Crysis PC Game Review

Follow me on Twitter: / ggdograa
Follow me on Instagram: / gareth.robinson
Join the Gggmanlives Steam Group: steamcommunity....
Reddit Fanpage: / gggmanlives
Crysis is a first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows and released in November 2007. It is the first game of a trilogy. A separate game entitled Crysis Warhead was released on September 16, 2008, and follows similar events as Crysis but from a different narrative perspective. At the time Crysis was released, and years thereafter, it has been praised for its milestones in graphical design (commensurate with high hardware requirements).
The game is based in a future where a massive ancient space alien-constructed structure has been discovered buried inside a mountain in the fictional Lingshan Islands, near the coast of the East Philippines. The single-player campaign has the player assume the role of U.S. Army Delta Force soldier Jake Dunn, referred to in-game by his callsign, Nomad. Nomad is armed with various futuristic weapons and equipment, most notably a "Nanosuit" which was inspired by a real-life military concept. In Crysis, the player fights both North Korean and extraterrestrial enemies in various environments on and around the island.

[@MrNuclearturtle]

2007, what a time for video games

[@Celestial07]

+Nuclearpoweredturtle Exactly!

[@TeddyOnTheSpot]

+Stephen P BioShock? Nudge, nudge?

[@Celestial07]

Mr. Watch & Game And what about games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. that aren't even true FPS? Especially if you mod it, it will play smooth.

[@TeddyOnTheSpot]

+Stephen P Never played the Stalker games, might try them sometimes.

[@ytanonymity3585]

I agree. In 2007, too many great AAA game coming. The great year for video game during 7th Gen gaming.

[@DrRockso79]

I never realized before how much this game resembles what could be a Michael Bay remake of Predator...

[@josesosa3337]

I always liked the idea of a far cry predator game. I am sure a developer somewhere thought of this.

[@ScreenHardy]

funny you say that cuz the second game feels like a michael bay movie with all the crazy explosions

[@CSargeP]

I guess I'm part of the minority that thinks this is actually a good game and not just a pretty tech demo. It's the first game I can remember to have on the fly weapon customization and the suit powers are such a blast to use. Combined with the guns feeling so good to use makes it so much fun. The AI may be shit but they're good enough to be fun to kill. I even liked the aliens! The expansion Warhead is the best Crysis game for me but I also enjoyed Crysis 2 and 3 even though they were dumbed down a bit.

[@satamoto6488]

The minority are the pp who don't like the game .... this dude is making a review in 2015 about a 2007 game witch was setting the baby steps FOR OPEN WORLD AI not linear pre - programmed action patters that even I can make with a half brain .. THE GAME was unoptimised? Well well well I ran the game on ultra with 40 fps no problems boo hoo my pc suck ..poor bastard ... AND THE MULTIPLAYER holy **** I can't even begin to talk .. This game is like "fuck COD and linear storytelling" that's why pp hate it cuz you need more that 1 brain cell to be actually good at it not runnig around a 10 by 10 meter map with 9 year olds screaming and swearing about 'yer mum'

[@ElekiSerket]

@@Lucios1995 It was PC exclusive because consoles couldn't (and still can't) run this game. The only reason there's Crysis on consoles now is because they ported it to Crysis 2's engine to be able to run it.

[@yojordon6401]

@@ElekiSerket that's so interesting

[@silentforest4126]

You are not the only one. The crysis franchise is my absolute favourite ever, besides half-life. i also loved the very first farcry

[@Beregond1861]

@@ElekiSerket It was exclusive, yes, but you're just wrong. There's a HUGE difference between saying "doesn't run it at maxed settings like I personally like as well as how the original p.c. launch does" vs. simply saying "...couldn't (and still can't) run this game."

[@Larry]

My problem with all the Crysis games are that the powers never last long enough for you to have any fun with. ESPECIALLY stealth. What's the point of giving you toys if they intend you play the game like a normal FPS? But yeah, I remember trying to play this thing when it came out and the fans were spinning so fast on my computer, they were literally screaming. Never heard it happen before or since!

[@Gggmanlives]

Well said, I think the cloak lasts all of 5 seconds.

