News Crysis, UT3 sales disappoint developers

Crysis: Dont know wht everyones going on about it plays on my 8800GTS (640mb) at medium settings with only occasional lag. My problem with it is that a predominantly single player game the campaign felt criminally short. Farcry took me ages to complete, crysis took 1 saturday.... i didnt pay £25 for an 8hr long campaign

UT: Played the demo loved it but only didnt buy the game due to being at uni and not being allowed to open required ports... shame

 

Crysis is on my mental list of games to eventually buy sometime after I've done PC upgrades, though with the reviews saying that the hardware requirements are really, really steep even for newer hardware and that the gameplay itself is only good rather than great, its likely I'd wait till the price had dropped somewhat (probably the £14.99 or £9.99 levels on play.com)

The UT3 demo wasn't as smooth as I'd like and while it seemed decent, it still didn't seem as good to me, gameplay-wise as the original UT, at least in what was there, so again its on my mental list of games to buy but certainly isn't a priority either. The lack of real options was a bit of a niggle too if I'm honest.

 

I bought UT3 to make me feel good about dropping £180 on a shiny new 8800 GT graphics card, I've loved every incarnation of UT since I discovered bot multiplayer in the original Unreal game. It looks stunning and runs super smooth, and Vehicle CTF mode is lots of fun. Makes me very happy.

I've have avoided buying Crysis because i don't believe it will run well at the kind of detail levels I want to run it at. The thought of having to spend a while tweaking settings to get it to run 'acceptably' on a system that is decent enough to run pretty much everything else around (and that i've just spent cash on upgrading), well, that makes me sad.

I hear a lot of the argument that you can play Crysis now on medium settings and then go back in a year and play it on very high to get all the extra effects. Well, i've just been doing that with FEAR this weekend, and while the effects are cool the gameplay just feels old, and the environments feel bland and lacking in the kind of detail and interactivity found in newer stuff. I dont see how anyone can say the same wont be true of Crysis by the time hardware has caught up.

 

I know a lot of people that are not buying Crisis until they have the money to upgrade there systems. and I think this is a pattern that is common with those system raping games.

 

For me its the same old thing Crysis brilliant looking and some intresting things to do but nothing I havent done before in a FPS and no story to drive it on only so much im willing to pay to go ooo eye candy without a story. Give me a game like bioshock which costs the same maybe dosnt look as good but has a far better plot to drag you in.

Well same applies to UT3 really its all same old 've seen and played it before which I dont think exactly justifies the cost, I could say the same about TF2 but at least for £25 I got 3 excellent games that are thoroughly good fun

 

dunno... but could it be because there where so many ogood games released in nov?... i mean, usually you can buy 1 or 2 games per month and end up having all games worth mentioning... so some people prolly didnt buy crysis and ut3 due to finacial reasons.

besides that... both have rather high system requirements, sure, they arent that bad (both run on system in my sig), but some people might be scared.

 

First I love PC gaming, but I'm sorry to say it's dead Nooooooooo. Yes it's true, I have been a PC gamer for 25 years and it is coming to a end. It is taking way to long for games to come out on the PC side, and when they do you need a upgrade to run it well. I did not like the Xbox or the PS2 but with the new systems I have gone over to the dark side, the 360 and PS3 rock!!! with a HDTV the games look just as good or even better then a high end PC, for alot less money. And all the games are coming out at a good pace, not a long wait like the PC side. I really like the way you can hook a keyboard and mouse up to the PS3, it's very nice, and all the other things you can do with it just add to the fun. Being able to have voice chat this easy is a big plus, and if someone is driving you nuts with the things they are saying just click there tag and mute them. Peace and Love to all...

 

sorry... but you have to count the cost of the tv too, and the higher game prices if you want to figure out the real cost of consoles.

lets face it, the tv is only good for gaming, what they call tv i rubbish, and if they once in a while actually bring a good movie you could buy it a year ago in the bargain on dvd.
for the money of the tv license alone one can buy more movvies on dvd than they bring on tv... (that are worth watching).

 

I bought Crysis to play in my Opty165 (stock speed), 1Gb (had 2x1Gb, but one is ruined :\) and 8800GTS (320). It's smooth @1680x1050. Can't play with all the eyecandy and with AA. I'll play it max quality next year. I think that most people will only buy Crysis when they have rig capable of playing crysis at full quality.

I also think the game was a little on the sort side and i played it at the hardest setting, allways trying to sweep the whole island. I enjoyed the vastness of the jungles and the games of cat and mouse (the mouse being me running invisible and headshooting one merc at the time ). The vehicle action was very nice, too bad the VTOL level only got aliens to shoot down, i still had fun blasting the merc huts. The alien-ship was boring and the final boss scene was badly designed and coded.

When i played this game i kept thinking that this is farcry 2, but i remember farcry to be harder, with less bugs in the AI and more polished and tested. Crysis seemed to be rushed. The last level is a shame. There's no excuse to this.

