Crysis 3 Review

The latest in the Crysis 3 series has you running about as Prophet in the Nanosuit, killing CELL and alien Ceph scum in a dome constructed over New York.

This is my review…

Plot

A brief history lesson will help here:

In the previous game, a soldier code name ‘Alcatraz’ got hold of the Nanosuit, though the memories and personality of the previous owner (Prophet) were saved. Slowly Alcatraz’s body was assimilated by the Prophet data and became him.

In this game you play as Laurence “Prophet” Barnes.

In the ubiquitous intro video, 20 years later, former members of Prophet’s Nanosuited ‘Delta squad’ have formed a resistance movement and a small team are sent to rescue Prophet as the last member of the team still with a suit (the entire team were captured and the suits forcibly removed by CELL).

The story slowly unfolds that a dome was built over New York (Liberty Dome) and that CELL are using a Ceph technology – known as System X – to generate power, sell it and enslave anyone that can’t keep up with the payments.

Gameplay

The game play fits its usual genre of First Person Shooter (FPS), with control over the suits   powers via quick keyboard short-cuts, or using the mouse middle button.

Weapons include the usual explosive mix (pistols, rifles, shotguns all the usual), plus a new bow that shoots a few different arrow types.

As you romp around the open sandbox levels, you’ll find Nanosuit upgrades, weapons, and arms caches filled with useful stuff.

You can also customise the weapons as you go – with different options for sights, barrels, underbarrels and ammo types, for a little variation.

You are equipped with a visor that enables you to look around the battlefield and ‘tag’ points of interest, such as enemies, weapons or upgrades, for collecting along your journey.

Finally there is a suit upgrades section where you’ll be able to unlock certain additional skills to complement your preferred style of game play. You’ll also gain in abilities you are using by completing certain tasks, like 20 stealth kills, or grabbing x enemies, this usually results in gaining x2 effectiveness of the chosen suit upgrades.

Review

The opening sequence sets the scene for the ongoing struggle and you’ll find yourself breaking in to the Liberty Dome, with the mission to stop CELL using System X to generate power.

A brief tutorial can be accessed to familiarise yourself with the Nanosuits use, that takes place in a virtual style environment – though this is pretty short, it gives you all the skills you’ll need.

Now I tend to prefer a stealth style game, so I stated out pretty slowly, skirting the edge of the arena, looking for weapons etc. but this proved unnecessary, as the game has a pretty smooth learning curve, and very few times was I in a position of trouble. That is not to say that the game it too easy though it’s certainly not going to give you too much trouble.

Controls are all the usual WSAD style though I only realised about the middle mouse button toward the end of the game to change the suit modes, as a quick prod of the ‘E’ key for cloak, or the ‘Q’ key for armour worked for me.

As usual the graphics are pretty spectacular – though this is kind of expected as Crysis was originally touted as the game that brought graphics cards to their knees. Ramping up the settings results in a gorgeous looking game, but you’ll need something quite high spec. to run it with those settings.

Oddly, for me, the story line was a little lost in the game, and although I thought that it was a fun blast, I really didn’t care for what the motivation for my actions were. I just got that I needed to get from A to B and do something once there; This dare I say, was a little humdrum?

In general, I felt that the game was a little hollow; It does give you a minor sense of satisfaction when you off that bad guy with a stealth kill, but it was a little too easy to do so – engage cloak, crouch, sneak up and press ‘V’ when it says. I almost never used the armour settings either, just the cloak and a little running away and that was all that was required, even when things got towards the end of the game.

Also there is little new here – it seems little has changed or evolved, it’s just a good solid shooter with a few nice bits. I would have liked to feel a little more challenged and that there were more rewards for exploring the areas.

I think I’ll score it a 8/10