"Crysis 2" makes players feel Godlike

Originally published in the April 13, 2011 issue of the Coast Report
By Ethan Hawkes, Staff Writer

Aliens have always been the subject of video games, but most of the time players fight them in space or on another planet.
“Crysis 2,” however, explores the idea of an alien invasion happening in a major city on Earth, and it does so with class.
The game begins with players in the shoes of an average American marine in the future who is tasked with fighting off an alien invasion in New York City. Not long into the campaign, the player is given access to an extraordinary suit of armor, the “Nanosuit 2.0,” that drastically changes the way the game plays.
This suit does it all – it gives the player the ability to cloak, jump farther, run faster and, most importantlyly, absorb the many bullets that will be flying at him throughout the game. The suit works well as the main gimmick of the game and is a lot of fun to play around in.
Zipping around in futuristic battle armor and shooting aliens with a variety of weapons has never looked so good. “Crysis 2” is the first game to feature Crytek’s CryEngine 3 and is amazing to look at.
Never before has New York City looked as beautiful in a virtual world while in such a chaotic state. I caught myself multiple times pausing from the adrenaline pumping action to just gaze around at the gorgeous, collapsing city the developers recreated.
Gameplay took a backseat to graphics in the first “Crysis,” but “Crysis 2” fixes most of the issues present in the first game. The environment of a city gives the game a more focused feel and turns up the action and chaos levels to that of games like “Call of Duty” and “Bulletstorm.”
What separates “Crysis 2” from the pack of other first-person shooters is that the enemy encounters can be dealt with in different ways depending on the preferred style of the player. I chose the sneaky way of dealing with enemies by utilizing the cloak, flanking them and then giving them a nice knife in the back.
The Nanosuit gives the gameplay an almost god-like feeling. Switch on armor mode and absorb an onslaught of bullets, but if things get too hot, throw up the cloak and flee into the shadows. It is a gratifying feeling having this much power at your fingertips.
A few issues plague an otherwise awesome game.
The story is pretty confusing if you missed playing through the first game and it contains a few plot holes, but it probably won’t detract too much from the experience for most players.
The more annoying issue is when enemies are occasionally found bumping into walls and standing out in the open, ignoring the cover right next to them. It isn’t terrible, but considering the budget that this game is running on I expected enemies with half a brain, even if most of them are aliens.
“Crysis 2” also features a multiplayer component. It borrows pages from “Call of Duty’s” book by including a leveling up system in it. It is fun and has a lot of depth and replay value.
A beefy and exciting single player, that takes about 11 hours to beat and a fully fleshed out multiplayer makes this game well worth the money. It may not do anything a veteran gamer has not seen before, but what it does do, it does exceptionally well.