Features 10 Years On: Crysis

Crysis is actually the best selling game Crytek have ever made, it's also one of the best selling PC only titles ever (that aren't an MMO or made by Valve).

Crysis sold 3 million copies within a year of it's release, Warhead and the re-releases bumping that number up to at least double, however Crytek (or EA) went through a phase of suppressing it's sales figures to justify Crysis 2 both releasing on console and containing restrictive DRM. For it's part Crysis 2 sold very well initially, then rapidly tailed off as it's much more by the numbers approach turned off both the new console gamers and PC market.

The confirmed 3 million units of Crysis PC is still more than Crysis 2 sold on all platforms combined, whilst Crysis 3's sales were so disastrous they have never been released by EA or Crytek, although the best guess is less than 1 million copies per platform.

For my part I adored Crysis, the Abyss is one of my favourite sections of any game ever simply for being an alien environment that is actually alien. Lot's of games do squishy or bio-tech styled environments, but a frozen artifical 'cave' with zero gravity was truly memorable. The linear end section is less memorable than the first half, but Warhead balances it's linear set pieces with open ended maps much better. The Crysis Wars multiplayer side was completely unbalanced and resultingly brilliant. I expect that if it came out today Wars would have been a Youtube phenomenon as people uploaded videos of LAVs being punted around the level like giant green footballs, playing it 'properly' was terrible, but it was 32 players who could turn invisible and throw chickens through walls, it was never meant to be played properly.

It's such a shame that 2 and 3 were pushed by hardware limits into being so much smaller in scale, with the 'big' moments mostly acheived through smoke and mirrors. It's an even bigger shame that EA decided Crysis needed to be a combined media franchise, so the story got advanced by decades in books and comics that hardly anyone read, which left the plot of the games completely unengaging.

One last thing, the Shark, dear God that mother-effing Shark. You have to wonder why the Navy didn't just catch him and fire him out of a cannon at the aliens, war over, job done.

 

...bout time I install and Play it...(for the first time)

 

Well the Maximum Edition is £15 on Steam or about £10 for the DVD version new, so yes, it's about time you did.

 

I didn't buy it originally as I'm not a huge FPS fan and my PC at the time wasn't up to scratch. I have, however, just picked up a DVD copy from CEX for something like £1.50, so it may be worth looking there. Now I just have to find the time to install and finally enjoy the goodness...

 

...oh I've bought it (should be SOMEWHERE)