15 years after its initial release Morrowind continues to captivate every time I play it, restoring in me a sense of exploration, mystery and wonder that no game has reached again. The intricate and compelling story, in depth lore, engaging world, beautiful music and art style combined with the best sense of progression and power makes Morrowind my favourite RPG of all-time.
Crysis Warhead is a standalone mini-campaign set during the events of the original game. Gameplay and presentation is the same as the original game, which is to say it's great. Gameplay is made great by mastering the different modes on your nanosuit that result in feeling of being better than everything that almost no other game matches. Story Crysis Warhead is set in the near future where you play as Psycho, one part of an elite tactical squad with overpowered combat armour. Your squad is tasked with the investigation of Korean forces that are garrisoned on a pacific island. The story is cheesy and with all the right ridiculousness, reminiscent of 80's action movies. In Crysis Warhead there is only 3 characters really, and they are all one-dimensional and there is no character development. The plot is definitely secondary to the gameplay and graphics but it serves as an interesting enough backdrop with some great and memorable moments. I would recommend playing the original game before playing Warhead if you can, as the plot is far more developed in that game. Gameplay The nanosuit has 4 different modes, which can be activated at any time depending on what the situation requires. Mastering the different modes (Speed, Strength, Armour & Cloak) is the key to enjoying the gameplay in Crysis, and synthesising them together creates unequalled moments of badassery. You will probably tend to take a primary play style: stealth, run and gun or tank and gun though you will have to use all the modes to be successful. I tended to do run and gun using a combination of Speed and Armour primarily with the occasional Strength one hit melee kill. The gunplay is very good with each gun having a very different feeling from each other. Unfortunately I think the game could've done with a few more weapons but the ones available cover all bases, the shotgun being my personal favourite. You can customise your weapon at any time this includes changing sights, ammunition and attachments. This is important to use as changing the setup on your weapons to suit the situation is quite helpful and increases the versatility. There is also a lot of different equipment like mines, satchel charges or missile launchers. Using equipment as frequently as you can will make your life easier and I had a lot of fun using satchel charges in combination with Cloak. Presentation Crysis is famous for it's graphical fidelity and it honestly still holds up well. I was playing the game at 1440p on maximum settings and it still looked as good as modern games which is a real testament to the detail Crytek put into the environment and effects. The water and lighting bloom were the real standouts here and the density of the pacific jungles was impressive. The effects are incredible too with explosions, fire and bullet effects looking awesome and it definitely adds a lot to action packed story. Where the graphics of Crysis do not hold up is in facial animations, to elaborate I'm not actually certain there are any. There is one moment in particular where Psycho is supposed to look sad and instead looks shocked or something with mouth agape. Though luckily there is only a handful of moments where you even see faces so it doesn't detract too much. The sound effects are incredible too, explosions and gunfire are loud and... explosive I guess. In Speed mode you hear things whizzing past you and combined with the peripheral blur you get a real sense of speed. The suit talks to you when you change modes and these lines are eternally memorable and to everyone's surprise don't get repetitive.
RCT2 is a brilliant game. Timeless graphics, surprising depth, funny and addictive. This release is relatively stable, I occasionally get a crash (no autosave, so make sure you save every now and then) but the game is still very playable. One of my favourite games when I was younger and it is still stealing my time!
