Introduction

In the months leading up to the release of the first Crysis in 2007, I bought into the hype. I spent a lot of time salivating and speculating on a major fan forum site, where every new piece of information about the game was dissected and digested with much undue enthusiasm. There were ups and downs, whether a new shaky-cam video offered a fresh glimpse of the photo-realistic graphics or a planned feature was cut. By the time the game came out, I was as pumped up as anyone could be. Even though my Radeon X1900XT couldn’t quite hack it on the highest DX9 settings available, I still stared in awe at the magnificence I saw (at about 5 FPS). After turning it down to medium, the gameplay itself didn’t disappoint, either. The wide-open environments, vehicles, destructible objects, and of course the super powers bestowed by the nano suit all blew my mind. The critics agreed, and the game was almost universally lauded as one of the best FPS games of all time.



So when Crytek announced Crysis 2, it was hard not to get a little excited. Generally, expectations of a sequel are such that you look forward to more of the same, only better. At least, that’s what the good ones are made of. However, news that the game would also be coming to consoles didn’t sit so well with me. Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek and lead designer of Crysis, had previously expressed displeasure at the game not meeting their financial expectations, placing particular blame on the high rate of piracy. (Meanwhile, the game has sold more than 3 million copies to date.) This led to the decision to place an emphasis on the console market for the follow-up game, which they hoped would lead to more sales. As a result, the game was designed for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and then ported to PC. Perhaps not literally, but that is obviously how it happened conceptually.


Whereas CryEngine 2 was a huge step forward in game technology and still serves as a popular benchmark for new systems today, CryEngine 3 has turned out to be more of a parallel shift. There is no doubt that Crytek made some serious progress in optimization and polish in adapting the franchise to consoles, but at what cost? Cevat Yerli Presents: Crysis 2 (A Cevat Yerli Production) most definitely does not revolutionize graphics or gameplay like its predecessor did. Someone playing the game on 360 or PS3 may tell you a different story, but what does that mean for us on PC, the audience that made Crytek what they are today? Read on and find out!