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[Noisepurge]

I really must be part of the minority that found most of Crysis quite boring, and while not without significant flaws of its own still enjoyed Crysis 2 much more.

Ditto. Crysis 2 was much more action packed and fighting against aliens was still fun. But sure it could have been a better game overall.

 

[scitek]

Admittedly, he has the sales numbers, so he perhaps thinks it's a master success.

I really do wonder by what margin the console release paid off over the Crysis+Warhead PC one.

The level design in particular was pretty fucking terrible though. I was so bored, for the last ten or so levels, I just cloaked past everything, as the cloak with the upgrade stays up forever.

I just did the same in Crysis last night, only for the first third of the game before it becomes even more linear than Crysis 2.

 

[Red]

Ditto. Crysis 2 was much more action packed and fighting against aliens was still fun. But sure it could have been a better game overall.

The main issue I think most of us had with it is that it takes a much different direction than what the first game made us hope for. Instead of expanding on the open environments -- the most lauded and mentioned parts of Crysis 1 -- we were given smaller, more restrictive corridors. Sure, you're given a choice of "action corridor" or "stealth corridor," but that doesn't change the fact you're mostly confined to much smaller areas than anything in the first half of Crysis 1.

You simply seem to have less freedom in the new game. The enemies, even on the highest difficulty, are stupidly easy and serve as little more than moving targets. Some say the same about the first game, and while I'll agree that Crysis 1 was no benchmark for AI, it provided more interesting firefights through its environments and use of space. It was also more varied than its sequel, changing things up level to level, with sometimes drastically different environments to play through.

If Crysis 2 wasn't a Crysis game, it may have been received better by the fan base that found Crysis 1 so open and creative. It's a competent shooter with neat visuals and excellent player movement. But it doesn't give the player as full control of the battlefield as the first game. And that's really what I think many of us wanted.

In short, instead of a game that expanded on the excellent first half of Crysis, we got one that sticks closer to the restriction of the second half.

 

[Cornbread78]

Is anyone still playing this game online (PS3)? Looking to make a hard run at teh MP this weekend to get to level 50, a little trophy whorish, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Tried going back to playing the MP on PC this weekend, and really having a hard time with it, sometimes it clicks, and sometimes its just a clusterfuck of death.... spawn just to get shanked by a stealthed dude who was apparently standing right behind your spawn, etc.

But is the playerbase seem pretty dead? Trying to instant action/quick join into games keeps finding no matches, and the server browser is not showing many servers active.

 

[Takamura-San]

Tried going back to playing the MP on PC this weekend, and really having a hard time with it, sometimes it clicks, and sometimes its just a clusterfuck of death.... spawn just to get shanked by a stealthed dude who was apparently standing right behind your spawn, etc.

But is the playerbase seem pretty dead? Trying to instant action/quick join into games keeps finding no matches, and the server browser is not showing many servers active.

I still play online on PC from time to time.

 

[Lostconfused]

I just did the same in Crysis last night, only for the first third of the game before it becomes even more linear than Crysis 2.

But just because you can effectively use cloak to move around in Crysis does not make it the same as Crysis 2.

It's like saying "hey I just used stealth camo in MGS to walk past all the guards, jeez this game is easy"

 

[scitek]

But just because you can effectively use cloak to move around in Crysis does not make it the same as Crysis 2.

It's like saying "hey I just used stealth camo in MGS to walk past all the guards, jeez this game is easy"

What? If you choose to cloak past all the enemies and then proceed to say the game is boring, that was your choice. How's it different in either case?

 

[Lostconfused]

What? If you choose to cloak past all the enemies and then proceed to say the game is boring, that was your choice. How's it different in either case?

Because one game is designed with that in mind where stealth entails some kind of risk and reward and thus is fun and challenging. Or another game where for some reason the system exists but isn't considered in the design of the game and throws the whole thing out of balance.

 

[scitek]

lol whatever man, you think what you want.

 

[Karram]

With all that said I think making open-world shooters is stupid if your goal is to capture a broader audience. And if it's not your goal as a blockbuster developer than you're stupid.

I don't think trying to capture a new audience is stupid, I think going after the COD market is. I think if they worked on streamlining the open environments in Crysis 1 they could have sold more copies, as well as create a unique shooter.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Thing with stealth in C1 was that you couldn't bypass most of the areas with it, you were given objectives that forced you to break stealth.

In C2 you simply can walk past most of the game as the objective is to go from point A to B.

 

[Karram]

Thing with stealth in C1 was that you couldn't bypass most of the areas with it, you were given objectives that forced you to break stealth.

