Ramblings of a n00b
There have been few multiplayer games that have opened my eyes and had me addicted. The two most recent experiences that I can recall were from Medal of Honor and Call of Duty: Black Ops. Each game brought its own flavor of addiction and each game brought a different type of formula to make the experiences different.
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With Medal of Honor I felt like it was more serious when it came to warfare. It felt like a game that was geared towards the hardcore military folk of the world, or those that want something more than getting yelled at by a 10-year old. The world it exists in is pretty brutal, which is a good way to look at war. If you get shot in the head, you’re dead. There aren’t many bells or whistles to make the experience cheesy, yet there are plenty of moments that make you want to go out and get a tattoo. For most people who have played the game it’s a big turn-off to have the experience realistic. Guess what? That’s okay. It is geared towards the Battlefield audience.
With Call of Duty you get the bells and whistles that Medal of Honor doesn’t necessarily contain. You get a bit more unrealistic situations, but that is made up with the fun-fun-fun! Having a remote control car armed with C-4 chase after unsuspecting enemies is quite priceless. Laying down a respawn point at the location of your choice is fun. It takes everything serious that made up Medal of Honor and it bends it a bit in an unrealistic manner. It’s like the fun half of the military. It’s the military that kids can play with, but not necessarily feel nervous about. Again, it’s the bells and whistles of first-person shooting.
So why do I bring these two games up? I bring them up because Crysis 2 multiplayer is truly the best of both worlds, plus more.
It’s certainly not a cookie-cut mold of FPS multiplayers.
Crysis, My Short History…
If you haven’t yet played Crysis 2 or are too lazy to download the demo (looking at you Steve Schardein) then you are missing something fun. Years ago when we saw the demo for the first Crysis our staff laughed a little saying, “Good luck with that ambitious task.” Years removed we now understand the scope and possibilities that Crytek created for their original title. We also understand that tons of players, yours truly included, had to basically rebuild their PC and spec it out to the max to even begin to play the original game.
When Crysis 2 was announced two E3’s ago we started crying a bit looking at the old/new PCs built and dreading the day where we’d have to reinvent our PC wheels again to get the new game to function. Thankfully, the title was also announced for consoles and we could all rejoice knowing that the hole you put in the leaf in the jungle area could still shine a beautiful light perfectly through.
Anyway, I digress. The game is damn good looking and you hopefully will give it a shot once this rambling preview is done.
The Location
So, having downloaded the multiplayer demo a week or so ago the game completely floored me. The single level players are restricted to revolves around the top of a skyscraper. It’s a rather large environment, if there is a comparison you could probably mention it similar to the market area in Medal of Honor or the missile launch area in Call of Duty. It’s a bit restricted in the rooftop level, but impressive in details. Much like a drug dealer, you give your clients a taste before you provide them with the real deal. With this simple level it will trap you and intrigue. It will simply have you begging for more, and that’s tough to do in a demo. To give you a bit more detail, the level consists of three green houses with plants (gotta have holes in those leaves!), the indoor upper level of the building, a nice two-story house with a gorgeously effective waterfall and an open area with solar panels. Before you ask, yes you can fall off the rooftop (just watch where you jump). The building isn’t composed of an even rooftop, as it is constructed with varying levels of rises and deep falls. So, if you jump off the roof of the two-story shanty you might have a short fall or a very long drop; regardless, it varies.
That’s pretty much the best description I can provide of the level, so let’s talk about the important things.
The Standards
The weaponry you get in the demo is pretty nice. You can be a gunner, sniper, and a couple of other characters (including a custom job). The best of the bunch comes wrapped in a tie between gunner and sniper. The gunner certainly has the firepower to be as mean as a snake. Packed with a giant gun firing frivolous shots everywhere you will do some real damage to multiple things including solar panels, small plants, water towers, rooftops of greenhouses and oh yeah! Other players. It’s a more veteran type of player and weaponry, as you’ll want to charge in like a pawn on a chessboard into certain death.
