Flying_Phoenix said:
So its one step forward two steps back?
It's solid. Like a cross between Call of Duty and Halo. There's less Crysis 1 in here than I'd like, but it's not a bad game.
I don't think it's something that demands you run out and spend $60, but honestly you could do far worse.
Player movements and control is far improved, as is navigation -- minus the fact that you now move much slower. Sprint is standard CoD-speed. Strange as it still drains suit energy. Some have said this is due to the smaller environments. That may be the case, but in my eyes that's two problems now instead of one.
Each satellite "battlezone," I guess you could call them, each open area around the linear path is relatively large. Just as big as many similar battles in Crysis 1. So I don't think that's where the speed reduction comes from. One thing you will notice is paths are often preconceived for you. There's not much stopping you from the old cloack-unclock-shoot-cloak strategy, but you'll find paths scattered around ("tactical options" the game calls them), that are pretty much highlighted routes that work especially well for certain play styles. That's one of the major problems: the game highlights
everything. It's nice when you're using the binocs to scout an area, but distracting and pandering when you're just trying to play normally. Like you wouldn't be able to figure these things out on your own.
I recommend turning off the HUD if you're on PC. It really improves the game.
AI is also a point of contention. I say it's worse, others say it's the same or better. There was an argument in this thread a bit earlier about the AI being the same but appearing worse because it's tougher for it to navigate these dense environments. If that's the case, I say why the hell wouldn't Crytek work on that? You don't put jello in a sandwich and expect it to come out right. If the Crysis 1 AI was merely dropped from that game and put into a game it wasn't prepared for, isn't that an even bigger slap in the face? I don't think that's true, but it's something that was being said earlier.
New York City here is more like New Generic City, but I don't think we were expecting much in that regard.
But like I said before: it's not bad. I can't think of a better city-set FPS. It's certainly better than Call of Duty and its kin. And outside of some rough textures, it looks magnificent, and runs like a dream.
Flying_Phoenix said:
EDIT - One last question. Is this game well optimized? I remember Crysis 1 while being very stingy before it was maxed out.
YES. It runs perfectly on my desktop at 1920x1080, with a 5870. It runs usually at 30+ fps on my notebook, an Asus g50vt-x, at 1366x768, using OP's config with a few settings slightly knocked down. But Crysis 1 gets roughly 15 fps at the similar settings, all while looking worse. What Crytek's down with CE3 is nothing to laugh at. It is seriously impressive. I can't think of a better optimized game.