In C2 you simply can walk past most of the game as the objective is to go from point A to B.

I agree, plus the levels were much bigger making it harder to go all the way through it. In Crysis 2 it felt more like skipping the level.

 

[EatChildren]

I still thought Crysis 2 was quite open, especailly some of the later stages. Though there were still quite closed in and linear stages too.

What I would have liked to see, given the context of the city, is more exploration through buildings. One of the later stages makes great use of open outdoor areas and building interiors, whereas nearly all the others ignore them.

It would have been great to not only explore city streets as we do, but also building interiors. You know, jump through a reachable window on a skyscraper and battle through an office floor, while given the freedom to jump out of other windows to the ground below or adjacent rooftops.

Sadly I figure the lack of thees kinds of environments is a product of keeping the game renderable on console hardware.

 

[Lostconfused]

What I would have liked to see, given the context of the city, is more exploration through buildings. One of the later stages makes great use of open outdoor areas and building interiors, whereas nearly all the others ignore them.

It would have been great to not only explore city streets as we do, but also building interiors. You know, jump through a reachable window on a skyscraper and battle through an office floor, while given the freedom to jump out of other windows to the ground below or adjacent rooftops.

I am sure that's what everybody wanted when Crytek announced that the game was going to best in New York.

 

[EatChildren]

I am sure that's what everybody wanted when Crytek announced that the game was going to best in New York.

Is the SDK out yet? If so I might whip up something.

 

[Lostconfused]

Is the SDK out yet? If so I might whip up something.

I think it supposed to be out sometime in summer. Didn't see a thread on GAF pop up about it so I guess not yet. I am waiting on some one to port all the levels from Crysis into 2.

 

[mr_nothin]

SDK is coming in August sadly...

And to chime in on this discussion. I thought Crysis 2 was going to be an open-world New York city. Roam new york the same way you did in Crysis 1. Roaming the city with random battles going on between the military and the aliens...etc

 

[Alxjn]

Some of the modified SP levels they used for the MP turned out way cooler than what we actually got in SP.

Like Plaza, at 6:56 in this video. It's basically a larger version of the second half of Second Chance.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Sadly I figure the lack of thees kinds of environments is a product of keeping the game renderable on console hardware.

Well I dont think it was totally about console development, but also just the sheer amount of time it would take to make such a huge open New York with lots of fully explorable buildings. C1 with the jungle had the advantage of being much easier to build with far less complexity than doing a full interactive city.

 

[EatChildren]

Well I dont think it was totally about console development, but also just the sheer amount of time it would take to make such a huge open New York with lots of fully explorable buildings. C1 with the jungle had the advantage of being much easier to build with far less complexity than doing a full interactive city.

Not every floor. That would be crazy (and awesome, but mostly crazy), but simply more floors to explore. If they were kept within jumping distances it wouldn't be a problem.

And yeah, Crysis definitely had that advantage. Still, as far as I'm aware the choice of a city, and thus huge buildings, allowed Crytek to scale back the draw distance, freeing up resources to help it run on consoles. If buildings had a few floors you'd kill some of the distance obscuring, as well as generally have to render more stuff.

Hopefully when the SDK hits we get some solid fan maps with rich level design.

 

[Karram]

Crysis 2 editor will be coming out next month. We should expect release date in few days. The CE3 SDK is the one coming out in August.

 

[Takamura-San]

It looked open, but the repetitive whine of "Tactical options available" sounded like the level designers shouting "hey, idiot, look what 3 things we designed the level for you to do. Don't try anything else, it'll suck."

Hugely disappointed in this, as a Crysis sequel. I wish they'd ditched the name and gone with a new IP. Where the fuck is Nomad?!
People keep saying the COD'd this, but its obvious they were trying to Half-Life it, it was painful sometimes.

And god the last few hours dragged on. Will not play again.

Well I see it as. "not everyone has the imagination nor intuition to be creative when tackling combat situations, here are some suggestions go ahead and try these out".

Players that like open ended games and take them to their full advantage believe that everyone thinks the same way like them. While I can appreciate open ended games, I get bored easily unless i have some suggestions on what to do.

 

[BlackDove]

What? If you choose to cloak past all the enemies and then proceed to say the game is boring, that was your choice. How's it different in either case?

Well, I can only speak for myself, but the reason I cloaked past the last half/third of the game in C2 was because the combat itself was boring, and I wanted the mind numbing pain to end swiftly, instead of having it drag on and on.

As the highest difficulty setting provides no challenge over the easiest setting (I suppose, I haven't played on the easy/normal settings, but they must be the same, just more forgiving of you fucking up), there's not much variation to the actual gameplay.

