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Crysis 3 Pre-order Includes the First Crysis

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By Dylan_Hodge02-11-2012

People interested in Crytek’s upcoming FPS (which, if you play shooters at all, probably includes you), can pre-order the game now through the company’s official site.

For a “limited time” people who pre-order the upcoming February release will receive a free digital copy of the original Crysis and day one access to two different guns in the game’s multiplayer. If you were going to get this anyway and haven’t played the first game, I’d say that’s a pretty good deal.


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Posts: 1317

TOO LONG DIDN'T READ! :D ----------------- No, just kidding. Anyway, it seems to me that we mostly differ on our personal opinion and preference. We both agree that C2 is quite different from C1 in a lot of ways. While you welcomed some of the changes - or at least don't oppose them all that much - I truly despise them. Of course you are correct when you say that it's not at all a "CoD-clone" or anything, though I find that it has moved a lot in that direction. Everything is more "focused" (to use politically correct word), there is a near complete lack of freedom in terms of gameplay (whether to use armor-mode or stealth-mode within the 50 square meter "open" area when you are forced to take down every enemy before continuing either way, is hardly freedom), and every other aspect seems to be toned down. Indeed so that the game can run on a console. I find it strange that Far Cry and Crysis were all about good AI and open space to fight in, and then suddenly CryTek changed their mind and made a quasi-open corridor shooter with some extra options... for no reason? Far Cry was published by Ubisoft. Crysis 1 was made when EA was struggling (back then, they gave out free content-updates to games like BC2, they experimented with new games like Mirror's Edge and focused hard on customer service in order for the company to get bigger once again). Crysis 2 was made when EA had reclaimed a lot of its former glory/greed. So I find it hard to believe that Crysis 2 was just a result of some opinions changing within CryTek's four walls. But again, it's really irrelevant who is to blame or whatever. I find Crysis 2 to be a frustratingly mediocre game. When I think of how great Crysis 2 could have been - if it wasn't for the greed of CryTek and/or EA, who seemed hellbent on getting the new game a console priority, no matter how much they needed to sacrifice for it - it makes the game seem even worse, to me. I don't find Crysis 1 to be like the epitome of FPS, the best game in the genre or anything... but I did love a lot of what Crysis did for the genre. So I suppose I just feel extra angry about C2 for that reason.

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Posts: 1548

Maybe you guys would like to step over to the forums...where paragraphs already work? :P

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Posts: 240

Wow, we really need paragraphing to work outside of the forum. I mean, fucking hell, I thought my post looked horrible enough. Anyway, I won't say your points are wrong. In fact, I think they're perfectly valid and fair on a number of levels. But, to be perfectly honest, I still think comparing it to a now generic series like CoD is still very far fetched. What is the CoD series as of late as well as its real clones or "wannabes"? They're generic military shooters that play like a Michael Bay movie of which I'm personally sick to death of. Crysis 2 may not be as good as the first game - and I agree with that completely - but I'll be damned if it's another generic FPS even given that it's a less than favourable sequel. Crytek are an amazingly talented company and to hear Crysis 2 compared to CoD would surely piss them off and for good reason. God knows what artists they have or who came up with what scenes but what they did with the setting of New York was nothing short of amazing and, linear or not, to compare the campaign to any military shooter seems like a slap in the face to me. To say the developers have no artistic integrity for having EA co-publish the game (more on that in a minute) is ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. Their talent for art shines throughout Crysis 2. Now, I won't deny that they could have had more artistic freedom without EA but to say it doesn't exist is frankly awful. They chose the setting - which I personally think, with EA or not, is the lead cause of the game's linearity because making the game as hugely open as the first but in a non-fictional setting is far more difficult than the alternative - and knew from the get-go what they wanted to do with it and they achieved their goals in my opinion. The gameplay is dumbed down - I agree with you about that most strongly - and the multiplayer looks pretty shit but the game itself is still an amazing title and breath of fresh air in a world of FPS' that are getting duller and duller. As to EA's involvement and the developers "morals" in having them co-publish it, let me say this: Crytek is a third-party developer and in those cases, yes, the publishers have as much to say about the game's design as the developers but that's because they are the ones paying them to make the game. But they don't own them. They have a contract signed with them, obviously, but they would have agreed on this contract's conditions before working with them so there's really not as much manipulation going on as you'd believe. A company like DICE is different to Crytek because they were actually bought by EA and are thus owned by them to make the games they want them to make - although they can, of course, approach EA with whatever idea they have - most notably being, of course, the Battlefield series. The creative freedom clearly isn't as existent there as it could be if DICE were their own publisher. For example, I'm sure in designing Battlefield 3 they would have said, "To fuck with a single player / co-op, we're going to make a multiplayer with all round massive maps in the vein of our old games". So, to a large extent, I honestly think you're exaggerating. It's upsetting that the gameplay got dumbed down for consoles to make room in Crysis 2 but Crytek are still pretty bloody proud of what they made and I think they have every right to be. It's a great shame that the sequel may well be similar but I will be quite surprised if it still isn't one hell of a fantastic game.

