The best FPS game of the 1990's, one of the best FPS games of all time. Even Half-Life pales in comparison. It looks beautiful and it sounds beautiful. It has a tactical element thanks to the smart design of the AI and the weapons. There's marvelous music and a few world-building notes and logs scattered on your path. It's an epic journey that takes you through expansive valleys, half-abandoned villages, ancient castles and temples, high-tech bases and spaceships and other mysterious places. For me, it was an experience that no other game has been able to replicate.
Some people dismissed Crysis as a "benchmark" or "tech demo" when it came out. I can only assume they had too low a frame rate to appreciate the gameplay and level design. That or they didn't even try to use the Nanosuit to its full potential. Once you've mastered the suit, you can leap around like a ninja, pull off perfect stealth attacks and even take down entire bases literally bare-handed. Combine that with expansive levels, several vehicles to drive and modifiable weapons, and you get yourself the most liberating FPS experience since the original FarCry. Nice-looking jungles, beaches and aliens are just a bonus. Admittedly, the last few levels are very linear and heavily scripted, but their design and pacing are good enough to make up for that.
