Crysis 3 Review: Amazing Graphics, Still a Benchmark Buster, Boring Gameplay 211
MojoKid writes "Let's get one thing clear up front. Crysis 3's graphics are absolutely stunning. Crytek's latest game doesn't raise the bar — it annihilates it. At the highest settings, Crysis blows Battlefield 3 out of the water, makes mincemeat of Max Payne, and makes the original Crysis — itself a graphics powerhouse — look more like the first Call of Duty. Crysis 3 really is that stunning, provided that you've got the graphics card to handle it. Like the first game, this title is capable of bringing even a high-end card to its knees. Everyone who worked in the artistic departments at Crytek, from character animations to texturing, deserves an award. The people who wrote the game's plot, on the other hand, don't. The game's design and some poor pacing decisions completely undermine what should be its greatest selling point. Crysis 3 could've been a great game but it feels like a science experiment. How much poor gameplay will players suffer through in exchange for utterly amazing graphics?"
So, it's for multiplayer, and for benchmarks (Score:3, Insightful)
"There's a unique Hunter Mode, in which most players start off as Cell operatives but transform into Hunters once killed, and an Assault mode in which each player only has one life." Nice to see them catching up to the modding community, snicker snort. What's next, a co-op mode? So it's not a good single player game, and it's not a good multi-player game, how many benchmarkers are out there?
Silly question... (Score:4, Insightful)
How much poor gameplay will players suffer through in exchange for utterly amazing graphics?
People will sit through literally metric shit tonnes of bad game play with poor to mediocre graphics.
I would list examples, but I feel like getting a [citation needed] response instead of listing my overly subjective choices.
How good is it at its best? (Score:4, Insightful)
The original Crysis had some pretty brilliant sections, along with a lot of mediocre, boring or just plain terrible sections. I still haven't beaten the game, but I've played that one hostage-rescue mission a couple dozen times, along with a few of the other good parts. Seriously, if they had just stopped right when you enter the alien ship/base/whatever, it would have been a good (if a bit short) game. As it is, it's a game with levels you'll only play through once.
So, then, how good is Crysis 3 at its best? Does it get back to that wide, open-approach gameplay, where you can plan things out and approach it several different ways? Do you ever get that Predator feeling? Or is it terrible from beginning to end?
The review barely touches on this, mentioning one or two good vehicle sections, but FYI, don't bother with TFA. It's three pages full of no details. It's not a review, it's an executive summary of a review. I'll wait for better reviews and better benchmarks.
I feel pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a link to an actual graphics demo, instead of just screenshots [youtube.com]. It is impressive and I like it (I especially like the fractal plants that you can zoom in on), but ultimately it still feels like a cartoon, and in that way not any more immersive than Myst.
This link is applicable (Score:4, Insightful)
Before the "Crysis was always a tech demo" posts, nope, Crysis 1 wasn't at all. It was a very good game with a slightly weak end 1/3
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2790285&cid=39706557 [slashdot.org]
Crysis 2 however, was an abomination and has scared me off considering Crysis 3.
Re:PC Games? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would anybody bother spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on fancy PC's just to play games that play better and look just as good on a $200 console?
Mouse + Keyboard controls?
Sometimes a console controller just isn't convenient (or one is too old to get used to it)
No manual saves (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing that pisses me off with a lot of modern games such as Crysis 3 (and this also includes Crysis 2) is that they rely entirely on autosaving at checkpoints. No ability to quicksave at any point at all. Autosaves are fine, but the removal of traditional manual save functionality is such a huge step backwards it affects enjoyment for me. This was highly irritating in Crysis 2 because the game likes to highlight various tactics in infiltrating a base (assault, stealth, hybrid approach), but the lack of an ability to make your own saves when desired really screws up the ability to perform stealth properly. Mess it up and you'll find yourself throwing a grenade at your feet in order to force a reload of the last checkpoint, at which point you'll need to start the whole area again. Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dishonored have the ability to create manual saves at any area (and multiple saves too) and this makes performing stealth far more desirable. You can save several times during your progress and if you stuff up, just reload the last point which might be most of the way through a section, as opposed to a checkpoint which would only occur at the beginning and the end.
But I need not ramble, because graphics do not appeal much anymore on their own if the gameplay is boring. Have them together, great, but graphics are nothing without some meat.
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Borderlands is a great example where interesting graphics are far more effective than hyper-realistic graphics.
The rotoscoping/cartoon effect in borderlands is used really well, and even though they are low fidelity the styling more than makes up for it. Plus you dont need such a high-end card because high resolutions are less important.
Interesting artistic style and good gameplay/story/humour will always trump eye candy.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No manual saves (Score:5, Insightful)
I like this. It makes the game more challenging. You can't just safe at your own opportune moment.
Good for you. Get a game with save anywhere... and don't use it.
For the rest of us, who have actual lives, being forced to replay ten minutes of the game because it wouldn't let us save when we had to deal with something in that real life fscking sucks donkey ass and is one of the reasons why I play less and less games these days.
Re:I feel pathetic (Score:4, Insightful)
The post-process effects and a generall lack of resolution of sharpness in combination with wrong colors make games look so cartoonish. When I look around on a sunny day I see:
1. sharp objects even far away (in other words, depth of field != blurriness at a distance),
2. *everything* is crystal sharp (even at high resolution game graphics tend to be too blurry due to AA and if you switch minimal AA off you get shimmering artefacts)
3. no matter what people claim, my vision does *not* blur when I turn my head - at least not in the way that "motion blur" effects do,
4.same for objects at high speed, they don't appear to be blurred to me - never ever,
5. bright objects shimmer and whirr much less in reality than in games,
6. environments are less colorful in reality,
7. there is more small movement in reality than even CryEngine can reproduce,
8. HDR is often exaggerated; shadows are less dark in reality and my eyes adapt extremely fast to changes in lighting conditions, so fast that it's usually not noticable (exception: extreme changes like leaving a very dark room into bright sunlight),
9. detail at distance and field of view are much higher in reality than in games
Okay, 7 & 9 are performance issues, but I still sometimes wonder whether perhaps many game devs are vision impaired?