Crysis 3 Review

Crysis 3 is not quite the sandbox experience you might expect from the beautiful sci-fi shooter series. Players still have access to the futuristic Nanosuit and can use cloak or armor modes at any time. Some levels are certainly large enough to offer a sandbox environment. It’s the level direction and game design that seems to work against the freedom that was ingrained into the original. Inadequate Artificial Intelligence and lopsided weapon balance provide further resistance to a game that could have been so much more. Fortunately, the multiplayer is still creative fun on extravagant levels. There is no question that Crysis 3 is a beautiful game, its only visual competition are the modified versions of Crytek’s previous games. While the visuals are pushed to new heights, the gameplay takes a step away from the franchise’s excellent design.

The overgrown city of New York is simply spectacular

Set 24 years after the events of Crysis 2, the sequel rotates around two Raptor team members from the original game; Prophet and Psycho. You play as Prophet, even though he died at the start of Crysis 2. His temporary replacement, Alcatraz, destroyed the alien (Ceph) virus at the end of the last game. Prophet then became the dominant personality within the suit and Alcatraz faded into nonexistence. Prophet is still dealing with this Nanosuit amalgamation and strange alien visions.

Psycho is part of the Rebel forces fighting against the human enemies (CELL) with limited resources. Psycho was forcefully extracted from his futuristic suit alongside many of his comrades. Prophet was captured sometime after the second game and placed in cold storage. Psycho rescues Prophet in the opening level before CELL has the chance to remove his evolved suit. The plan is to infiltrate the Dome, a huge prison that covers an overgrown New York, and strike against CELL who are using alien tech to dominate the world.

While the narrative tries amicably to mix together the threads of the first two games, it does so with second rate dialogue. Prophet and Psycho recall the lost Raptor team soldiers from the first game. This culminates poorly during an attempted emotional peak near the explosive end of the game. The main problem with the story is the awful dialogue. Characters deliver lines like, “sometimes I feel sorry for these bastards, but mostly I kill them” and “let’s get out there and put a head on a stick already.” They aren’t funny, cheesy retorts in the same vein as Crytek’s debut game, Far Cry. The dialogue is further damaged when audio cuts off or overlaps during mission updates. Reworking the dialogue may have made the story bearable, but it’s unlikely to have made it interesting.

Areas in the Dome are generally larger than those in Crysis 2 and the return of dense vegetation is a huge visual benefit. You’ll explore a derelict train yard and avoid enemies that hide in the long grass. A grenade launcher is useful against the heavily armoured Scorcher Ceph in the murky swamps. Very little destruction resurfaces during the action. The second last level is the biggest in the entire game and a match for some of the original’s levels. It does feature a lot of empty space, but it allows players to take out anti air guns in any order. Side objectives entice players away from the direct path. These shallow objectives are only good for the additional ammo or Nanosuit upgrades they provide. The level size and variety is certainly acceptable for the series.

Not a good time to run out of ammo

There are deliberate vehicle sections, but they make the game feel like a different series. One vehicle section has you driving a buggy or APC through a linear canyon while explosions encircle you. This feels more like Call of Duty mixed with Highway 17. Poor driving controls and mediocre direction prevent it from matching either game. You can simply walk to your destination, and this feels more like Crysis despite the sporadic action. A scripted VTOL sequence has you shooting down Ceph aircraft while the pilot shouts awful quips after every other kill. It lacks excitement and lasts so long that you might be asleep by the end of it. There should have been fewer pre-engineered vehicle sections and more opportunity to a use them creatively in a non linear, sandbox environment.

Sandbox gameplay has been reduced and partially replaced with a poor hacking mini game. You won’t be surrounded by light ground vehicles, deciding on whether to destroy, escape or take them over. Despite all the delicious water, there are no boats to seize and pester enemies with. Aircraft are the only vehicle reinforcements and they can’t be expropriated. Instead of the vehicle sandbox, several turrets can be hacked in a similar fashion to the unpopular shooter, Syndicate. These turrets attack enemies but are usually destroyed in seconds. You might need to hack through mine fields as well. The hacking mini game is as fun as putting your hand in an industrial paper shredder. It’s hard to see how this simplistic, 2D mini game made it through the initial design stage. The hacking doesn’t belong in Crysis 3 and fails to make up for the reduced vehicle sandbox freedom.

The bow is overpowered in the campaign but well balanced in the multiplayer

A major change to the stealth gameplay comes via the addition of a powerful compound bow. This ancient weapon of war is capable of taking down nearly all enemies with a single arrow in complete silence. Firing the bow causes no drop in precious Nanosuit energy. It’s limited only by the number of arrows you can carry. Nine arrows are plenty when you can recover them from dead bodies or walls. If you are careful, and use the visor to tag arrows, you will have a constant supply. The bow renders all other weapons superfluous when playing stealth. You’ll rarely have to worry about line of sight or energy with the Bow. Just turn on cloak, stand in the open and unleash arrows with reckless abandon. The bow is satisfying, but its relative power takes some potency from the rest of your arsenal.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still a mixed bag in terms of tactics. They have a general propensity to put themselves at unjustifiable risk. Alien AI is less predictable, although not necessarily smarter, than their human counterparts. If you kill a human enemy silently, guards will proceed to the area one-by-one based on proximity. You can eliminate half a dozen enemies by remaining in the same area and letting them come to you one at a time. If a guard does spot a body, and isn’t instantly killed, additional backup will spawn in the surrounding area. Sometimes the reinforcements come via helicopter, but usually it’s just out of view. The lazy spawning and strange tactics are part of the problem with the AI.