[@BIadelores]

Having the cloak on for too long would just give you the ability to bypass enemies completely through out a level, which would make the game way too easy

[@MrMleczkp]

You don't understand how crisis should be played. No game ever gave me such a fun predator experience as crysis. You are not supposed to run and gun. You should play it on maximum difficulty sneak around and take enemies stealthy. Unfortunetly most people seem to think like you and thats why crysis 2 and 3 were ruined for me. Not only in game play with was consoliated (to the point i found that xbox pad work better with crisis 2 than kayboard and mouse) and made much more run and gun but also in story with was made much more bull shit and bombastic "independence day" style.

[@Gggmanlives]

MrMleczkp Don't you mean *NOT* run and gun?

[@MrMleczkp]

Gggmanlives yes, i meant "not supposed to run and gun" . i already corrected it

[@dhoffnun]

I'm still convinced that Crysis 1 is from the future.

[@yellowblanka6058]

It's from a mythical future where we all have dual-core CPUs at 10 Ghz, lol.

[@erdnussbier4260]

@@yellowblanka6058 haha. I understood that reference !

[@tanmayfadnis5440]

Yes.

[@ThePianist51]

Yellowblanka nitrogen cooled ones 😂👍 even raping modern PCs 😆

[@T--kq3pj]

@@erdnussbier4260 what is that reference about?

[@shukterhousejive]

It's "unoptimized" because it's doing most of the fancy graphics tricks modern games do, but with a forward renderer. Deferred renderers can have issues with raw fidelity but they run games like Crysis with far more performance, and modern GPUs are designed to follow this trend. Ease off on the AA and AO and Crysis runs pretty damn well for what you get out of it.

[@slopedarmor]

@degree7 why so few fps? running at 4K or slow cpu? I think crysis likes high single thread speed cpus like my 7700k. I seem to remember it running fine on my previous pc with 2600K @4.5 and gtx780sli @ 1080p. Ok, now that I have typed it out like that I'm like oh right, my old pc was also a beast, no wonder it ran fine : p

[@nicekeyboardalan6972]

@pupsamson777 most people barely get 60fps on this game, ooohhh nooo i dont 100 wahhh. Really though dude CryEngine 3 and up did much better with the cpus. I run the game at 45-60 fps on an I7 2600 and an HD 6870 at max not that bad for the best looking PC game on my 7 year old hardware.

[@compmanio36]

My understanding is it's also very single core heavy, as back then single cores with high clock speeds were king. Now it's all about multi-core, multi-threaded processes. So if you have a modern CPU with much better performance overall than any CPU back then, but on single core testing, it's actually weaker, you're going to have a hard time.

[@sandertu8366]

@Degree7 I just turned off the sound and maxed out the settings :P worked amazing on my then potato

[@yellowblanka6058]

@@sandertu8366 On my 2600K i7 at stock/1060 6GB rig, changing AA from off to 8x (at 1080p) literally has had zero impact on my performance in trouble areas (heavy combat, overlooking the first village, the larger village where you rescue the scientist etc). - granted, because the way the engine works you can still aim well even when it drops to 20-40something FPS, but it's still disappointing performance. I've had FPS as high as over 100 and low as upper 20's, it's all over the place, but it seems to get stuck at mid 30's to upper 40's around villages/in heavy combat. I watched a video of somebody with a 1080ti and a intel 5680K getting similar performance lows in areas where I was affected, so it's just an unreasonably CPU heavy game and the only way you can eek out some more performance is to buy an expensive high-end CPU and overclock it.

[@StupidMAN-fh8ch]

This 9 year old game, looks better than literally 90% of games released in 2016. Gotta hand it to them, this was unreal when it came out and still looks incredible today

[@Diablokiller999]

I really don't know what you're talking about, on my playthroughs the AI worked really good and often gave me a good challenge. The only thing that bugged me was the cut content. You can clearly see that there was more planned for the second half of the game, like the AI soldiers should remember how hard you f'ed their asses in the first half and cooperate differently with you which should result in helping you less in firefights or cutting you from equipment. Overall I find it a near perfect game, just don't know if it was the difficulty level you've chosen?!

