News Crysis: Warhead Announced

I thought it was pretty clean, too. The minimum specs, the marketing as the best looking since the dawn of forever probably didn't either. Truth told, it lookd good, but what else was there to it?

A mute protagonist (I had my fill of that with Gordon Freeman, thanks. Oh, and every damned GTA game before Vice City), some stereotypical characters, and some aliens?

The fact that they wanted £30 for that just felt like a massive joke to me.

I know it ran well and looked nice on medium-ish settings, I played it on that kind of setting at native res (1680x1050) without issue.

If this turns out to be anything like it, then I'm sorry, but CryTek might aswell go console exclusive. It's not like they're doing anything ground breaking.

Although, canning support for a game barely out of its diapers is relatively unusual..

 

Well I found it huge fun myself. It was too easy, sure, but it was a great fun game. I guess a game like Crysis requires you not to ruin it for yourself, and I don't think that's something most people factor into games anymore. Most of my favourite games over the years have been ones you can totaly ruin or make incredibly easy, if you choose to. But if you choose to play in a specific way and stick to that, it's absolutely huge fun. So for instance in Crysis, you could easily just run into every camp and run about executing guys using stealth. You could make it a complete cake walk even on the harder difficulty levels. If you decided "this play through I'm going to be very stealthy" or "this playthough I'm going to blow up every last thing that can explode and screw that wussy stealth crap" then imo the game was hugely enjoyable.

After you went inside the Alien spacecraft it all got a bit crap, I'll agree, but untill then I thought it was a game of the year contender, easily. Good fun at LANs too.

This was no Doom, I don't really know what people expect from FPS anymore though in a world where people dislike Crysis and yet rave about how amazing CoD4 was. Regardless, people should buy games like Crysis because it supports PC developers like Cry-tek, who've been good to us all over the years, developed two great games now, and havn't shat on us all from a great height with in game advertising, horrific anti-piracy crap, or released games more buggy than a mosquito and then not bothered patching.

 

why they must lie about how much piracy hurts them I dont know. They give numbers of downloads as if thats directly lost sales when its not. No where near, people were turned of crysis due to high system requirements and thats why sales havent been so high, people wanted to test it rather than pay for it and find they couldnt run it. As well as those who wouldnt buy it anyway but download it. If games manufactures continue this lies about piracy they may well find people refusing to purchase from them. I would like to just say I dont pirate games as they are one of the few items I feel i get my moneys worth out of.

 

Oh c'mon that's rubbish, Crysis didn't require a very hefty system to run. Sure, if you had a hell of a system Crysis could still kick it's ass, but you could quite happily turn things down and run it on last gen tech (I know, I did for a time). The engine was very scalable and ran admirably well I thought.

These guys aren't lying about Piracy, they're not whining about it, they're not making up grandiose claims. Otherwise I'd be lambasting them like you are. What they're doing is simply saying "We're not going to be PC exclusive anymore, because not enough people are buying our games". That's fair enough, and we all know piracy was rampant with a game like Crysis.

 

I agree completely, but don't forget that reality and the perception of reality are two very different things. Crysis may not have really needed a hefty system to run - but people thought it did.

 

Its funny I don't know why i didn't play Crysis, i quite enjoyed the demo, i don't mind silly shooters, I quite like Q4 and i managed to get most of the specs ramped up, but i just never played it. The only thing i can think is that it never seems to have come down in price, its still (a reasonable) £27 on play, but then it's always been that price. I think i've been waiting on it to come down and i just never has and now i'd pretty much forgotten i wanted it since i spend what little gaming time i have playing tf2.

 

True. But if gamers are too stupid to actually read reviews (most of which showed the game not just on super-high end godlike kit but also on mid-level kit) of a game before buying it, they can't whine when the devs don't want to sell the games anymore. You can't complain about something which isn't the case and then complain more when a company stops bothering to cater to you afterward.

 

True, but sites that do a full on graphical break down are very rare. Bit is one of the few. All other sites will just turn the dial up to full and whinge that the game stutters and needs a powerhouse, or leave the game at default settings and mention their Alienware sponsored £5000 gaming PC.