Designing a game so that it's broken into sections where a bunch of copy pasted enemies stand around some cover, while you are forced to move through them from point A (the linear choke you just came from) to point B (the linear choke behind the enemy populated section) is one of the most disingenuous and uninventive ways of crafting levels.

Thus the only way for me to entertain myself was to break the developer's intentions and simply ignore his fucking stupid logic, and make the game my own by playing it in a way I choose, instead of in a way I'm directed to play it. Note I have no problems playing the game in a way I'm directed to, it's just that if I find it boring and imbecilic to boot, then I find it preferable to resort to my own means of getting through it.

Level design of Crysis 1 was actually quite different, because the levels themselves were very large chunks of terrain, populated by humans (first half of the game anyway, the one taking about 3/4 of the time played though) which have dynamic behavior, and different states of alertness. The fact that they're able to co-ordinate in a large area, calling for backup, etc. and the fact that they had full air, sea and land support made the game feel varied. Therefore the approach you were capable of taking as a player was equally as varied. Even more so if you used the console really, but we can restrict ourselves to just land and sea.

The link above sort of proves my point though. Not only could you never practically do something like that in Crysis 2, you can't really even conceive of it because of its design.

Last time I played Crysis, I played a non lethal playthrough, as the weapons all have tranquilizer rounds. I had to kill a few of the enemies, but cloak+tranq allow you to get through most of the game without having to kill anyone. Cloaking through Crysis 1 however is infinitely more rewarding, because the game's open design allows for that contingency.

Crysis 2 arguably allows you to do the same, but you have to break the game's philosophy to do it, as its sole narrow design was to force you to engage enemies from one choked segment to another. Cloaking in C2 serves only the purpose of having you stealthily kill targets. Stealthing through the actual levels of C2 is ridiculous because the levels themselves aren't designed for such gameplay, thus the endeavor proves comical. The dumb aliens standing around patrolling while you simply ignore them and move on in this very dramatic set-piece of "fighting for survival" DUN-DUN-DUUUN where you're just walking past all of the horrible dirty dirty evil antagonistic aliens. Such drama and tension.

Which brings us to the generally horrible plot C2 has, though arguably, this is shared between it and C1 as well, but the fact that the second game is attempting to capitalize on the story for dramatic, grandiose, and I'm hesitant to use the word, but it's apt in this case, "epic" effect makes the game 10x dumber. The aliens in C1 were largely a minor part of the game, and for every minute of non-alien gameplay, the game benefited substantially over its sequel.

But all of this is... subjective. Many people like dumb aliens, and dumb shootouts with lots of explosions, so for those people, the game is great. And I'm not really saying there's anything wrong with that either. You're easy to entertain, and more power to you.

My argument rests along the lines of the fact that Crysis 1 allowed for different kinds of gameplay, it allowed those of us who aren't into the explosions and aliens to still get enjoyment out of it by operating in a pseudo-sandbox environment with a design philosophy that catered to a more diversified stratum of consumers.

Crysis 2 takes that out, and I believe is therefore much poorer for it.

 

[Refreshment.01]

Thing with stealth in C1 was that you couldn't bypass most of the areas with it, you were given objectives that forced you to break stealth.

In C2 you simply can walk past most of the game as the objective is to go from point A to B.

Do you have a concrete example? I remember much of the stuff was optional, so stealthing your way out of enemies was very easy.

 

[scitek]

I'm kind of interested in playing Crysis 1 with the Crysis 2 suit. Not that I don't like the suit abilities in Crysis as they are, I just also like the way they streamlined things in 2 and think it'd be fun to have things like the ledge grab added to the first game.

 

[Gvaz]

I'm pretty sure it was the same way too. You could sneak past the majority of the island stuff easily. It wasn't until the end game you were railroaded.

 

[Stallion Free]

August is gonna be so fucking good because we are gonna get Crysis 1 ported to Crysis 2 lightning fast.

 

[NBtoaster]

I'm kind of interested in playing Crysis 1 with the Crysis 2 suit. Not that I don't like the suit abilities in Crysis as they are, I just also like the way they streamlined things in 2 and think it'd be fun to have things like the ledge grab added to the first game.

I can't imagine Crysis 1 without the speed mode.

 

[Stallion Free]

I can't imagine Crysis 1 without the speed mode.

Once the editor is out it shouldn't be hard to re-add that through flow graphs.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Do you have a concrete example? I remember much of the stuff was optional, so stealthing your way out of enemies was very easy.

