I had no idea what to expect from this game when I saw it on a GOG sale for under $2.00. The screenshots looked good, and I liked Flying Wild Hog's work on Shadow Warrior 2, so I took a chance. Glad I did! This is a pretty well-paced, fast and furious FPS. It looks great, runs great, and plays great, even on my budget gaming laptop. What struck me the most was the artistic aesthetic. It looks straight out of the original Blade Runner. The streets are dark and grimy, high rises draped in near endless neon signs surround you everywhere, and when you look up, you get a sense of scale that reminds me of the classic Ridley Scott film. Flying cars scuttle about near and far, up, up, WAY up in the air to be swallowed by a persistent dark, rainy sky. I really enjoyed my ten hours or so with this game, and I only knock off a point because the story is a bit by the numbers 'ex military tough guy takes on the evil future corporation/AI' fare. The story unfolds in between levels with some pretty cool comic book style cutscenes, but there's just not much there. That, and the game could have used some more enemy variety. This game is on sale for $1.99 right now. It's well worth your time, and it's worth more than that, to be sure.
This adventure runs parallel to the events of the original Crysis, featuring Psycho in the lead role. It's short, clocking in at around 5 to 6 hours to complete. While I found the original to be a little more frustrating at times, I still think it's a better game. Oddly enough, I thought Crysis looked better and actually ran better than Warhead. Even at similar settings, there was a lot of pop in and frame drops. My laptop isn't a firebreather by any stretch of the imagination, but it ran Crysis maxed with little to no issue whatsoever. I still got some random crashes, which was similar to the original game, too. Don't know what that's all about. All in all a fun game. I got it on a deep, DEEP sale here on GOG. I see it's $20 now. At that price, I wouldn't recommend it because it's just way too short. But if you can snag it on sale, definitely grab it if you're a fan of the original.
Crysis is one of those games I've always heard about but never got to experience. I'm just recently getting back into PC gaming after over a decade of owning workhorse PCs that couldn't run any games. With the purchase of a somewhat budget gaming laptop, I decided to give this much loved PC classic a try. Did I think it lived up to expectations? Yes and no. Even 13 years later this game looks incredible. I can understand why it's still talked about to this day. The vistas are huge, the areas expansive, the level designs intricate with foliage, mountain ranges, waterfalls, and the like. From a gameplay perspective, I can imagine that this blew PC players' minds upon initial release. Suit powers, cloaking abilities, weapon mods on the fly, being able to use stealth or blunt force to work your way through enemy territory. That being said, I found the game to be needlessly difficult at times. I admit to being a mostly console/gamepad guy for a long, LONG time. I'm still trying to get used to mouse and keyboard after over a month of getting a decent gaming laptop. Still, sometimes this game just throws so much at you that I found my fingers getting extra fat and sluggish. I died often. I died constantly. It got frustrating in certain points, especially the last boss fight where ammo is at a premium and the sky is literally falling on your head. Frustrations aside, I give that a pass. I appreciate the game for what it is: an adrenaline fueled sci fi shooter with brains that doesn't hold back and is filled with some rather spectacular set pieces. I can see why this thing was melting top end gaming rigs even ten years after release. Honestly, I'm surprised my budget level Acer was able to run it as solidly as it did. I'm also glad I gave this game a shot. It's definitely a classic.
For whatever reason, this PC game doesn't want to work with the mouse and keyboard on my laptop. Even though I have keyboard set up as my controller, all the menu mappings at the bottom of the screen show up as Xbox One controller buttons. I'd really like to try the demo, but it doesn't seem like the dev wants me to. Frustrating.
