On release it may have been a technical marvel, with a fun immersive single player, and lively multiplayer. Now, with a lackluster SP and dead multiplayer, it's clear that its time is up. GenericBrand
While it might have had success in its hay day with the then "breathtaking" Powered By CryEngine™ single player and lively multiplayer... too much time has passed. There are just more games worth your time, energy, and money to play. So, while this review isn't indicative of the "glory days", it is a detailed and subjective account/opinion of my experience, as I experienced it, in this year of our lord 2022.
Background: You know, I remember buying Crysis 2 years and years ago for some reason. Must have been on a deep deep sale, I saw a few of my friends had it, and in my adolescent mind I believe I thought something like... "Call of Duty with super powers... so cool" and I bought it. Played it for... maybe two hours? And then, I distinctly remember in the middle of a play session saying outloud... "What's the point of this game? It isn't even that fun?" So I uninstalled it and haven't really looked back... until about a month ago.
I used a random generator, which decided that I should play this game, and recalling my previous experience playing it, I thought... Well. It's time to get my money's worth out of this. So I played the entire campaign, recorded myself too, just in case I was feeling extra motivated to make a YouTube video or something. And let me say, the majority of this game is just a slog. It's not super fun. It's just... Meh. Not even a good meh.
It doesn't really even play that well either. I found that for some reason, the developers don't have aiming down sights (ADS) set separately from the normal mouse sensitivity. The resulting effect of that, is like if I taped a magnifying glass to my monitor every time I aim down sights. Sure, I could try to line up headshots, but the mouse sensitivity being as high as it is, makes it very difficult to correct. Consequently, if I slowed the sensitivity down, then my turn radius would be comparable to a yacht. So I hip fired just about everything, and the shotgun was my friend. If you have a macro on your mouse that changes the sensitivity, maybe that's a solid solution? I don't know.
The writing is... meh. I think overall what this game suffers from is a lack of creativity. Every location, every enemy, every character, all the art direction and design, it all feels so much like everything else remotely similar to it. Crysis 2 isn't really iterating on any of these ideas that I feel like I've seen a hundred times. It all adds up to feel devoid of creativity. Where's the flare, where's the OOMPH? Maybe, at the time of release, the graphics are what made it stand out with the CryEngine. But, as I saw on max settings, that really didn't help it in the long term from what I played.
While the game does present the opportunity to use some godly superpowers through the billion dollar nano-suit, I feel like often times, combat scenarios can be completely trivialized with the one, stealth mode. Some sections to their credit, do require combat to play out, and in those cases, it does pay to strategize more and leads to interesting confrontations where I was managing my arsenal a bit more fully. But oftentimes I would just find myself sneaking to the next objective, combat and hassle free.
The story details and "deep lore" seems interesting, but it's really nothing too special that I haven't seen played out before. Characters are very much boiled down to the archetypes they were given when they popped into the writers heads. The narrative is entirely predictable. The most motivated I ever was to boot the game up was when I knew I was on the last mission.
Also, the multiplayer is dead, I think I'm many years too late to experience that, and to be honest, even if there was a way to do so, I'm not sure if I would bother with it. Maybe it would be fun with friends? Everything is fun with friends.
The only sparks of joy I had were with the physics in this game. "Hehe, physics funny!" I would say, pointing at my screen like a gorilla, as a Ceph alien careens through the air from 5 simultaneously detonating C4 charges, that I haphazardly tossed onto its once living body... Those were good times. But, I mean, Half Life 2 came out years before this and THAT physics engine is still light years more interesting than this so... I don't know what kind of opinion to have, but my smooth brain was activated several times, and I must disclose that I did crack a smile on occasion from stupid things like that... kicking a car off of a cliff... throwing a trash bin at a solider. That sort of thing.
Overall, I do not recommend Crysis 2, and suggest spending your money and your time on a different game. If you want a fun multiplayer game, you can find a mildly successful live service filled with your brand of poison to fulfill your needs there. If you're looking for an immersive sim single player, I hear PREY is the best of the best in that department. It's very clear that Crysis 2 did not age well, and is not meant to be played in this day and age any longer. Its time has certainly passed, and I'm honored to share that information with you this day.