[@masnidebelicrnac]

He probably played it on the hardest difficulty, I am currently playing it for the first time and I think it's one of the best games ever made, but I'm playing on normal difficulty.

[@chaitnyasingh7075]

He is a idiot that's why

[@addieeeson]

@@masnidebelicrnac Right? First time I played it, I was blown away. The pacing is great and I love the unique vibes the game has, it’s so cool to invade NK soldiers as a nano suited crack warrior, but also have those mysterious moments that the alien plot line offers. Perfect game in my opinion.

[@MDUmairKh]

The game was not just a tech demo. It was an excellent shooter IMO, and it still is an excellent shooter. Nothing is perfect. Sequels were dumbed down though and inferior compared to the original. Crytek is a joke now when it comes to games.

[@63Jax]

+Umair Khan agree!

[@TomLehockySVK]

+Umair Khan Inferior in what ? Crysis 1 has horrible shooting mechanics. The recoil in the assault rifle is just awkward. I have no other word for explaining it.

[@MDUmairKh]

Game james I respect your "OPINION".

[@SSchithFoo]

+Umair Khan Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@MDUmairKh]

SSchithFoo Hehe.

[@ShotgunJustus]

I remember being hyped to play the demo at sub-10 FPS with an Nvidia 7300LE. Good times.

[@5persondude]

I wish Crysis had some sort of Custom Difficulty setting where you could mix and match certain settings like in Thief 2014. I would like to play the game with enemies speaking Korean, although I'd still like the Binoculars to highlight dropped weapons and ammo as well. It sounds stupid, but most of the ammo that's dropped is always buried underneath either foliage or dead bodies.

[@ZandalRaiyne]

Crysis "1" is still by far, the best engine out there that wins primarily for its sheer engine flexibility and graphics scalability even in 4k. Plus, the availability of a sandbox mode and the way you can mod scenarios to your liking is still phenomenal as it is the only first person shooter, with great graphics and a great story, that allows this. Mechwarrior Online, The new Monster Hunter Online, and some in development occulus VR games are built using the "original" CryEngine source code. CryEngine 2 and the latter are actually steps back as they are made to cater to the slower console hardware, hence the term during its marketing days "optimization". I've been running a heavily tweaked Crysis 1 CFG to push graphics to the limit. As my hardware improved over the years, i saw how the engine scaled beautifully with it. Now using, an advanced enemy AI mod, in game resolution pushed to 4k, shadowsmaxresolution=8192, etc. In terms of gameplay, Crysis 2 - the way it diffuses shadows and runs its physics engine don't even come close to the original as these things and the world itself are purely static and linear. You'll notice this by simply throwing a grenade in Crysis 1 in a dense forest, then for comparison throw a grenade in Crysis 2 in a somewhat similar scenario. Slow the game down by 75% by binding it to a key. The difference is huge. I've finished several Crysis 1 missions without even firing a single shot. I've finished one mission while swimming across the ocean and going straight to the endpoint. Crysis 2 isn't bad, but i don't think another CoD-like game cuts it for me anymore. Again, i hate static environments and linearity in general. But if this was the basis for a good game, then more fun can be had in a game like Bulletstorm than in Crysis 2. Btw, in Crysis 1 1. Choppers can be disabled/destroyed by firing at their missile salvos. 2. Shooting a soldier with a sleepdart while he is attempting to throw a grenade will make him drop the grenade midway through his swing. 3. The game looks phenomenal in 3rd person mode, though a bit buggy. 4. Firing a handheld tweaked nuke at the first level by dawn will bring any computer in 2016 to its knees. It's not because the engine is bad, but because the engine will render hundreds of tree physics with independent leaves and other objects that come with it by the impact. :)

[@danielschroedinger2090]

@Essentialist yes Even later but i was about to say the same thing. You can't judge a game engine by visual fidelity alone. And an engine that cannot render frames at 60FPS on common hardware can't be considered a good one. To push the idea to the extreme: sure you could make every single blade of grass a complete 3D mesh with accurate physics and raytrace the whole scene. Game would look great on the 10 research clusters in the world that can run it. That being said, i still don't think it is a bad engine or a bad game, it is just that they programmed options in that they knew hardware at the time would not be capable of. You had a lot of room to tweak the graphics in this game and parts of it were meant as tech demos. In other words: people with high end gaming pcs at the time expected to run any game at max settings, but Crysis was simply not built that way. The devs considered these settings to be experimental and people wouldn't get that.

