Crysis has come a long way in a short time. The series got its start a few years ago on PC, with Crytek, the company behind the Ubisoft release Far Cry, presenting an amazing new CryEngine technology, wrapped around an intriguing first-person shooter where you were armed with special super-suit techniques (like accelerated speed and increased strength) while fending off enemy agents. The game was PC exclusive for quite a while, though last year Electronic Arts finally relented and made a suitable port of the game for Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.
Crysis 2, when it released a while back, made an even bigger statement, with huge environments, an improved in-game engine, plenty of combat and wonderfully enhanced abilities that made it even better to take the fight to the invading alien enemies.
Crytek and EA are obviously ready for yet another leap forward, and this February, they’ll be making it with Crysis 3. Featuring the most vast environments to date (empowered by Crytek’s highly concentrated CryEngine 3 technology) and plenty of cool weaponry, this is one of our most anticipated sequels for 2013. And for good reason.
The game follows up the events that occurred in Crysis 2, about 20 years down the road. The untrustable company CELL Corp has managed to close off the city of New York in a huge nanodome of sorts, in an effort to clean the place off and do away with the Ceph invaders that have been making a mess of it. Prophet, making a return from the last game, isn’t really seeing this as a simple clean up, however. Seeing everything that CELL has done first-hand, he thinks something else is going on, perhaps with the alien technology that the aliens have brought with them. So, with weapon in hand and biosuit fully armed and ready to go, he sets out to find the truth — and eventually change it.
The demo we saw for the game was quite impressive, featuring a number of superhuman feats, including gigantic leaps across the terrain and some cool combat scenarios, with the bioshield and biocloak once again being used remarkably well. The shield basically tightens up your armor and enables you to take more damage for a limited amount of time, while the cloak lets you sneak up on soldiers and take them out with a wallop of a melee attack. In addition, you’ll also have access to a staggering amount of weapons. Some are rather simple, like a bow and arrow set that enables you to fire all sorts of shots the old-fashioned way, while others are more futuristic, like a pulse cannon that can vaporize an enemy in one single shot, or a Typhoon machine gun that, when at fullest capacity, can let off 500 rounds per second. That’s enough to do damage to even the fiercest of Ceph forces. (Even the fire breathing ones.)
How you combine these abilities together in combat is what makes Crysis 3 a stand-out experience. You’ll need to use tactics in order to survive, as running into every battle could very well spell out an instant death for you, even with the power of the nano suit. Fortunately, like the previous games, you’ve got a whole world to explore here, and the ways you can approach a battle are limitless, whether it’s going through the front door or getting the jump on the enemies from behind. Just remember — some of these guys aren’t nearly as stupid as they appear.
For Crysis 3, Crytek’s CryEngine 3 is definitely on display. The demo showed an impressively mossy version of Chinatown, with leaves hanging everywhere and foliage mixed in with the buildings and structures. The game managed to run at a steady frame rate, however — even during the most frantic of firefights. The enemies look quite impressive as well, especially the fire-breathing Cephs, who let loose with their dangerous breath while you try to circle around and take them out with your weapon of choice.
The game will also have an emotional center at heart, as Prophet tries to deal with the changes that he’s gone through over the last 20 years — especially with all the stuff that happened with Alcatraz in the last game. We won’t spoil it here, but fans will know exactly what we’re talking about.
As for multiplayer, Crysis 3 will have it to some extent, though the details haven’t been fully revealed as of yet. We expect all sorts of nanosuit madness, however, along with skirmishes with Typhoon cannons that will definitely liven things up over each round. Let’s see if you can survive our wrath, shall we?
Crysis 3 is bigger and better in all aspects, based on what we’ve seen, and we’ll learn more over the next few months, leading to the game’s release early next year. It’s definitely a fight we can’t wait to take part in.
