Game review
Crysis 2 – game review
PS3/360/PC; £49.99/£39.99; cert 16+; Crytek/EA
EA took serious flack over the recent PS3 multiplayer demo, particularly with connection and frame rate problems. PS3 servers were still intermittent at the time of writing, but what I can attest to are 12 richly detailed maps and six online modes, unlocked as you gain experience and including the usual Deathmatch and capture the flag variants. In play, Crysis 2 multiplayer harks back to the twitch-reactions of Quake Arena rather than Call of Duty's more methodical squad-based approach. The key difference is the nano suit, combined with a huge supply of upgrades that allow you to unlock new weapon or suit abilities as you level up. Balancing so many different abilities may yet take some work by the developers, but even now the shock induced by one rival power-jumping into your midst while two more blink out of sight in mid strafe is quite unlike anything else around.
So far, so good. But Crysis 2 on this platform has a few niggles that collectively make a difference to the final score. For a start, neither of the two controller layouts felt particularly comfortable – particularly mapping Fire to the L/R1 buttons rather than the more comfortable/conventional L/R2. Also, compared to the open-plan nature of the original, Crysis 2 is decidedly more linear. It may focus attention on the action, but it's a pity the total freedom of Far Cry, compromised for the original Crysis, continues to be constrained here. There are technical glitches too; some (such as occasionally dodgy enemy AI) that can be patched, others (this was the first game to crash my PS3 repeatedly) that add to the suspicion that Crytek is still far from mastering Sony's hardware. Crysis 2 is an impressive beast – but maybe you need to see it on a PC to appreciate just how impressive.