It isn't about reading the reviews (which statistically make no difference to the success of a game anyway), it's about reading the right reviews.

 

The thing is, consoles aren't getting exclusive games, I mean not really. There are not many AAA titles that aren't on more than one platform. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is MGS4, which has been rumoured to be going multiplatform once it has sold enough PS3's. Hell, even gran turismo 5 might be going to PC. And I disagree with the idea that good ports are the exception. Sure there are some bad ones (RE4 comes to mind), but generally a AAA title is going to have a good PC version. Whether it's very much the same game (Bioshock) or with added content (Mass Effect, Assassins Creed).

What everybody always seems to be forgetting is that PC games earnt more last year than ever before. Are developers really going to just ignore this market space just because more people pirate on it or are they going to take that extra several million in revenue? I don't think they will pass that up, and if the bigger companies do, then smaller companies will step in and become successful. The PC market will always be there, even if it is sharing it's games.

This interview with Doug Lombardi of Valve touches on this subject a little, it's worth the read:
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=873

 

a year or so to get the 2nd game? another year for the 3rd game? and they wont support the previous game once they focused on the next?

what......????

 

Well that's the thing. I loved the gameplay of the first half or so, but after that it just got stupid. Same with Far Cry really. More often than not I'll replay the first half of Far Cry only to hit the trigen-infested second half and go do something else. Crysis will likely suffer the same fate if I ever get a new graphics card and can run it a little more smoothly.

Unfortunately, that means that the first time through I'm left with a sour taste after finishing the game, which makes it much harder to recommend. If they had gone ahead and gotten the suck out of the way in the first half and finish on a high note, it could have done a lot better (system requirements aside).

 

/Start Rant

The only way to save pc gaming and pc game developers creating AAA games for the PC is to do what Valve has done. Steam, the biggest innovation in gaming history so far. Eliminates piracy, helps reduces the number of hackers in online servers. It cuts out publishers but who the **** needs a publisher anyways? People buy games on steam and the game developers get more of the profit from the game like they deserve! Either make your games available exclusively through steam to rule out the piracy factor or better yet...do what EA attempted with EA Link and try to create your own Steam (even tho EA Link is crap).

Really, if game developers are that worried about Piracy...use logical non-invasive methods to protect your games.
Because nobody likes an invasive copy protection on their game, that just hurts the actual customers that purchase your games.

Crytek has nobody to blame but themselves.

And so what if they don't make games exclusively for the PC. (As long as it's not a ****'n port)
They can go multiplatform, that's where all the money is at. As long as they create games for the PC then make them for the consoles, or better yet create them for the PC and Consoles simutaniously so nobody is getting a crappy port.

That's the key to being a great game developer. That...and then actually listening to the community and the customers.

/End Rant

 

A) It also creates a monopoly, which has only really worked thus far because Valve are a benevolent leader.
B) They tried. EA launched Crysis on the EA Store, which is their online version of Steam. However, it didn't work because people hated on it before they even tried it purely because it was EA.

True, EA could have gone to Steam, but then you just end up in a position where Valve has all the power. That's not good for anyone, esp. when it takes them this long to do an Episode as it is.

 

I will wait for the review of the multiplayer.

I will not be again duped into paying $50 for what was essentially a fairly heavily scripted, 15-hour single player experience with a near unplayable multiplayer aspect.

 

I dont think I got half way through Crysis before I quit..... and I bought it legally.. wish I hadnt now.

 

Completly agree

I think the really important concept here is this:

(# of PC gammers) < (# of PC gamers + # of console gamers)

Or, to put it another way, given the choice between making a great product that X number of people can run or making a little bit crappier product that 5X people can run, why would you make the first product? The same is true of games. Why would you want to limit your potential customer base to just PC gamers when for a little more effort and a few comprimises you can sell the same basic product to PC gamers AND PS3 gamers AND XBox 360 gamers?

On the plus side, the same logic applies to consoles. By definition, all businesses are greedy, so unless you're a first party developer who needs to move your particular flavor of console, why limit your market base to only one platform?

What does bug me about this is that developers keep using the piracy canard to explain them doing what makes economic sense.