Crysis 2 Walkthrough (PC PS3 XBox 360) – Strategy Guide

There are multiple reasons that Crysis 2 is certainly one of the more marquee titles to be released recently, but I believe the paramount reason would have the stunning visual look of the original title. So does the Crysis 2 multiplayer demo show us that even that impressive effort can be improved upon, graphics and otherwise ?

CRYSIS 2 TRAILER


Well, first of all, there’s the suit. Sleek. sexy killing armor. Man did they get the look of that right. Somewhere between what you’d get if you morphed a “Transformer” with Spiderman’s evil nemesis “Venom”, it certainly has the expected look of a battle suit that could grant you superhuman powers by merely slipping it on. Crysis 2 being a first person shooter, admittedly you don’t see how great you look in the suit unless you spend most of your time staring at your own feet, but obviously you can see copper and silver tinged incarnations of the Crysis 2 supersuit on all your fellow players all over the battlefield., and it simply has the credible look of demi-god ability granted super-soldiers everywhere, and sometimes….nowhere.

Nowhere? Yep. The Crysis 2 supersuit really does grant powers, and they are cleverly implemented I must say. The suit will make you faster, stronger, capable of a vertical leap that only Air Jordan could emulate, better able to resist punishment and falls by armoring up, and yes, invisibility. Well, not quite invisible, but damn close. If your opponent’s stationary, odds are he’s gonna see you and get in his best shot first, but if we learned one thing from the “Predator” movies no amount of stealth technology, alien or otherwise, can completely disguise a moving target, (something about how light refracts…), but lining up an opponent cloaked in stealth is tough.

Unfair advantage this stealth? Well…. no. You’re as equally capable of going stealth, and there’s a counter measure of course. It’s called Nanovision, which is really just a kind of heat-sensitive vision, and stealth or not, it reveals all. So why not just run around and do all your fighting with Nanovision on? Well, first of all Nanovision just doesn’t allow for the same amount of precision and could cost you a do-or-die, fraction of a second in reaction time, but even more importantly, as with virtually all man-made techno toys, when the batteries run out, it’s game over. That’s what keeps everyone on the battlefield honest and nervous all at the same time, carefully deciding when to conserve precious supersuit energy, and when to armor up, near disappear, or simply jump right up and over an obstacle and out of harm’s way. Make the right call, you execute a highlight reel kill, the wrong one, sitting-duck dead meat.

You’re given two playing areas to start, a wharf-front type area and a New York rooftop scenario, and both look dead bang stunning, but with the added fear and vertigo of heights incorporated into the rooftop zone, I’d have to say the New York style playing area is the showcase one. In defense of the wharf-font area, it adds the gameplay element of actually being able to disappear into the water from your hunters, and make a mega spring spring entering the surface that, when executed correctly, gives the swimmer quite an advantage. The actually graphic quality and motion effect of being underwater is, as with all Crysis visuals, top-notch. Regardless of which you prefer, both are visual stunners, and when examined closely, quite often keep a very subtle theme of being tinted/tinged in the same two colors as the supersuits themselves, another clever visual trick which really makes the stealth option in the game work so well.

As we all know, you can have the greatest visuals in the world, but if the gameplay itself doesn’t deliver, all you really have is window dressing. Crysis 2 delivers what it had been promising with the build-up before it’s launch. In short order, once you become comfortably familiar with the controls, (which are all pretty much where they should be…), you are the master of quick and responsive multiplayer hunting that really allows for the best, thinking players and not simply the button mashers, to rise to the top, a true measure of a properly balanced multiplayer experience and not just a run around and let’s shoot each other single player campaign add-on.

When first playing Crysis 2 I was getting my ass handed to me quickly and regularly, but once I learned how to cloak before attacking armor up at the right times, I was stringing together multiple kills and disappearing before my enemies could retaliate, and it was really, really, satisfying, but what took this game to another level of multiplayer satisfaction for me over other similar offerings, was the first time I used the suits’ ability to quickly vault over a couple of tall obstacles and then flying through the air, I executed death from above on an opponent, WHAM! Man, he never saw me coming, never knew what hit him. It was as beautiful a dance as watching a cheetah track down a gazelle in slow-motion, and an experience that I had never felt from another multiplayer before, and that says more about the quality gaming experience that Crysis 2 provides than all the wondrous visuals combined. Like I said before, once you become comfortable with your controls and your surroundings, you are actually able to execute the beautiful kill the way you planned it out in your mind. What else can I say, it was a total rush, comparable to that first drop down a roller coaster, simple as that, boo-yah.

I could go on and on about other details and features in Crysis 2′s multiplayer experience, and there is plenty more classes of soldiers and upgrades available to keep the experience fresh and compelling, the dynamic of how the gameplay unfolds near always benefitting the smart, stealthy and adaptable player, but really I would imagine by this point you’ve gathered the main sentiment that Crysis 2 has won me over, which it has. The visuals are eye-candy, the music is orchestra-driven and compelling, and most importantly the gameplay is smart and balanced. I can only imagine what the single player what the single player campaign is capable of…. but I can’t wait to find out. The “Cally of Duty” crowd is gonna love this one. Thanks for that perfect, sexy, overhead, in-flight kill experience. Bravo, Crysis 2, bravo.