Black Magix

Ok so we all knew it was coming. Secretly between Perseus Mandate and Timeshift I picked this game up and decided to give it a go.


First Impressions: I played the demo, played it on a buddies machine and reluctantly installed this game on my computer. Looks like a FarCry rip but I'll play it. Installation goes smooth and I get the game up to notice that it's native 64 bit. KUDOS CRYTEK!!!! Maybe this game won't play so horribly on my machine afterall.

Side Note: I didn't realize this til about half way in the game that my computer runs this game with no AA and everything on High at 60 FPS, still haven't experimented with the AA and see what kind of FPS I can get though...

Story: Search and rescue gone wrong (sound familiar?) You play the U.S. Special Forces member NOMAD. Wearing a high tech nanotech suit that grants special human ability, you suit up (pun intended) and head to North Korea to rescue some arch...archelo....people who dig crap up in the ground. (Spelling is a bit off today.) Along the way you fight and use your abilities of your suit to conquer and move throughout the area when you discover something alien has arrived and then things go bad....

Gameplay: I will say this - If you liked Far Cry, you will like this game. I wasn't to fond of Far Cry and the beginning of this game seems to move slowly. Hit detection on the game seems to be a little shallow. (I shot someone in the head 3 times to watch them stand back up and return fire. Ok so they may still be alive but their a dumb son of a gun now.) The game revolves around the suit and how you tactically choose to use it. Are you the kind that likes to use speed to out manuver your enemies? Or do you prefer to run in and face a barrage of bullets moving between shelter to shelter killing any who stand in your way. Or futhermore are you the kind of person that likes to stealth in, grab someone and lob them into their team mates so hard that it bowls them all over :-D This game allows for that and a few other things

Audio: This is the strong point for me. Everything sounds real and especially in 5.1 OMG! Rockets, explosions, guns, distances of firing all come alive in a beautifully mastered audio track. Voice acting is superb but scripted events still occur and do get annoying at times. Sometimes you'll be reminded of your objectives but it seems that your reminded of them every 15 seconds no matter if your heading there or not. At times I wanted to shout **** Back into the radio.

Graphics: After discovering that this game can be played on high settings on my machine all I have to say is GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! The game looks graphically amazing. This is the best of the best that I've played thus far. All textures are hi resolution as well as the grasses and water.

Performance: Eh...seems like there may be a few issues with what the game offers in comparrison to what I really need. The game has few loading screens and plenty of action. But I don't think it's nessiscary to render every tree in the forest and script every single one to fall over if I shoot it. Nor is it required to allow me to run 2 miles off the map and then have to come all the way back and still render everything in between. Map size is a big hit in RAM and it shows on my performance meters (95% usage of RAM in game.) Also the physics engine seems a little odd to have a setting in the performance tab. If I set physics to low, does that mean I turned off gravity? (Bad joke I know)

Final Thoughts: In all the story really had it's moments of me going..."Again?" But at times there were moments I didn't want to set the game down because it was getting so much fun. In all honesty I did have fun playing with the different settings of the suit and trying new things out (ever kill someone by throwing a chicken into them? ) In all I have to say this game is a good play but I'm still waiting to see the computer that unlocks "Very High" Pick this one up if your looking to see just how much your system can take or if you want to enjoy some old Far Cry action with a new twist.

Side Note: There is no F'ing way the guy in the intro movie did that crap without some kind of cheat on. This game is great with a gaming mouse, I bound my suit actions to mouse 4 on my mouse for quick and easy access and I can switch modes with a simple flick.

Addition:
Multiplayer: Almost forgot. I tried the mode of multiplayer where you take objectives around the map and then destroy eachother's bases with a buddy of mine. 1 on 1 action is non existent (even in the other mode of play) and this seems only concivable if you can get 16 guys at the minumum who want to play together. Cloak is worthless as you can see threw it (mind the pun.) and hit boxes seem to be even worse. I shot my buddy three times with a shotgun point blank and he suffered a grand total of 2 health worth of damage. He fires back while I have armor on and I nearly die in 1 hit.


And our score for the day is

9 of 10 - Brilliant but at times it felt more like a chore to play and be tactical then fun for me.

Pictures courtesy of google image search as Xfire didn't work in game for me.

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Armadi110

60fps!!! now that i got my 8800GT (arrived today) ill have to actually get this, the demo was off-putting with my 8600GT fps

nice review

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hiiyah777

Great, thorough review. Thanks a lot! Rep+!

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Black Magix

for those that were wondering, I play this game at 1680x1050

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ljason8eg

And you get 60FPS on high settings with that res? I find that VERY hard to believe...

Black Magix

It's anywhere between a 45-60 or above because I most certainly can't tell any lag (even when I motion blur from looking to fast) I'll try to get Xfire to work for proof.

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ljason8eg

Crysis is funny that way..first time i played, i was like "wow..this is really smooth" i turn the console on, and what do you know...28FPS! lol

Black Magix

well one thing I do know is that the native 64 bit helps with that as well as the recent patches which fix some coding issues.

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SentryOptic

you should do a bit more reading up on Crysis before reviewing.

There are plenty of hacks that will unlock the "Very High" settings without the need for vista.

And the game may look brilliant, but it's actually a "Far Cry" away from perfect.

Try it with the graphics all maxed out, 4x AA.

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sublime0

Ever since I did my Grid reviews Ive seen lots of people doing reviews as well. Kinda cool to get everyone following my lead. It makes me happy now we can just go to pc games and find reviews.