In many cases you would be sent to a location, but to proceed you had to actually engage the enemy. C1 was basically full of this as you were sent from location to location and after the engagement you would be given your next objectives. The side missions and random patrols in the game were all optional, but the core game story missions forced you basically into confrontations. You couldn't just stealth past the bad guys and load up the next area.

For the most part in C2, you simply had to get from one location to another with enemies in your way, which you could just stealth past.

You really could not stealth through and skip majority of C1, the stealth was more of a tool to let you choose how to engage the enemy.

 

[Alxjn]

I can't imagine Crysis 1 without the speed mode.

It shouldn't be too difficult to speed up the speed of sprint to C1 speed mode speed.

 

[scitek]

.

No, believe me I understand every complaint everyone has with regards to the second being dumbed-down, smaller, and disappointing as a whole compared to the first. However, we knew that was going to be the case when they announced it was going to consoles. I don't know how things are going to change outside of a new generation of consoles being released because they're primarily a console-focused developer that still supports PC at best now. They're making a Kinect-exclusive title for fuck's sake.

What I don't get is people slamming Crysis 2, calling it a shitty game, or mediocre. It's not. It's quite good, and especially good when compared to most of the other shooters it's competing against. It's one thing to be disappointed, but to make up bullshit about how the first game was some crazy, open-world, GTA-like experience, and the second is a straight-and-narrow Call of Duty clone just lets me know not to bother with that person's opinion. (You haven't done this, but I've seen exaggerations all over the place of how the first is one of the best shooters of the past decade and the second is garbage.)

The first game is a lot of fun, but it's still linear. It's much more open-ended in some levels, but streamlines into being even MORE linear in the second half of the game than almost any single level in Crysis 2. The story is bad in both. A lot of the intricate stuff in the first game, like the weapon customization, has been made rather useless in the second due to the more restricted terrain and awful AI, and that certainly IS disappointing as that stuff really set the first apart, but the second is still a really fun game in my book. Crytek's a good developer, they just have horrible communication with their fans, and now that their engine is out and ready for the next few years, they should focus on making PC games that can port down to the consoles, and not vice-versa.

EDIT: Not that they will...

 

[Takamura-San]

August is gonna be so fucking good because we are gonna get Crysis 1 ported to Crysis 2 lightning fast.

How fast?

 

[Stallion Free]

How fast?

Lightning fast.

 

[Gvaz]

Well, they already had the first level somewhat working in the ps3 version of crysis 2, so it's not a far stretch to imagine it'd be easier on the PC.

 

[Stallion Free]

Well, they already had the first level somewhat working in the ps3 version of crysis 2, so it's not a far stretch to imagine it'd be easier on the PC.

Well the geometry came over fine, but I imagine they will need to redo the lighting and it will look like sex because the lighting tech in Cryengine 3 shits all over Cryengine 2. The first half of "Assault" is gonna look incredible.

 

[Takamura-San]

since the DX11 thread is dead.

Is the patch out?

 

[Alxjn]

since the DX11 thread is dead.

Is the patch out?

No, not yet. Though, according to (th) over at incrysis, "A server-owner on crysis-hq.de has been told that his servers are down at 18:00 GMT until 18:30 GMT to update to the new patch".

 

[cyberheater]

since the DX11 thread is dead.

Is the patch out?

It's not out yet.

 

[Refreshment.01]

In many cases you would be sent to a location, but to proceed you had to actually engage the enemy. C1 was basically full of this as you were sent from location to location and after the engagement you would be given your next objectives. The side missions and random patrols in the game were all optional, but the core game story missions forced you basically into confrontations. You couldn't just stealth past the bad guys and load up the next area.

For the most part in C2, you simply had to get from one location to another with enemies in your way, which you could just stealth past.

You really could not stealth through and skip majority of C1, the stealth was more of a tool to let you choose how to engage the enemy.

Yea, its just that my memory is a bit fuzzy since its been a long time from my last play trough. But i do remember i stealthed a lot in Crysis 1 even to the point some friends commented how broken it was. I do agree however, Crysis 2 is way too easy to stealth to the point of affecting game balance.

Despised the noob-suit, switching modes to suit your circumstances is what made the first game. The loss of sprint and strength was an instant "WTF!?" moment as soon as i first fired it up.

By all intents and purposes you could call Crysis 1 a noob game also.

 

[-bakalhau-]

August is gonna be so fucking good because we are gonna get Crysis 1 ported to Crysis 2 lightning fast.

Can we look forward to actual performance improvements with this? I'm leaning towards yes, but I don't know. It would also be interesting to see how the TAA would look in comparison to the EdgeAA in Crysis 1. Either way, I'd play Crysis 1 in CE3 over CE2 any day, bearing in mind it's looks at least like the original and runs just as good.

