Gaming Crysis Was Terrible

Not at all. Craig, AFAIK, believes what he's writing and I, albeit to a lesser extent, agree with him in retrospect on many points. Crysis was a bit pants. Bioshock had problems, but did other stuff very well. Far Cry 2 was mostly a bit shite, but also some stuff very nicely.

It's important to read the articles through. In the Far Cry 2 Was Underappreciated article, for example, Craig isn't saying that FC2 was perfect, merely that it did some bits very, very well and that people often overlook that because they like to hate on it for other reasons. Likewise, Craig doesn't claim Bioshock was perfect - he slates it for many of the same reasons the rest of you do - but he points out (rightly) that it had some very important, early strengths that hardcore gamers should be familiar with.

There's a difference between something being controversial and something just having a different opinion to you. The title is definitely a bit provocative, but the content is no more controversial than some of the posts here arguing that Crysis was a brilliant game.

 

Greetings!

Have to disagree.
Crysis was not terrible.

 

Many say the same about Half-Life 2 and 1, and the episodic content that followed
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2007/09/26/valve_may_reconsider_episodic_games/1
http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2007/06/23/in_support_of_episodes/comments

I wonder if you, the people at Bit-tech try spending some time developing your own ideas (together) about games since you have been on the receiving end of the gaming industry for so long. You guys also must have connections like the "how I got my job at Nvidia" article and so on.

We long time readers would be thrilled especialy since your taste for games is bohemian, the cream of the crop, and deep. Especially since you're also English/Brittish and you do articles about good games coming from the queen's beans.
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2010/04/07/the-best-uk-games-ever/1

 

cheers for the response Joe... I think that the fact that this game has been argued out at nauseum over the past few weeks in the forum ment that the topic was well documented. Then for an article to appear that is excessively anti crysis just seems like old news and maybe a missed opportunity to look at the forum posts and come up with something that poked fun at both sides! I can't comment on the farcry article as I haven't read it or played the game, but I did read both bioshock and cyrsis articles fully and play both games. I found both articles to be written from a very narrow slant, yes bioshocks faults were touched on and so were slight redeeming factors of cyrsis but on the whole both articles take an opinionated stance on their given subject that almost insults the inteligence of the reader. Hence my derision. Craig I'm sure you'll come out with what I'll consider some cracking articles in time to come, just not so far with this series

 

Yes, that's exactly what I did! I wanted to wait until I could enjoy it on max graphics settings.

I played thru it a couple of months ago on my new machine and really enjoyed it until the alien section at the end. Then it became a chore.

 

I've never disagreed so much with an article on BT before.

Crysis hasn't been uninstalled for more than a month since I first bought it years ago. It's the go-to title for showing friends who own consoles how to properly play a properly HD game, and I still play it and Warhead fairly often. Luring 10 soldiers into a hut and then knocking the walls out so the roof falls on them never gets old.

Crysis is a lot better than Far Cry 2 in my opinion. I'm actually playing through Far Cry 2 for the first time at the moment, and really, it's just not that good. The ridiculous enemy respawn on the checkpoints really pisses me off, and it's just nowhere near as solid and consistent a game as Crysis.

I seem to be alone in not hating the Trigens from Far Cry by the way. The mission where you're dropped in a Tri-gen infested forest with no bullets and have to make your way down a river at night with them all around you was brilliant, I'll never forget that.

 

Crysis was an extremely pretty but largely standard game. It was fairly enjoyable to play, but it will never make it into my favourites list. I think to call the game terrible is unfair. But it was hardly brilliant either.

 

Crysis story was pants but the visuals, re-playability & the attitude of do what you want and go where you want was epic. The AI tbh were rubbish, even on high settings, they were daft as a plank. The way i got through this is went onto crymod.com and downloaded someone's custom config which made the AI incredibly fast at reactions and much more stealthy, they actually worked as a team to sniff out the enemy and then pounce on you. This changed the whole game experience for me.

I wouldn't say Crysis/Warhead was a terrible game, it had it's flaws but was far better than some of the rubbish that comes out these days!

Not at all, that was one of the best parts in the game... i used to wait up on the waterfall chucking stones down trying to lure the Trigens away so i could slowly sneak past them. That's what i like about Crysis... stealth!

 

Crysis was an empty-shelled tech demo.

It took me a couple of hours, not three years, to figure that out. Should I start reviewing games?

 

Hang on, what? Crysis was a game? For the last 3 years I've always thought it was an interactive tech demo.

But seriously I find it very ironic how, in retrospect, Crysis did more damage to the PC gaming industry than good. It caused PC exclusive budgets to be reconsidered. It questioned the logic of making PC games so visually brilliant that they become unobtainable to most PC gamers.

And worst of all, it asked the question: is it financially viable making AAA PC exclusives any more?

 

I am with Joe that this article isn't just flamebait. It is a well argued piece, and Craig believes what he says.