[@maskedviper7157]

The a.i is based off of North Korean soldiers. I think that it's an accurate representation.

[@DiegoAlanTorres96]

Savage

[@jamestor6700]

falls over nothing

[@lordofthebeltsthereturnoft1127]

Is that why the US has failed twice against North Korea during the close of WW2 and during the later Korean war? Fail.

[@jaystar6357]

Lord of the belts: The return of the KING North Korea invaded South Korea and was promptly pushed back all the way to the border of China, and even when China helped the North Koreans the US still held back both armies at the 38th parallel

[@IsmailofeRegime]

@@jaystar6357 The US sustained heavy losses though, which dimmed the possibility of marching north rather than just trying to hold the line against DPRK and Chinese forces. MacArthur famously wanted to use the Korean War as a starting-point for invading China. In addition, the USSR was reluctant to give the Chinese too much weaponry since Stalin didn't want the war to go beyond Korea.

[@Ypulse]

crysis doesnt have performance issues by engine or coding, it has terrible default "hidden" settings with tweaked config file game looks better and runs better, and its pretty easy to do i never understand why crytek didnt updated the config file...its like 5 minute job lol to patch it in

[@ChaplainDMK]

I think youre shitting on the AI a bit unfairly. Really I wouldnt say many open world games have any sort of good AI. Crysis AI in open terrain is good, it flanks, pulls back etc., but in built up areas you really cant expect them to that much. We just dont know how to program AI very well. And the tech issues also can be understood when you consider how mindblowing this game looked in 2007. I suspect a lot of tricks have been thought up since then to improve performance on later games, but Crysis a lot of times just went for a brutish approach, which is also I guess why it still looks so good. Overall I wouldnt say its an excellent game just because of how badly the campaign tanks after the first half - mainly the cheap difficulty ramp-up, first with the nanosuit Koreans (bullshit) and then the aliens. The story is also just way too shitty and absolutely spoils/destroys the great moments and set-pieces, and the characters are just stupid, especially Prophet. But like you said, as a future jungle ninja simulator, its top notch. Overall I think the first half/two-thirds of the game are just well made enough to hold the entire game up. A focused story, characters and interesting use of the aliens would make this an amazing game.

[@graphics_travelers]

Despite AI in Crysis 1 not being perfect, I still it's fairly good even for todays standards. I mean, look at Battlefield 1 and it's 'stealth missions'. You're somehow able to cross the whole enemy line by crawling through dirt, if the AI was perfect as GGmanlives expects you'd be forced to conflict with them sooner or later which would effectively ruin any stealth mission. The only game that has close to perfect AI is Far Cry 4 on highest difficulty. And yes, Crysis 1 should definitely be played on DELTA difficulty after you finished playing it on any of the lower ones. And the engine isn't poorly coded, that's a misconception by GGmanlives, while I'm not a game developer or a game analyst I still have to say that most of what GG said was utter and pure bullshit, I think I was even embarrassed by him.

[@SianaGearz]

I made another long comment here elsewhere detailing the timing issue that causes the game to never run smoothly, regardless of how much hardware you throw at it. It's a combination of small but crucial, though i should say likely unavoidable at that stage in time, engine design mishaps, bugs and workarounds. This is not an official statement, i merely did some experiments and tool-based analysis and arrived at a theory. We very definitely shouldn't be too harsh on it, because it is a very early iteration of an engine that in this very game manages millions of entities and displays high tens of thousands and uses no world baking, actually fully dynamic environment, which was a unique trait back then and still kind of is now. If i or anyone had a task to create an engine with such capability today, had 3 years to do it and could hire 10 top engine specialists and a bunch more engineers, i couldn't expect a better result, because that is just super hard, and we have better hardware and APIs today that can offload or shave some of the overhead.

[@jamestor6700]

I've noticed that running graphics mods that make the game look batter actually give you better frames

[@lucasgreene1635]

I think the biggest problems with Crysis were that you felt too weak, despite the suit. I felt that Crysis Warhead fixed a lot of the problems the base game had.

