Crysis Goes Gold!

It's official, as of October 29th, Crysis is on track to hit store shelves as scheduled on November 16th in the US.

I can't wait since I've already played through the demo level a number of times trying different tactics each time. There are so many approaches one can take through the level that the outcome is different every time. The artificial intelligence (AI) in Crysis is pretty impressive making it difficult to just run right in with guns blazing.

Want to know more? Check out the Crysis: Prima Official Game Guide

Crysis Demo First Impressions

Once the kids went to bed I had a chance to spend some quality time with the Crysis demo. The computer I'm running it on is a Quad Core 2.66 Intel with a GeForce 880 GTX and 2 GB of RAM running Windows Vista Premium. So it's a fairly decent machine that I just bought in February of this year, in anticipation of this and other DirectX 10 games.

The first interaction with a game is always it's menu system. The menu system is never a reason you purchase a game, but if it's a horrible system, then it's definitely a reason to not buy one. The Crysis menu interface looked high tech and was very smooth and intuitive. Aside from having to confirm everything, it's a pretty good interface.

The game itself definitely lives up to the hype, from a graphics perspective. Initially, the game set the graphics based on my configuration to Medium settings, but I definitely didn't leave them set there and cranked most of them to Very High for starters. The game never slowed down at all. I'll check out the FPS I'm getting at a later time so I can give you hard numbers. But the game ran very well on my machine. I don't generally crank the resolution any higher than 1024 x 768 though, so that could explain why it ran so well.

The graphics are definitely the best I have seen to date in any game on any platform. Head over heals better than Half-life 2 and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Coming over the hill onto the beach and seeing the sunrise was spectacular, more like a movie than a game. The jungle foliage, from a distance, looked very realistic and swayed in the breeze. Up close when walking through them, as you'd expect, they look a lot less than realistic and just like normal textures in most video games. Maybe my expectations were too high, but this definitely ruined the immersion a bit for me. The nice part though was that the brush and foliage would bend and move out of your way as you moved through them. A big firefight also ends up clearing a lot of the trees and brush fairly realistically. It's pretty cool to watch.

I still haven't quite made my mind up about the nanosuit yet. It's a pretty cool idea and it's implemented pretty well. I just am not so sure what it brings to the game play. The only thing I've seen so far that it adds to the game play is finding the balance between maximum armor, stealth, maximum strength, and maximum speed modes.

I love the fact that it's a fairly open ended game. You have objectives and checkpoints you have to get to, but you could decide to swim across a harbor to hopefully avoid the Korean army on land, or you can hoof it on foot and try to avoid the patrol boats and their heavy machine guns. There are many paths to your objectives, it will be fun keep trying different ones.

Overall, I did enjoy the demo immensely and will absolutely be eagerly awaiting the Crysis release on November 16th!

Leave me some comments and let me know what you thought of the demo and of the game overall.

Please support this blog and your gaming habit!
Pre-order your copy of Crysis today!

Crysis Demo downloading now...

I have an automatic download manager that I use for downloading demos from Fileplanet. This morning, I turned on my computer to find the Crysis demo on it's way. All 1.77 GB worth!!! If this is just a single level and the sandbox editor, I can't imagine how big the full game will be and if it will all fit on a single DVD. We'll have to wait until November 17th to find out.

I will post my first impressions of the demo later this evening hopefully. I am watching both of my kids all night tonight so my gaming time might be a bit limited tonight. But check back tonight or tomorrow for my initial impressions.

Preorder Crysis today!

Crysis Demo pushed back until Saturday

The latest news on the Crysis demo is that it will be released today at 1:00 pm (GMT+1) and will be available only to those who pre-ordered Crysis for about 24 hours using the EA Downloader. Tomorrow at around 1:00 pm (GMT+1) the demo will be made available for download across all public websites. Make sure to check it out!

Pre-order your copy of Crysis now!

Crysis Demo due out today

Originally slated for release on September 25th I believe, the same day as Halo 3 was released, the single player demo for the eagerly anticipated first person shooter Crysis is due out today, according to Crytek. I've personally been eagerly awaiting this incredible looking game and can't wait to try out the Crysis demo to see if it lives up to all the hype.

The game does look like it could be a bit more difficult than the normal first person shooter, having the added abilities of modifying your weapons as well as yourself through the use of what they call the Nanosuit. It looks really sweet. I really don't know how this Nanosuit will play itself out in multiplayer battles since every player will have a nanosuit, it might be a bit like playing a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

One thing to note...there is currently a closed beta for Crysis currently in progress. There may be some more keys available but only to FilePlanet subscribers. I'm not sure how this will affect the release of the demo.

Release date set for November 16th in the US.

Pre-order your Crysis: Prima Official Game Guide now!

Long Time No Post

It's been a really long time since I've posted and I apologize for that (just in case anyone is still checking out this blog). I've been keeping myself busy with my two kids and haven't been playing games as much. Here's what I have been up to when I have been gaming:

Back in March, I purchased a Playstation 3 and Call of Duty 3 and became wrapped up in playing the multiplayer games on makes like EderDam and Poisson against my brother-in-law and others. Call of Duty 3 became infested with cheaters and exploiters so I stopped playing that.

Had a brief stint playing Splinter Cell: Double Agent for a while on the PS3, but it just couldn't hold my attention to finish the game. It just wasn't an engaging enough game.

Off and on I've been playing Company of Heroes. Now this game is sweet! I've always had a bit of a tough time with real time strategy games as they can get very monotonous and difficult to manage at times. But this game rocks so far. The graphics are great (especially on my 7 month old Alienware rig complete with Geforce 8800 GTX and Quad Core 2.66 processor and DirectX 10!) and the gameplay really pulls you in. A big part of it is the dialog from the units. This is the first RTS game I've played that actually makes you care (ever so slightly) about the units. It makes them seem a bit more lifelike and gritty.