Exceptional visual acuity from AI leads to undesirable combat for stealth focused players. They spot a portion of your uncloaked Nanosuit from 100m while you are crouched in shadow. They see you clearly through the long grass or behind bushes. If enemies are close, and they usually are, they immediately open fire. You aren’t on a covert mission trying to sneak through enemy patrols. You are cloaking through a warzone and enemies will shoot everything on sight, excluding the wildlife. The hide and seek gameplay is limited when the AI states are black and white. Without your x-ray visor, enemies will see you well before you even know they exist. A slower, fairer detection system would have improved gameplay and generated prolonged encounters.

You can be just like the AI and throw grenades at your feet too

The AI is still prone to glitches like its predecessors. They have a tendency to rub against objects they are taking cover behind. Don’t be surprised if you hear enemies gyrating against boxes while you are trying to locate Intel. One enemy rubbed so hard that he propelled himself 30 feet into the air. Enemies don’t care about friendly grenades and they still throw them poorly. One accidentally killed himself and two friends by dropping a grenade at their feet. None of them attempted to escape the imminent explosion on the hardest difficulty. The AI can also shoot you through solid objects and they still stare at walls when inactive. The AI in the franchise has always been problematic, but Crysis 3 makes some issues more obvious.

The multiplayer hasn’t seen a dramatic change from its predecessor but the tweaks are usually for the better. One change is splitting the energy of the cloak and armor modes. This promotes the use of both powers and rewards players who can mix it up. Unlike the single player, the compound bow consumes a chunk of energy when fired in cloak mode. Alien weapons provide powerful offensive bursts for players who stumble upon them. The action is faster because there is no penalty for sprinting or jumping. This increased speed is challenging because it’s harder to hit other players. The skill ceiling is higher because you’ll need move gracefully through levels and jump or slide when the opportunity arises. Enhanced speed, alien weapons and the split modes makes multiplayer feel slightly different while retaining the solid foundation built from Crysis 2.

Mulitplayer maps like Brooklyn Bridge offer a lot of vertical action

Multiplayer maps are bigger and more attractive than those in the prequel. It’s great to see a crisp, beautiful world as opposed to the online blur in the last game. The increased level size works perfectly with the faster game speed. Many of the maps are based on, if not partial copies of, the maps from single player. The Chinatown map has multi-tiered buildings and tight alleys that surround a rusted ship wreck. The Financial District is more open, and has a central elevated area surrounded by a moat of shallow water. Players can jump aboard circling aircraft in some maps and use it to move to other areas or survey the battlefield from above. The detail in some of the levels is outstanding and the maps allow for a lot of intricate movement.

You only get short bursts of entertainment from the new Hunter mode. One team has unlimited cloak with bows and the other has standard weapons with no special abilities. The cloaked hunters eliminate the humans who then become additional hunters. This continues until the humans survive the time limit or are eliminated. This mode rewards players who avoid action, hide in constrained areas and camp at chokepoints. It’s similar to the underwhelming infestation mode from AvP 2010. Just like that mode, there are only isolated moments when it’s actually fun to play. The rest of the time you’ll be wondering why you are still playing a mode that encourages you to find a corner to hide in. It’s not really surprising that Team Deathmatch is the most popular mode when the Hunter gameplay is flawed.

The competitive online action retains a lot of impressive kills that are iconic to the series. Jumping high above a pair of enemies and air stomping them into oblivion is a real adrenaline rush. You can use a cloak to deceive enemies after escaping their gunfire. You are able to take a mounted weapon and unleash a stream of bullets while relying on armor mode to absorb damage. Jumping in the air and killing targets before you hit the ground is commonplace. Cars and other world objects can be used to kill enemies with physical force. Stealth players might prefer to use a bow and hide in elevated areas. The multiplayer feels like an open sandbox that encourages different play styles. If you enjoyed the online experience in the last game, you’ll quickly step into the higher speed action of this new iteration. Multiplayer is the best part of Crysis 3 although it may not be very popular in the months to come.

The Ceph pinger causes additional chaos during deathmatch

Whether online or in single player, Crysis 3 is the best looking game released to date. The amount of detail in a small patch of ground is breathtaking. You’ll move through an area and notice plants and objects beneath your feet. Then you’ll look closer, and see the rocks and ground textures come to life before you. This insane level of detail is all over the wonderful overgrown city. Nobody does vegetation as well as Crytek. The flowing, reactive grass would be a magical if only it could be burnt down. Still, the game would benefit from some additional visual polish. You might stumble on floating rocks, a twitching tessellated toad or a gap between a secure facility and the ground. Even tire tracks get a little freaky whe you come over a crest. Minor flaws don’t take away much from what needs to be seen to be believed.

Crysis 3 is a flawed entry in a series that held amazing creative potential from its first iteration. The sandbox qualities have faded behind scripted sequences, linear vehicle segments and frequently spawning enemies. The AI is inadequate because they fumble grenades, spot you unrealistically and execute bizarre tactics. The campaign is trapped between a desire to stay true to the franchise and an attempt to emulate shallow modern shooters. It is only during multiplayer that the game becomes open and engaging with its clever use of the Nanosuit on wondrous maps. The suit brings jolts of excitement regularly when facing real human opponents. Everybody should play Crysis 3 eventually, just to admire the jaw dropping visuals. It’s a shame the single player experience is a far cry from the tropical island in the original Crysis.