Anyway, for me it's one of the GOTY for 2007. I still play farcry everytime i buy a new GPU and the same will happen with crysis. Both have a high replay value. It's a game that will continue to sell. Crysis just need a few mods and bug patches.

 

Not tried either of them here for pretty much the same reason as most people, the games would simply point fingers at my machine and giggle. I do plan to have a crack at Crysis as and when I have a pc that will actually play it

 

IMHO these games are will sell a lot n the long run....

 

yeah surprised about ut3, theres hardly anyone playing it, altho as with all unreal3 engine games the nonremovable mouse accel sucks

 

Crysis: waaaay too many reviews (and they're oh-so-true) underlining 3 major points: (very) short single-player, bad multiplayer and amazing top-of-the-line graphic. do the math. what do you expect? u think people will shell out $50 for something that has 2 bad flaws and 1 good point?

UT3: most reviews: UT2004 with better graphic. thats it. LOL.


point is, try to put urself in a regular customer' shoes. graphic is NOT the biggest thing most people would pay to play for. and other than graphic, what else do these games have?

 

TBH I don't see a whole lot of appeal in UT3. I can play UT2004 maxxed out at about 150 FPS and the gameplay is pretty much identical to a prettier version that makes my machine cry. Yes, I've read the reviews and know they're not the same thing... but they really are to me. Normally I'm all over campaign modes, but as far as I'm concerned UT3's story was just wedged in between a bunch of deathmatches and really awkwardly stuck in other game modes (this was mentioned in Bit's review, IIRC). Given that and how the over-stylized graphics let me barely get 30fps or so, there's no point in playing it.

Crysis looks like arse at the settings that it's playable at (other than destructable environments, Far Cry beats the pants off looks-wise at playable settings), but it's still fun at 1024x768 medium. I'd really like to see it in a couple years. Or at least when the nVidia 9-series hit.

 

i haven't had time, or money to buy UT3 recently, so that's why i don't have it

Crysis, i don't like it, IMO its a rubbish game, with too much emphasis on the graphics, i currently don't plan on ever getting it

 

Crysis: I'm with the rest of the crowd. There are lots of good games to spend my money on this christmas and they'll look lovely on my Dell 24" 1920x1200. I don't have time to play a game more than once, so until I have money for 2 8800 GTS 512MB or similar I can't see the point in buying Crysis. The game itself is beautiful, but not necessarily a great game, so playing it on a system which can't show the graphics is a bit futile. I honestly can't see myself playing it for at least a year so that hardware can catch up at a reasonable price. I mean read the articles on 3xSLI 8800 Ultras and a then add up the cost + the beefy power supply, and then how loud an amplifier will you need to cover the noise of fans. Plus that's really the ONLY game I need the hardware for, and 8800 GTS 512MB looks good enough for the rest (or SLI if you must) so cash wise (scan prices 17/12)

3 x 8800 ULTRA + 1000W PSU = £1400 (inc vat)
or
2 x 8800 GTS 512 + 600W PSU = £550 (inc vat)
or
1 x 8800 GTS 512 + no new PSU = £230 (inc VAT)

If SLI scaled nicely I'd say the middle solution would be nice either watercooled (like my beast of today) or had passive heatsinks, but my case allowed me to play a decent 120mm fan over the heatsinks. Its certainly affordablish although its more expensive than say a new notebook.

Conversely I'd expect interest in Crysis to re-surge when better hardware comes out.

I also think that anyone buying triple SLI ought to get it (Crysis) for free given the amount shelled out.

 

Garden Gnomes. I think we can blame it on Garden Gnomes.


No, seriously, I don't know. I loved Crysis for single player and I'm diggin UT3 - love it so far, although it's turning into a Vanguard because of the UI bugs I think it's turning people away. It's those darn console users that can't handle a sophisticated UI that ruin it for the PC users.

 

I wouldn't even try playing either on my old radeon 9600xt... i'll need to upgrade for me to even consider buying either :-/

 

If either game had been released when there was bugger all else to choose from (last xmas springs to mind) then they would of sold very well. But over the last 6 weeks or so there have been alot of top titles (for whatever reason) released and there's alot of people that either can't afford them all or just don't have the time to play them all yet.

I mean c'mon but when was the last time a bunch of games like this has been released in such a short space of time.
Crysis
UT3
ET: Quake Wars
Gears of War
World in Conflict
The Orange Box
The Witcher
Hellgate London
Clive Barker's Jericho
Call of Duty 4
NFS Prostreet (It may be crap, but it will sell regardless)

and i've probably missed a few more that would sell well without competition too..

 

UT3.... played the demo, wasn't impressed with the game play. And as others have said, it's same thing with new graphics. I might get it, I might not.

I do have to agree with the observations that the PC market might be on the down swing.

With a console you have a known set of hardware to develop against. On the PC you don't, Someone might be running P4 @ 2.2, someone else a Quad Core... 6600 GT with 128mb vs a 8800GTX. Supporting this wide range of hardward with settings that make the game look good and still be playable for all can't be easy. Develop for the console and you know what everyone has.... and that they will all get the same graphic and play experience.