Frankfurt-based gaming industry veterans from Crytek have released a remaster to our beloved Crysis, and we thought that this is going to be just a quick playthrough for a review, but it turned out to be far more than that.
Oh, boy. The memories. The year 2007 was a long time ago. At first, it doesn't seem like a long time has passed, however, we're talking about 13 years here. If we tell you that Avril Lavinge was an active singer back then, you'll probably understand what we're talking about. Singers like Gwen Stefani, Nelly Furtado, Britney Spears (LOL) were also one of the most popular names in the (pop) music scene back in 2007.
That’s the year movies like 'I Am Legend' and Zack Snyder's slo-mo-classic '300' came out. If we tell you that the first Transformers movie was released then, you'll get the picture how long ago that was, considering that about 100 sequels have been released since then. Well, more or less.
What will truly blow your mind is the fact that Apple introduced the first iPhone in the year 2007.
So, yes. It was a long time ago.
But not so long ago we can’t remember how our PCs struggled with running one of the most beautiful, demanding, and best shooters ever made.
Some of the video-game classics came out then, and one of those classics cemented its place in the gaming community - Crytek's Crysis.
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Well, the story is well known by now. The game begins when North Korean forces take control of the Lingshan Islands. A team of American civilian archaeologists send out a distress call indicating that they have discovered something that could change the world, and a week later Delta Force's Raptor Team is dispatched to the islands, with the core mission of evacuating them and securing any valuable information that they have.
You control a special-forces operator called Nomad, who’s accompanied by Psycho, Aztec, Jester, and team leader Prophet (code names); they are outfitted with technologically advanced Nanosuits, which help protect them from gunfire and explosions, as well as giving them superhuman strength and abilities, in a fight against Korean forces and aliens.
Gameplay
The graphics in Crysis are always the main topic whenever this game is mentioned, but the gameplay is really not lacking behind. Playing as a badass special-forces soldier with Nanosuit abilities is so rewarding. As soon as you get the hang of it, you start using those abilities in a more tactic way and the creativity in combat encounters feels great.
Strength ability, shield, cloak, super-jump.. all very useful in fighting your way through the beautiful jungles of Lingshan Islands. Going full-assault after you stealth your way in the enemy base is still mad fun.
Not much has changed from the original Crysis regarding the gameplay, except you can switch to Crysis 2 or the original Crysis control scheme.
You can fully customize weapons on the fly to add or remove various attachments, which adds even more to the free form combat.
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Game Modes
The single-player campaign is the only mode available in the game. No online multiplayer or co-op modes have been introduced in the Crysis Remastered version, which is a shame.
Graphics and sound
Digital Foundry has confirmed that Crysis Remastered is based on the PS3/Xbox 360 version. In other words, Crysis Remastered is not using the original PC build as its base version.
This is the main reason why Crysis Remastered does not feature the Ascension Mission. Moreover, the game has different control mechanics than those of the original PC version.
As expected from the CryEngine-based game, the visuals in the game are great, with beautiful landscapes and very detailed (and resource-hungry) foliage, great explosions and physics. But, optimization could have been better. CPU performance is not that great, and somehow, even if you have high framerates the game looks a little sluggish, with occasionally fps drops and stuttering.
The game offers Low, Medium, High, Ultra and Can It Run Crysis settings.
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The Ray-Tracing is also supported, for even higher graphical fidelity (and lower framerates). If you want the best performance, you’ll turn this setting off.
The sound in the game is awesome as before, with great music score and SFX, accompanied by solid voice-acting.
I'm not used to hearing my character speak in modern FPS games, so I was surprised for a moment when Nomad spoke on several occasions. I was like “What, who’s talking?!”
Conclusion
We have to admit that we expected more from this remaster. Too bad Crytek did not go for a full-remake with this one.
This is simply a slightly better version of the original Crysis, which even lacks content. The missed Ascension mission from this PC remaster simply does not leave a positive impression.
Unfortunately, the remaster also has problems with CPU performance, and even on very powerful processors, the game is very CPU-limited. The hope remains that Crytek will release a patch that will fix this, though, it’s a shame they didn’t initially invest in DirectX12 or Vulkan API development, instead of going for a modified DirectX11.
What we can praise is the price of this remaster, which is 50% of the standard price of games today. For $30, you can get yourself a good first-person shooter that will serve as your benchmark in the future.
Crytek has already released some updates for this game and hopefully in time it will fix some flaws and make this title even better.
A massive thank you to Crytek for providing us with a PC copy of the game and making this review possible.
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