Approaching Crysis
Published by marco on
Another game that’s been in development for a long time is Crysis. Earlier this year there was a pretty good review of it, Crytek’s Jack Mamais on Crysis by Chris Remo (Shack News), where the reviewer noted that “running on a beefy DirectX 10-capable NVIDIA 8800, the game was never short of gorgeous.” Granted, an NVidia 8800 is no shrinking violet of a graphics card—with the top-of-the-line version weighing in at $600+ and 177 Watts—but still, it was running the game “at a fluctuating framerate in the 20-30fps range” at the “ridiculous resolution of 2048x1536”. Naturally, the developer claims that the game runsjust fine on an older card, and that even a “[a] three year old graphics card should be pretty good. … It won’t be cutting edge with the graphics but it’ll be super good.”
The game apparently has a story because Crytek has “hired writers” and everything, including “a couple of Hollywood guys working on the story with us”. Awesome. A couple of Hollywood guys are a sure-fire way of getting quality adult-themed entertainment into a game. Just look at the quality writing in your average Hollywood action blockbuster. It’s a plan that can’t fail. Here’s a brief summary of plot points, player capabilities, etc.: nano-suit gives super-human powers, player can drive/fly all sorts of vehicles and “Attack and Defend” multiplayer mode that is completely different because it’s called “Power Struggle” instead. Oh yeah, and it’s non-linear in completely new and exciting ways.
Despite whining from the developer that “[i]t kills us when people call it a tech demo”, the thing that really screams “buy me!” are the screenshots. Behold:
All sarcasm aside, it looks amazing. It may be the same old type of game (super soldier clears out world full of whackos with heavy weaponry single-handedly), but looks to be one of the first that takes advantage of the kind of power a $600 graphics card can offer. So if you’ve got one of those lying around or you’ve got a wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket, put this one on your Christmas list … if it’s out by then.
For even more screenshots, check out Crysis Screenshots (Shack News).
