those sparkles to upgrade my suit! Okay, new plan, I'm going down there with my shotgun to take care of them up close. Shouldn't take more than two or three shots each.

Man, look at those beautiful sparks! They're even better in motion, which is true of everything in a video game I guess. I was going to try to get a clearer shot of the action, but then I realised this is more true to what the combat's like.

Things get a bit chaotic when you realise that an alien's crept around behind you like a cheeky bastard, your shotgun needs reloading, and those two other aliens you were stalking are filling the screen with green tracer fire. Do I run away? Grab him? Hit him with a melee attack? Hit him with a super melee attack? Switch armour mode on?

I'm only facing like three of these guys at once, it's like I'm playing an original Xbox shooter right now, but they're definitely a threat. And I don't have quicksaves, so if they get me I have to do the whole area all over again.

I just realised I never showed you what I got for collecting those car keys! I got... a picture of a taxi.

I've been browsing through the Extras menu and there are a bunch of images to unlock here, along with music and videos. I can rewatch cutscenes and stuff, so that's cool. It shows just how much video the game has compared to the first Crysis, which was almost entirely in-engine. The downside to having extras is that when you're playing the game you'll get to a big dramatic moment and "Unlocked new flashback," "Unlocked new music," messages start flashing up on screen.

Anyway, I'd be happy to keep playing this, but this does need to be published today, so I'm out of time.

CONCLUSION

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It's easy to dismiss Crysis 2 as being fundamentally compromised. The original Crysis was designed for PCs that didn't even exist yet, while this was made to run on five-year-old consoles. No more huge open levels, those won't fit in the RAM, and the CPU's not quite up to the destructible foliage physics. Well okay, you can run Far Cry 3 on a PS3 just fine, and Mercenaries and Just Cause run on an original Xbox, but Crytek wanted their graphics to look incredible so other compromises had to be made to get it running close to 30 FPS. I suppose you could file this in the same category as other cut-down 'consolified' sequels like Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows.

I think it's got plenty of its own merits though. The exterior levels may be a couple of streets instead of miles of countryside, but the interiors are more intricate and interesting. The game's taken inspiration from titles like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and BioShock, putting you into a first-person experience with more set-pieces to witness and creepy hallways to just walk through, and it has collectables and recordings planted around to encourage you to explore its spaces. In fact, it's gone a bit BioShock 2 (the one where you play a Big Daddy) as I felt the suit a lot more this time. Plus streamlining the suit powers and mapping them to buttons gives it more of that 'guns in one hand and magic in the other' feel, without going as far as having you literally shoot lightning. Or bees. The controls have changed for the better I think, though I missed the grenade button.

Plus when the aliens inevitably turn up they don't wreck the gameplay this time. Well, they haven't yet at least. I've only fought them a few times and they were like armoured humans, so the gameplay hasn't changed all that much. It was much better than fighting those squids in the first game.

Generally, the combat is a lot like it is in the original Crysis, with the main difference being the scale. In Crysis, you can choose which way you're going to approach a village, while here you're choosing how to get down a fenced-off street. Either way, you're soon down there with a squad of enemies to deal with, making tactical decisions and thinking on your feet when everything goes to crap. And it's still just as long as the first game.

Another thing the game has in common with Crysis is the general lack of frustrations like escort missions, timers, QTEs, infinitely spawning enemies, turret sequences, "YOU MUST RETURN TO THE MISSION AREA" messages, etc. So far anyway. I didn't even mind them taking away the quicksave key as it's been playing fair with the checkpoints. You get through an area and it saves your progress.

Overall, I have to give Crysis 2 a thumbs up. I prefer the first game, but I've been looking at a list of the other first-person shooters with a single-player campaign from 2011, games like Battlefield 3, Duke Nukem Forever, Killzone 3, Rage and Modern Warfare 3, and this is probably my favourite out of all of them. Actually, hang on, I missed Bulletstorm. Also, Deus Ex: Human Revolution counts I suppose. Anyway, the game's good.

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Crysis 3 apparently takes place in 2047, so I'll pencil that into my schedule for then. You might be waiting a while for the next game as well, seeing as I just gave you two massive articles in a row, but I'll leave you a clue so you can take a guess at what it is anyway.

You can also leave a comment about Crysis 2 if you want. I mean, I've certainly written enough about the game myself, so it's only fair.