[@castlekid08]

You think those names are silly. Real operators have sillier "call signs" so at least the names were the most realistic part of the game

[@simonaspalovis1204]

castlekid08 If I remember correctly, in Crysis Warhead, there is a moment, where you join up with another U.S. nanosuit squad, and one of their callsigns was “Cupcake”. Gave me a good chuckle.

[@prometheusdarkstar1725]

My personal favourite glitch is when you get in a truck and go to the second seat and find that the enemys cant find you.

[@philscomputerlab]

But does it run Crysis? I do love the game, but like in the video, only parts of it. As soon as the aliens appear, the game is garbage. The first part however is great. I so remember playing the demo over and over and over, trying different strategies.

[@GentleHeretic]

Huh. Pretty graphics DO sell a game. Are there any open world shooters that don't sag in the latter half? Just curious...

[@Gggmanlives]

+Jacob Smith I had to think about this for a minute or so and nothing comes to mind. Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon?

[@CharcharoExplorer]

+Jacob Smith STALKER

[@GentleHeretic]

Alexander Yordanov True, true. Granted, I've only played the first, but good call.

[@Gggmanlives]

Alexander Yordanov Lol no

[@CharcharoExplorer]

Jacob Smith Also I can agree with Gggman here, Blood Dragon was quite OK all the time :) For what its worth the CNPP of STALKER is quite linear. And it is the very end, but it is overall well done still. After X16 (which is where the second half begins) is where the game is at its best though.

[@isaiahhaddock8803]

Graphics better than fallout 4's anyone?

[@grigorisafouxenidis5601]

+Isaiah Haddock This game's graphics are better than most of today's games..... And if not... add the realism mod to enhance the graphics even more!

[@RevanStarrrR]

+Isaiah Haddock Crytek is all about graphics. Really stopped taking them seriously when their CEO said that graphics are 60% of a game.

[@grigorisafouxenidis5601]

RevanBladeZ Crysis wasnt created to be just a game.... It was created as a benchmark game thats why their games is all about graphics...

[@isaiahhaddock8803]

+DonkeyToll I'm not. I'm asking if anyone has that opinion.

[@ThunderTheBlackShadowKitty]

No, absolutely not.

[@caoilinnplaysyt8297]

'Seven years after release' You recorded this in 2014?!

[@Probotector_AUT]

+jonn smith He mentioned once that he's got quite a lot of material shelved for later.

[@Gggmanlives]

+jonn smith Me fail maths.

[@stereoflava2788]

Crysis was awesome it all went downhill once they started releasing multiplatform aka Crysis 2 and 3

[@ruekurei88]

Even with its faults I'd say its still better than the Far Cry games, which haven't really improved on anything the original Far Cry did or what Crysis did except add trite rpg mechanics, which are basically stabbing you in the leg and then giving you bandages for it. It's really too bad this whole open world shooter wasn't expanded upon with more destruction and physics and more dynamic AI to navigate that environment. I think Crysis was more known for its promise more than anything else, like, "this is just the tip of the iceberg, what we'll be playing in the future will be an advancement of this' and people got excited for that. I dunno, that's what I got anyway. That and it was a nice benchmark for my q9300 and 4870 at the time.

[@ruekurei88]

Game james Does more than far Cry doesn't mean it does it well. Those RPG mechanics are very trite, and like I said, they stab you in the leg and give you a bandage. Oh I can upgrade to do takedowns and move at a decent speed while crouching or fire while reloading, but why couldn't I do these things before? They added RPG mechanics in arbitrarily to add some sort of depth, it didn't really work though. Not to mention the whole liberate towns is trite as well, with dumb AI just like Crysis. With no real payoffs in the story either, not just the main story as that was fairly interesting how it turned out all sides were assholes, but in the side missions. Far Cry 4 does more indeed, but that doesn't make it better than Crysis or that it did it's individual parts well. Well maybe the gunplay a bit, but since the AI isn't smart and they are broken guns in the game and less customisation, maybe not even that. Crysis was smart to cut out the RPG mechanics as well, although in its case that would actually make some sense with the nanosuit and a suit that essentially grows with the player.