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Posts: 1317

Crysis 1 had a very open world, but not just that. It was also very open in terms of which way you wanted to handle each situation. You could run-n-gun or sneak, sure. Same as in Crysis 2. But in C1 you could also use speed, armor and strength in quite unique ways. The owrld was fully destructible, palms could be used as traps if you used them right. Shantytown houses would fall under their own weight if you removed the supports or lobbed in a grenade. You could combine all your suit powers to make every gunfight feel different. It was really all up to you. If you found the game to be repetitive, then you were only playing it the same way over and over again. You didn't try planting a bunch of C4-charges on a big truck and ramming it into the enemy compound, jumping out right before the impact and detonating the charges to view the spectacular mess you made from a distance. You didn't try just running around an entire outpost to avoid a gunfight you found too challenging. You didn't try to just get a boat and mow down every enemy you saw from a distance. You didn't try placing mines in the ground outside an enemy base, then running up to a hillside and start sniping, watching them panic and start running into your traps.

Playing C1 on "Delta" difficulty (the hardest one) forced you to employ all the suit powers at once, switching between them on the fly; SHoot a bunch of people, activating stealth to hide from the rest for just a split second, then going back to armor and gunning them down when they're not watching.

Crysis 2 was extremely linear, had pretty much no real physics, and was dumbed down to the point where the game told you what you could do in each scenario. "Press this button to see all your tactical opportunities, because you can't think it out for yourself since you're a dumb fuck, even though there's only three tactical opportunities in this entire area".

In every single way, Crysis 2 was inferior to Crysis 1. It struggled to keep up in every aspect. From the storytelling and level-design, to the graphics, physics and sounds. In some cases, this isn't necessarily all that bad. Lots of franchises start out with a boom and then struggle with keeping up later on. Zelda, Halo and the Mario franchises all more or less follow the same recipe over and over again, afraid to do too much different, risking to get lower sales. But Crysis 2's problem is that it changes the best features of Crysis 1 - the DEFINING features - with no other intention than appealing to a broader audience. There's no artistic intention behind it. It's not like they felt this would be "better". They just look at the statistics, seeing that CoD sells well, so they copy its linearity and focus on big fancy explosions and a ridiculously over-the-top story rather than intriguing and engaging gameplay. Crysis 2 is more than just a mediocre/bad/not-that-great game though. It's a perfect microcosm that illustrates EA's modern business (mal)practice. They want to be big. They want to be the biggest. So they buy up talented developers and force them to other things than what they do best. Instead of trying to compete with Call of Duty with their own MoH-franchise, they feel they have to force developers like Dice and CryTek ALSO change their franchises - which are ultimately quite different from CoD - into CoD-wannabes, that even fail at cloning CoD. Because EA can't just compete against Activision's CoD with just ONE franchise. Noooo, no. It's not only EA's fault though. CryTek could've said no, and so could Dice. But they don't. They want to keep their jobs and make money. It's understandable. They're human beings too, they need money to survive. But game-developers are in many ways supposed to be artists. And an artist with no integrity is no artist at all, IMO.

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Posts: 240

True but, even given the less large levels, to compare it to a "corridor shooter" like the latest Call of Duty games is a little far in my opinion. Given the context of the new setting I think that the majority of the levels are still perfectly large enough with different options to complete. Will admit that I found it a little silly to scan certain areas of the game and it would tell you your options for you, which to me greatly defeated the purpose of doing it your own way. Not that you couldn't but it certainly "felt" as the game was telling you that these were your only options. As for the multiplayer: I personally don't know as I never tried it because it was the single player I bought it for but it wouldn't surprise me if a game published under EA attempted to challenge CoD in some way. Still, the campaign of Crysis 2 was far less linear than any CoD game I've ever and I really don't see the comparison there just because it doesn't boast massive, open levels with vehicles like the first game and Warhead.

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Posts: 5

I don't share MrJenssen's vitriol, but he is right to suggest that Crysis 2 simply wasn't as much about exploring open, dynamic environments as the first. Rather, like Call of Duty, the single-player campaign was a tight, on-rails affair, actually similar to the last few hours of Crysis itself.

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Posts: 1548

@Endsville Jensen is probably referring to MP portion of the game. Also the game got more "focused"

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Posts: 240

I'm sorry but in what way has the Crysis series turned into a "CoD-wannabe" since Crysis 2?

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Posts: 1548

Hah. I already bought Crysis 1 three times (retails, origin and finally on steam). Thank you but I have enough.

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Posts: 1317

A generic CoD-wannabe sequel includes the so-far only great game of the franchise? Why not just... y'know... just buy only the original for a tenner?

Okay maybe I'm being prejudice, but OH FUCK YOU CRYTEK! You sold out way too hard for me to give you any credibility with this new game.