Crysis 2: Maximum Edition Review | TheNameBrand
A Relic of the Past and Not Much More…
A Relic of the Past and Not Much More…
On release it may have been a technical marvel, with a fun immersive single player, and lively multiplayer. Now, with a lackluster SP by modern standards and dead multiplayer, it’s clear that its time in the limelight is up.
While it might have had success in its heyday with the then “breathtaking” Powered By CryEngine™ single player and lively multiplayer… too much time has passed. There are just more games worth your time, energy, and money to play. So, while this review isn’t indicative of the “glory days”, it is a detailed and subjective account of my own modern day experience, as I experienced it, in 2022.
You know, I remember buying Crysis 2 years and years ago for some reason. Must have been on a deep sale, I saw a few of my friends had it, and in my adolescent mind I believe I thought something like… “Call of Duty with superpowers… so cool” and I bought it. Played it for… maybe two hours? And then, I distinctly remember in the middle of a play session saying out loud… “What’s the point of this game? It isn’t even that fun?” So I uninstalled it and haven’t really looked back… until recently that is.
It was randomly selected from my backlog as what I should play next, and on recalling my previous experience playing it, I thought… Well. It’s time to get my money’s worth out of this. So I played the entire campaign, recorded myself too, just in case I was feeling extra motivated to make a YouTube video or something. I was, and I did, despite the majority of the game being a total slog. It’s got its few hype moments, but moment to moment I was not having a lot of fun. It’s definitely mediocre.
Crysis 2 doesn’t play that well either. When aiming down sights (ADS), your mouse sensitivity scoped in, is the same as when it’s not. The resulting effect of that, is like taping a magnifying glass to your monitor every time you aim any weapon. Sure, I could try to line up headshots, but the mouse sensitivity, being as high as it is, makes it very difficult to correct and play effectively. Consequently, if I slowed the sensitivity down, then my turn radius would be comparable to a yacht. So for my play through, I hip fired just about every gun that every fell into my lap, and the shotgun was my best friend. If you have a macro bound to your mouse that changes the sensitivity on ADS, maybe that would be a solid solution? I personally, am at a loss.
The writing is… okay. I think overall, what this game suffers from is a lack of creativity. Every location, every enemy, every character, all the art direction and design, it all feels so much like everything else remotely similar to it. Crysis 2 isn’t really iterating on any of its ideas to the point I feel like I’ve seen it a hundred times, and now here it is, in this game. It makes the journey through it feel devoid of creativity. Where’s the flare, where’s the OOMPH? You’ve got a cool looking suit and some cool powers, but let’s make it stand out! We need more hype moments! More aura! It’s wasted potential. Maybe, at the time of release, the graphics are what made it stand out with the CryEngine. But, as I saw on max settings, that really didn’t help it in the long term from what I played.
While the game does present the opportunity to use some godly superpowers through the billion dollar nano-suit, I feel like often times, combat scenarios can be completely trivialized with just one, stealth mode. Some sections, to their credit, do require combat, and in those it does pay to strategize more, which lead to a few interesting confrontations where I was managing my arsenal a bit more fully. But most often, I would just find myself sneaking to the next objective, combat and hassle-free. This also helped me avoid using the guns, which I’ve already griped on as to why.
The story details and “deep lore” seem interesting, but it’s really nothing too special that I haven’t seen played out before. Characters are very much boiled down to the archetypes they were given when they popped into the writers heads. The narrative is entirely predictable. The most motivated I ever was to boot the game up was when I knew I was on the last mission. It’s kind of a shame, I wish it could have done more with any of its material.
The multiplayer is quite dead. I’m many years too late. To be honest, even if there was a way to do so, I’m not sure if I would bother with it. Maybe it would be fun with friends? Everything is fun with friends. Perhaps that’s what made it great.
The greatest sparks of joy I had were with the physics system. I’d laugh as a Ceph alien careens through the air from 5 simultaneously detonating C4 charges… But, let’s be real, Half Life 2 came out years before this and THAT physics engine is still light years more interesting than this. So, I don’t know what kind of opinion to have here, but my smooth brain was activated several times from this, and I must disclose that I did crack a smile on occasion from stupid things like that… kicking a car off of a cliff… throwing a trash bin at a solider. That sort of thing.
Overall, I do not recommend Crysis 2, and suggest spending your money and your time on a different game. If you want a fun multiplayer game, you can find a mildly successful indie FPS filled with your brand of poison to fulfill your needs there. If you’re looking for an immersive sim single player, I hear PREY is the best of the best in that department. It’s very clear that Crysis 2 did not age well, and is not meant to be played in this day and age any longer. Its time has certainly passed, and I’m honored to share that information with you this day.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com, in 2022.