 

[Gvaz]

I hear the patch is out.

 

[Corky]

Hey guys does anybody know how to hide the player model/weapons and/or become invisible to enemies? I tried the autoexec.cfg ai_ignoreplayer 1 command amongst others but nothing seems to work.

Would appreciate any help, thanks,.

 

[dLMN8R]

I really must be part of the minority that found most of Crysis quite boring, and while not without significant flaws of its own still enjoyed Crysis 2 much more.

Ditto. Crysis 2 was much more action packed and fighting against aliens was still fun. But sure it could have been a better game overall.

I can clarify my opinion here to explain why exactly I think Crysis 2 is inferior in every measurable way.

Basically, in Crysis they left everything up to me. Everything from the trees I could shoot down to cause a distraction and an obstacle for the AI to navigate around, to the small buildings I could utterly demolish, to the lack of on-rails segments (except for the end), and more.

Yet even though the AI had so many more challenges presented to it, it glitched up far less than anything in Crysis 2. It's like they had to optimize for consoles so tremendously that it just introduced a boatload of glitchy behavior, quite simply because they didn't have the CPU budget available to account for everything it needed to account for.

Even further, there was a tremendous amount of environmental variety that Crysis and Warhead simply don't get the credit they deserve for. The alien space ship is one of the most visually jaw-dropping levels I've ever played in any game, and while the gameplay was a little frustrating, it was over quick enough that I didn't get tired of it. And I didn't even mention yet the ice-covered wastelands and flash-frozen tidal waves of Warhead.

Hell in Crysis and Warhead, Crytek even managed to make some underground mineshafts and ice-covered tunnels jaw-dropping.

The aliens in Crysis were a bit easy, but in Crysis Warhead they were both formidable enemies but also substantially different from humans. I loved the encounters with them so much that I even took the time to produce this video of one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrMxuWlbkBA

The story in Crysis and Warhead were also nothing to write home about, but at least they weren't the absolute clusterfuck of fanfiction that was Crysis 2. I haven't encountered a story that bad, that horribly written, that over-written, and overly-complex since some JRPG I played years ago.


I mean, don't get me wrong, I did enjoy a lot of the gunplay in Crysis 2. I actually liked the way some of the suit powers were streamlined, though it could use some improvement, and limited some of the things I loved to do in Crysis. I thought the way you could *feel* armor mode, and the way the guns handled, was absolutely fantastic.

The graphics are of course gorgeous, but actually a substantial step back from Crysis in many ways. I haven't tried the DX11 stuff yet, which I'm sure is much better, but as-released, as a sequel to a game almost 4 years old, the fact that textures were so scaled back and other effects like explosions just felt...simpler, it was overall very disappointing. The lack of graphical options was the least of my complaints there.

 

[Xplatformer]

I really must be part of the minority that found most of Crysis quite boring, and while not without significant flaws of its own still enjoyed Crysis 2 much more.

This.

I haven't even made it to the best part of Crysis 2 yet and I still enjoy it (and it's stupid single player AI) more than the original.

 

[dLMN8R]

I don't know what to say other than Crysis and Warhead are as entertaining as you make them. It's the one series of games where I can confidently say you can literally "play it wrong".

There's far more opportunity for creative attack than Crysis 2 thanks to the much more dynamic nature of the environment, yet there are still massively intense scripted sequences at the level of things that happen in Crysis 2.

 

[sp3000]

This is one of the most amazing, awesome, atmospheric levels in any game. EVER. I was stunned when the gravity dropped. This part of the game doesn't get enough love.

I really wanted to go inside one of the alien ships in Crysis 2, but instead we had to fight in generic, linear NYC the whole time. The only level that stood out was the final one really, but even that paled in comparison to this one.

 

[Noisepurge]

The main issue I think most of us had with it is that it takes a much different direction than what the first game made us hope for....

If Crysis 2 wasn't a Crysis game, it may have been received better by the fan base that found Crysis 1 so open and creative. It's a competent shooter with neat visuals and excellent player movement. But it doesn't give the player as full control of the battlefield as the first game. And that's really what I think many of us wanted.

In short, instead of a game that expanded on the excellent first half of Crysis, we got one that sticks closer to the restriction of the second half.

So they actually should've called this one Crysis Warhead and all would be well in the world

 

[Dreams-Visions]

anyone know how to disable the built-in FPS display that appears in the upper-right corner of the screen?

I haven't been able to figure out how it got there on my laptop or how to remove it. if anyone has any ideas, I'd really appreciate the help.