Doesn't stop him being wrong, of course. BioShock is dull and boring, and Crysis was (and is) excellent. Fundamentally, he misunderstands the game - to complain about the story in Crysis is like commenting on the quality of the dialogue in Commando. You're missing the point.

Nobody complains about the story, setting or pacing of a game like Forza or Gran Turismo. They're simulations of an experience, and it's expected that all a simulation needs to do to be successful is to recreate, as truthfully and accurately as possible the experience they model. Crysis is a simulation - not of driving, but of destruction, specifically, the destruction of action movies. Once you understand this - that the point of the ludicrously over engineered graphics and detailed physics model is to represent blowing things up, the games makes a lot more sense. Everything in Crysis exists to create the opportunity for destruction. It's up to the player to want to enjoy the experience, just as it's up to the player in Forza to want to drive fast and win.

 

I think BT hired warrior for this article

I think Crysis' sandbox nature made it boring for people who are used to being linearly drawn towards the next objective ( like COD games). One has to realise that such games are made boring or exciting primarily by the way the gamer plays. I would agree about the alien AI though. They were too dumb!

 

What? I didn't realise there was a 'proper' way to control a HD game that is distinct from a SD game. Should I be standing on my head or something?

 

Crysis played quite well on my good, but not excessively powerful machine. The flying level was a piece of cake (maybe since I have a lot of experience with flying games), and the aliens weren't so hard to kill and certainly better than the trigens. The only absolutely ridiculous moment in the game was when that huge alien mothership slowly hovered next to the carrier and you had to destroy the weapon launchers (or whatever, cannot remember too well) to be able to finally kill it. That was purest childish arcade machine bullcrap. Such a ship should have been able to blow the entire carrier group to smithereens and create a hole half way to the center of earth in the ocean ground below it. Half Life 2 certainly was more linear and had worse AI than Crysis (not that Crysis has good default AI ...). It only excelled in presenting breath taking vista points again and again. As far as FC2 goes: Who cares about a product that does a few bits very well but so much screws up in some main areas that it ruins the game sooner or later?

All you could say about Crytek is that while they can build stunning graphics engines, they cannot really make games. They're not alone here though - just think of anything id Software produced after Wolfenstein and Doom 1.

Craig, all in all I have to say that I rather believe that maybe you rather than Crytek are a tad arrogant - can that be? You are making me wonder whether writing articles so full with negativity that they will inevitably attract all kinds of strife and controversy is bit-tech's new business model to get more readers.

 

You keep saying sandbox, but what you mean is a linear game with a bit wider tunnels than usually.

Yes, I know you can either stealth or just shoot everyone in the face, but that doesn't really change anything. IMO the game just isn't a sandbox, you just get the feeling of open terrain if you want to.

 

I love sandboxes. I don't consider Crysis to be one.

It's just wide corridors and some weaponised abilities. The choice between Max Stealth and Max Strength is, in most situations, little more than the choice between a Shotgun and Pistol. If that's what you mean by Crysis being a sandbox then Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, with it's swords/bows/magic and special abilities, is even more of a sandbox. Except it isn't obviously.

As for the levels, they were just wide corridors, as Craig said. And regardless of how wide they were, you were still pulled through from A to B by linear objectives. The only choice there was to go on the road and fight some dudes, or go off the road and look at trees.

Personally, I don't consider that too much of a bad point - my dislike for Crysis isn't anything to do with whether or not it's a sandbox - but it can't really be labelled as one, for sure. The term 'sandbox' is a recognition of epic scope and freedom, rather than just having three or four choices of how to kill someone, but a game doesn't have to be a sandbox to be good. Some of the best games aren't.

GTA IV is a sandbox. Red Dead Redemption is a sandbox. Crysis is not a sandbox. Deus Ex is not a sandbox.

 

As with those other "controversial" articles they all have some truth in them. Crysis did have a few niggles of bad gameplay within it if you didn't really set it up right.

It was hella finicky at the start and once you got to the aliens you were a sitting duck.

However I do disagree about the Koreans being mediocre, that was great fun, and once you got a modded AI file, they became deadly. I don't see the issue with this article, like the FC2 article it pointed out some things that were glossed over entirely, as with the BS one, although I think BS was a bit crap near the end but that's another story.

 

I think its great that someone had the stones to make a game that would push the current state of hardware instead of just recycling the same ideas. Gotta hand it to innovation. Even at the expense of everything else. You have to drive technology forward somewhere.

That being said, Id pick it up for cheap if there was a special, wouldnt shell out $60 on it, but I can see how its entertaining and why some people like it.

Thanks for writing something critical, thats needed as much as the puff pieces.

 

Properly play as in: Here is a mouse, here is a keyboard, put the pad down.
Properly HD as in: 1920x1200, your 720p Halo 3 belongs in 2004.