If you liked this review, consider following my Steam Curator page.
While it might have had success in its hay day with the then "breathtaking" Powered By CryEngine™ single player and lively multiplayer... too much time has passed. There are just more games worth your time, energy, and money to play. So, while this review isn't indicative of the "glory days", it is a detailed and subjective account/opinion of my experience, as I experienced it, in this year of our lord 2022.
Background: You know, I remember buying Crysis 2 years and years ago for some reason. Must have been on a deep deep sale, I saw a few of my friends had it, and in my adolescent mind I believe I thought something like... "Call of Duty with super powers... so cool" and I bought it. Played it for... maybe two hours? And then, I distinctly remember in the middle of a play session saying outloud... "What's the point of this game? It isn't even that fun?" So I uninstalled it and haven't really looked back... until about a month ago.
I used a random generator, which decided that I should play this game, and recalling my previous experience playing it, I thought... Well. It's time to get my money's worth out of this. So I played the entire campaign, recorded myself too, just in case I was feeling extra motivated to make a YouTube video or something. And let me say, the majority of this game is just a slog. It's not super fun. It's just... Meh. Not even a good meh.
It doesn't really even play that well either. I found that for some reason, the developers don't have aiming down sights (ADS) set separately from the normal mouse sensitivity. The resulting effect of that, is like if I taped a magnifying glass to my monitor every time I aim down sights. Sure, I could try to line up headshots, but the mouse sensitivity being as high as it is, makes it very difficult to correct. Consequently, if I slowed the sensitivity down, then my turn radius would be comparable to a yacht. So I hip fired just about everything, and the shotgun was my friend. If you have a macro on your mouse that changes the sensitivity, maybe that's a solid solution? I don't know.
The writing is... meh. I think overall what this game suffers from is a lack of creativity. Every location, every enemy, every character, all the art direction and design, it all feels so much like everything else remotely similar to it. Crysis 2 isn't really iterating on any of these ideas that I feel like I've seen a hundred times. It all adds up to feel devoid of creativity. Where's the flare, where's the OOMPH? Maybe, at the time of release, the graphics are what made it stand out with the CryEngine. But, as I saw on max settings, that really didn't help it in the long term from what I played.
While the game does present the opportunity to use some godly superpowers through the billion dollar nano-suit, I feel like often times, combat scenarios can be completely trivialized with the one, stealth mode. Some sections to their credit, do require combat to play out, and in those cases, it does pay to strategize more and leads to interesting confrontations where I was managing my arsenal a bit more fully. But oftentimes I would just find myself sneaking to the next objective, combat and hassle free.
The story details and "deep lore" seems interesting, but it's really nothing too special that I haven't seen played out before. Characters are very much boiled down to the archetypes they were given when they popped into the writers heads. The narrative is entirely predictable. The most motivated I ever was to boot the game up was when I knew I was on the last mission.
Also, the multiplayer is dead, I think I'm many years too late to experience that, and to be honest, even if there was a way to do so, I'm not sure if I would bother with it. Maybe it would be fun with friends? Everything is fun with friends.
The only sparks of joy I had were with the physics in this game. "Hehe, physics funny!" I would say, pointing at my screen like a gorilla, as a Ceph alien careens through the air from 5 simultaneously detonating C4 charges, that I haphazardly tossed onto its once living body... Those were good times. But, I mean, Half Life 2 came out years before this and THAT physics engine is still light years more interesting than this so... I don't know what kind of opinion to have, but my smooth brain was activated several times, and I must disclose that I did crack a smile on occasion from stupid things like that... kicking a car off of a cliff... throwing a trash bin at a solider. That sort of thing.
Overall, I do not recommend Crysis 2, and suggest spending your money and your time on a different game. If you want a fun multiplayer game, you can find a mildly successful live service filled with your brand of poison to fulfill your needs there. If you're looking for an immersive sim single player, I hear PREY is the best of the best in that department. It's very clear that Crysis 2 did not age well, and is not meant to be played in this day and age any longer. Its time has certainly passed, and I'm honored to share that information with you this day.
If you liked this review, consider following my Steam Curator page.