The sniper, as you would expect, is more reserved. You pack a very nice sniper rifle that is easily adjustable. For those coming from a Medal of Honor background in multiplayer you’ll fully understand how annoying it is to not go prone. Honestly speaking, this isn’t the type of game where you need to go prone, as you’ll want to ‘fire’ – ‘move’ – ‘fire’ – ‘move’. Zooming and controlling the weapon as you go long range is incredibly easy. While it will be tough to target moving enemies at first (they run sometimes like the wind blows) you won’t have to deal with holding down L3 to steady your sights (or having only one round per chamber). As much as I love Medal of Honor for realism, I could certainly do without that feature. Thankfully, Crysis 2 does without that feature. Anyway, you’ll find the parody in body part targets to be quite nice as a sniper, as hitting someone in a different part of their body yields different results. Sometimes you have to fire twice; sometimes you only have to fire once. Regardless, if you choose the sniper in Crysis 2 you will become an instant asshole to everyone.
As you progress in the demo you’ll find yourself leveling up with every kill. This is a standard feature in almost every multiplayer game, which is absolutely fine. Much like everyone else, the leveling gives you reason to continue playing. As you level up you unlock more goodies like weapons and you unlock other game modes and newer features (getting to those, be patient you goobers). Again, more of the same that you’re use to, but the quantity appears to be greater (EA and Crytek taunt you with words, but you can’t unlock those).
Now on to the good stuff…
The Good Stuff
So what really drives you to perform better? Well, the unlockables are nice, but the leveling is noticeably encouraging. What the hell does that mean? Well, in this demo you get certain skills to play with and they help you become more addicted to the game through their use. You get a nice POW meter (guess what that does?), extra skin shield and a lovely cloaking skill. Each power, once turned on, uses a certain amount of, well…, power. This is represented on the HUD by a lovely meter. Once that meter runs low or runs out you lose that particular power. The meter recharges really quick, so you don’t have to do anything special but sit there, but by sitting there staring at this meter you’re opening yourself up to getting your ass handed to you. So this is where the strategy arrives in the equation. You must use the power wisely with whatever skill you want to activate. You must also think about the best position you want to be in (stop giggling) to recharge quickly without the possibility of death. For example, I found that the cloaking was the most valuable skill of the bunch. If you are cloaked and are standing still you will not be seen. If you could be a successful sniper with a high level of cloaking I guarantee players would send a private investigator out to find you, so everyone could whoop your ass for being clever. It’s that valuable! Once you break your mannequin like stance your cloaking can only be compared to the predator in the first Predator film. Everyone will see your moving outline, but it’s still tough to get targeted.
Anyway, the three main powers are a trip. You also get another power, but I don’t really consider it huge (I just don’t, sorry) and that would be the ability to quickly run away. If you can successfully pull off running away from a firefight without dying then you’re a better man than me. I didn’t see anyone do that, but it’s nice when you want to bolt across a field trying to avoid being seen.
Other neat things
While I never actually did this, the game has this neat airship option that allows you to take control of an airship and make everyone’s day on the rooftop pure hell. The best you can do at that point is hide if you’re on the receiving end of that rainfall.
Other things that are neat is you get rewarded for multiple kills in a row. You can activate an enemy radar so that you can briefly see where the heck everyone is located. I found that out when I killed four unsuspecting schmoes in a row. It was a useful option and one that could rally rack up points.
Finally, a cool thing that probably isn’t mentioned enough (and it’s not a power) is the fact that you can grab ledges and pull your character up. That’s right, no more thinking, “OMG-WTF-GTFO-LMAO” when you’re trying to jump up to the five foot ledge in front of you. ‘Other’ FPS titles are notorious for taunting you with ‘just-out-of-reach’ locations. Here there aren’t really any ‘out-of-reach’, as you simply jump and grab. It’s like a mix of Mirror’s Edge with a first-person view of Assassin’s Creed. You’ll pretty much want to jump everywhere in the game.
Anything else?
The multiplayer in the demo is pretty damn tight. It has all the bells and whistles that will make you cry man tears. The small level that’s in this demo is enough to keep you going for weeks. Hell, just typing about it right now makes me want to stop and fire up the 360. There is an additional mode that you can unlock, but I honestly didn’t try much of it. I’m a deathmatch type of person and I’ll always be deathmatch first. The other is kind of like capture-the-flag, but not really. You can discover it on your own.
Anyway, this demo is damn good and if it’s only a fraction of what’s to come then I’m already sold. I’m not a huge, huge fan of multiplayer because everyone seems to be doing it these days, but when someone provides a unique experience then it usually turns out to be something special.
One thing I want Crytek to do is impress me with single-player and multiplayer. It’s tough to find an FPS with both equally fun and addictive. One can only hope that will happen, but there are few FPS out there that can claim such an accomplishment.
Rambling n00b out.