That's A Wrap

That's a wrap for the holidays, gamers. We've got about a month to prepare for the big one. You-Know-Who is coming to town, so you better watch out. It seems that a lot of the good titles were pushed back from the holiday season, but that's ok. There will still be plenty to get our hands on, not to mention the games we already have, Mass Effect, Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, Crysis, Assassin's Creed, that one mario game, and a few others. It's been an amazing year for us gamers, and we're finally taking the ship into descent.

Tomorrow I may have a juicy blog for you all, if everything goes well...

Shippin Out...

Today will go down in gaming history. It's the one day this year bigger than my birthday ;). Crysis and Assassin's Creed shipped. So I suppose, technically, tomorrow is that big day, but what the heck. I'm too excited to save this for tomorrow. Both games got great reviews on all gaming sites, with VERY few flaws. Below is the Gamespot video review of Crysis and the GT review of Assassin's Creed.




Those graphics are just amazing. You may remember I played through the demo alone several times over. There really is so much replay value.




I had to get a second opinion for this after reading the Gamespot review. While this isn't as amazing as it seemed to be, it's still amazing nonetheless. I'm debating getting Crysis instead and waiting for the pc version of AC, but I'm sick of FPS. So I don't know. The one thing that is sure is this: both games are phenomenal games that will leave you more that satisfied.

Crysis Demo: Revamped

Thanks to Utorrent and Demonoid, I got my hands on a spoiler version of the Crysis demo. I won't ruin it for you, but I will tell you there are some pretty AWESOME weapons and vehicles, as well as enemies, that are going to be in the final release. In the regular demo you are only able to try two new weapons, the Fy91 (or something like that) and the shotgun, along with frags. The vehicles are also limited as well. In the spoiler there is a multitude of weapons and offensive vehicles to wreak havoc with, and you'll need it for the creature that's out to get you...

Crysis Demo

My hunger for Crysis has not in the littlest been quenched from the thrilling demo I've played through multiple times this weekend. In fact, I'm wanting this game so much more. Crysis presents innovative gameplay in an expansive open world. It can be played as fast paced and action packed, or as slow and stealthy, as you so choose. Personally, I mix the two to suit my style.

If there is anything to be be spoken badly of in Crysis thus far it is the high demand on graphics, and that's only bad if your rig is bad. The world is beautiful, highly detailed, and pushes the limits of the very best video cards. I myself am running on dual 8800 gts and struggling with very high setting all around. The game takes place in the near future on a lush, tropical island, but videos of later parts of Crysis show snowy areas. The developers really captured not only the look but the feel as well of these different climates, and you may find yourself feeling like you really are creeping through the jungle or trodding through snow at times. This game is beautiful.

As Crysis starts there is a short cutscene foreshadowing what's to come, followed by a black screen with the words Seven Days Later... Thats where you come in. You, and four other members of your elite and and top secret squad. The leader is a man named Prophet, and your three other teammates are Aztec, Psycho, and Jester. You go by Nomad. Prophet quickly briefs you all on the mission, which is to find the person who set off a distress beacon on an island occupied by the Korean military. You then jump out of the plane deploying you over the island, and that's when the first of many things goes wrong...

Your chute is missing. Prophet tells you not to freak out because you're over water and your suit will absorb most of the impact. Luckily he's right. You land roughly and your suit gets out of whack, and this is where you learn about all its neat features. Prophet quickly updates your suit somehow, restoring all of its features, and gets the location of all the team members: you're all scattered. From there you get to fool around with the neat tricks and modes of you suit, which include a defensive mode, hyper speed, super strength, and cloaking. The learning curb is extremely short and simple, yet the varieties of gameplay offered from the different modes is very encompassing.

After getting the hang of the suit, which is done partly by taking out your first three Korean soldiers, of KBA, or by avoiding them all together, you meat up with Jester and together you go look for Aztec, who got stuck in a tree. Unfortunately for him you two arrived just seconds too late, only to find him and four KBA mauled, bloodied, and dead. This was not the work of humans.

As the game proceeds you and Jester split up, and Prophet tells you where to go and what your objectives are. Although you arrived in the dead of night dawn raises shortly and adds nicely to the scenery. You'll likely spend at least an hour doing several sequintal main and secondary objectives at this point, as well as exploring the combat options, vehicles, swimming, killing crabs, shooting down trees, blowing up cars, picking up and throwing random items, and trying to climb on rocks. At least that's what I did. But either way you'll eventually meet back up with the remainder of the crew, which is everyone except Aztec, at an icy boat stranded no where near the ocean. Psycho and Jester start arguing with Prophet, who clearly knows something the rest of us don't, but is cut short with a large mettallic looking squid like alien bursts through the ship and grabs one of your partners...

And that's where it ends. To recap, Crysis has first and foremost BEAUTIFUL graphics and scenery. It's not just the texture on the rock, it's the way the sun reflects on the ripples trailing behind a KBA piloted boat. The combat offers new and very exciting ways to play that suit the style of just about everyone. The story is also interesting with cut scenes that effectively draw you in. All together, Crysis is a beautifully put together game that is only contending with Assassin's Creed for number one on my Christmas list. It's going to be a must have.

Crysis Official Page