Crysis 3 Review (With Large Images)

Crysis 3 marks the end to a 7 year old trilogy. Crytek has always been bleeding edge in terms of graphics and is probably the reason why nVidia and ATI are still in business. Sadly, with consoles being so popular, the graphics are nowhere near as good as they could be due to game developers having to make their games reverse compatible with hardware from 2006

Crysis 3 pushes the envelope with graphics and is the best looking in the series, but it is kind of sad that the game from 2007, Crysis, set on its highest graphics settings still competes with Crysis 3 on its highest settings.

In terms of gameplay, I was sad. Crysis 2 was very "consolized" for a generation of Call of Duty gamers and Crysis 3 is identical. Same UI and gameplay mechanics. Trying to use the quick suit function change using Mouse Button 3 is annoying because it was built for a console analog stick... So when I press Middle Mouse Button, and try to move the cursor over to Cloak, there is a delay or it flat out doesn't move the cursor, leaving me vulnerable.... In the original Made-For-PC Crysis, this was smooth, and I could push my mouse in the direction of which function I wanted and it went there instantly. This allowed me to pull off those kick *bottom* moves they always show the main character doing in the game trailers...

The story itself is very cliche and doesn't feel epic at all till near the end. Then they ramp up the scope of how epic it is and then the game is over.

For example... In Crysis 1, you started by jumping out of an airplane, which demonstrated the "OOOOOH I CAN SEE THE WHOLE ISLAND" aspect of the graphics, which was HUGE back then. Then your entire squad started getting murdered one by one and you had no idea what was going on.

In Crysis 2, you started in a damaged submarine and you watched your entire squad get gunned down in front of your face.

Then you had the "OOOOH I FEEL LIKE I AM REALLY IN NEW YORK CITY OMG THAT BUILDING JUST BLEW UP!!!"

Crysis 3 starts off on an empty boat.

In the rain.

There is no exploration. If I backtrack and jump off the other side of the boat, there is a big invisible wall stopping me from exploring.

From the very start, you are on a linear path through the game, totally eliminating the exploration aspect that made the series famous.

They also completely ruin immersion by constantly having your character movement keys locked during in-game cutscenes.... In the first Crysis, if something huge was happening, it would have a small text pop up saying "To view, hit Enter" and your camera would zoom in on whatever it was. You could still move and ignore whatever it was, though... This was great because it never ruined immersion with your character and you felt like YOU were the main character. In Crysis 3, they are constantly forcing you to sit through cutscenes (which are THANKFULLY skippable with the Enter key) as your character does a bunch of stuff, like walking through a door. There are a couple instances of QTE (quick time events) that force you to press Spacebar multiple times, but they are not frustrating like other QTE's are that force you to mash multiple buttons in squence like Dance Dance Revolution.... I have no problem with pressing space bar multple times to break free, this is acceptable and good use of QTE's.

One of my biggest problems is that the A.I. has super vision. I can be out of sight behind a car, and if I uncloak for more than a second, your threat detector jumps up half way, and you hear a guard say "What was that?!" This soon leads to a firefight with no energy to protect myself, which usually leads to death and reloading a checkpoint. The unrealistic A.I. ruins it for me. I can't pull off any stealth kills because any nearby guards will instantly know where I am and start lobbing grenades in my general direction, even if I killed a guy with a silent bow and arrow and was nowhere to be seen. Tall grass no longer hides you like it had since Far Cry (2004). There is no real way to play stealth-fully here.

The characters you interact with as you play are annoying. From the very beginning of the story, they are constantly bashing you because you are apparently not all human due to the suit you are wearing. They don't trust you and constantly remind you of that, even though you do NOTHING but help them and show there is no reason not to trust you. From the beginning, you are constantly asking them and warning them about the "Alpha Ceph." They blow you off and tell you that you are crazy, up until, TA-DA, the Alpha Ceph shows up. Then they are all over themselves begging you for your help. By then, I wouldn't give em a drop of piss because I was so sick of their sarcasm. By the last 3/4 of the game, they finally started becoming more likeable, but by then it was too late.

One of the other game mechanics is "Hacking"

Hacking is basically watching the dot bounce up and down until it gets into the specified area and you press Enter. If you miss it, you lose energy till you have to start over... This is very basic and sort of a pain in the *bottom*. I feel like they could have done better, but as-is, it's not too horrible. It more breaks the flow of combat, but it helps if you want to hack a turret to shoot at enemies while you sneak around.

I have not tried multiplayer yet, as I'm already done with this game and not in the mood anymore.

Overall, definitely not worth $60. Crysis took me forever to beat due to the open world exploration, long plot, and good gameplay and replayability. Crysis 2 took me 12 hours to beat and I never picked it up again. Crysis 3 took me about 6 hours to beat, including all the reloading I had to do from dying from the A.I super vision. Overall, on an easy setting, you could beat this game in 3-4 hours and not miss anything.

By the time the price comes down on this, you should be able to get a decent graphics card to handle it, so do yourself a favor and wait a year or two so you can get the most bang for your buck on the graphics.

Get http://forums.xisto.com/topic/51300-far-cry-3-review/
'>Far Cry 3 instead.

for some reason the images doesn't show up... good review though, i am currently playing Crysis 3 every now and then (Got it for free with my new Video Card - HD 7950)I have played Crysis 2 (but not Crysis 1)... i still think 2 is better, there really isn't any obvious improvement in graphics going from 2 to 3... but then again i'm playing the game on 1280x1024...

I can see the images, so it's probably a local effect, or a browser effect.

yip i can view them now... weird, couldn't view them from home so its probably a browser issue... will double check when i get back home

That's why I often use a portable version of firefox, in case of trouble I run it from my USB stick on both places, should behave the same way if there is no firewall/proxy effects.

pretty good game Crysis 3... running it high on my 7950... just awesome

*Added some censorship to the Far Cry 3 screenshot so I could get that back in there.

*Added some censorship to the Far Cry 3 screenshot so I could get that back in there.