Crysis 2 "The Terminal"

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Published 2010-10-08

Live PC demo build of 2011 shooter Crysis 2.

Now historically, I'm a bit of a detractor of the original Crysis. The amount of customization and planning available in that game always seemed a bit overly-complex, while the core combat often amounted to turning invisible, taking aim, firing off a few head shots, hiding, repeat.

Not so with Crysis 2, which appears to have taken queues from FPS heavy-hitter Halo 3 and cover-based shooters Gears of War and Lost Planet. The alien firefights present a radically different "invasion" motif. Rather than sneaking up on unsuspecting enemies in a vast jungle environment, "The Terminal" takes place in a barricaded mall, with the player engaged in a terrifying holdout until an escape vehicle arrives. The feeling of being the hunted, rather than the hunter, heightens the frenetic nature of the combat, and enemies are significantly more resilient to fire, leading to countless mad-sprints from cover to cover. Had "God Mode" been disabled, I'd probably have died many times.

Like Killzone 2, Crysis 2 employs a first-person cover system. Pressing the "use" key near sandbags, pillars, ammo boxes, ect. places the player (relatively) safe from enemy fire, while right-clicking peeks out of cover until depressed. I did run into issues several times while in cover, including clipping, standing, and not returning to cover after firing. Blind firing is also prohibited.

The build seemed to have been derived from Xbox 360 build, given the button icons in the UI. 360 demos were also on display, and looked pretty fantastic. 3D support was an available option, but there were no nVidia 3D Vision boxes setup. Plays at a silky smooth 60 FPS, although some animations were muddy, especially with non-enemy NPCs.

Colour me excited.