[@Jonscomin2]

Columbine was fantastic

[@dilet1114]

Crysis Remastered has appeared in the chat.

[@Salidin111]

I played Crysis with a xbox controller was my first FPS game on a PC back in 2008... that includes the best Multiplayer mode in all FPS powerstruggle.

[@mdandrandom4247]

To be honest crysis 1 is my favorite shooter of all time. Crysis 2 and 3 feels narrow in terms of setting in the game. The alien kills in crysis 2 and 3 feels really disatisfying, compared to crysis 1. That's just my opinion.

[@lrmcatspaw1]

My personal experience with crysis one (when I finally made it run well) was amazing due to the fact that while the combat is really fast paced at times, you are not unless you use the suit powers. This meant that going in guns blazing was usually a mistake but if you could pull it off, it felt really satisfying. The game has a few flaws that are for the most part forgivable. I ddint think the enemies accuracy was a big problem. If the koreans in the game were soldiers, youd expect them to be able to hit you one bullet each 10 when shooting at a standing object. The AI however was very poor but in reality, very few games have good AI. If there is one thing I absolutely loved about this game was that headshots were an instant kill on soldiers, meaning you could overcome bad ods even with a pistol. However, fighting any armored vehicle did make the game slightly frustrating at times. There are many things that can be said about Crysis 1, but in my opinion the most important one is that it pushed things forward in its time, even if that push was quite cumbersome. By the way, Did you try crysis warhead?

[@ComfySal]

completely agree! it really does remind me of those PS1 demo disks with the manta ray or t rex tech demos on them... anyone else remember those!?

[@ravengaming4143]

Never liked the gameplay in Crysis myself, however it still was a progressive FPS with boundary-pushing realistic graphics, advanced physics, a semi open world and interesting superpowers. It was also the last PC exclusive (was later ported to consoles but you know what I mean) FPS to really push the tech forward and make people upgrade to run it.

[@SolarMoth]

This game is one of the best and most satisfying FPS shooters out there. Tight controls, fun suit powers, and amazing graphics. There are no more issues with this game than any other AAA shooter and it rightfully deserves all it's praise. The title is misleading as ggg could find little actually wrong with much of it.

[@Mzee1084]

I enjoy the game, but am one that find it overrated. I agree with some of his criticisms about the AI, though I don't recall it being nearly as dumb or as buggy as he says. My main issue is that I am another one that thought the middle of the game with the aliens was kind of lame/boring, and then it got good again. I found Warhead to be much more enjoyable overall. Still, I think it is a great game, and even better when you consider the context of the time it came out.

[@pauliravioli7580]

Then you haven’t played any good FPS games

[@someguy8951]

First person shooters shooters

[@Beregond1861]

Been playin' F.P.S. titles since about 2003 and I couldn't agree more.👌 This video just invalidly b¡+©h€s about the graphics for some stupid reason (really dumb thing to say considering how good specifically this game looks) and then complains about the horror aspect of it (even though Halo C.E., D00M, most C.O.D.s and FarCry all do the exact same thing lol). The funny thing is that choosing to put a bit of horror in the game isn't the game's "fault" like he implies, just an issue of this channel's personal taste. That was a very close-minded and entitled thing of him to say honestly. "This game has horror, so it's therefore inherently a BAD F.P.S. and has committed heresy in the church of F.P.S. g@ming!"

[@SerkTheTurk10]

I'm so glad I found this channel, quality content and great commentary. Keep it up! :)

[@magic666z]

Love the gameplay of this game and the story is awesome

[@pacivalmuller9333]

Gameplay 10/10, Story Nah, Crysis 2 has better story. But Crysis 2 doesn’t have such good Gameplay.

[@magic666z]

@@pacivalmuller9333 story is good in all 3

[@pacivalmuller9333]

Nah, 2 HAS DA BEST STORY, 1 has best Gameplay, 3 has the best grass.

[@Beregond1861]

@@pacivalmuller9333 From what I've seen a lot of people say that Crysis 2 is hands down the worst Crysis title, but I honestly think they're all awesome so far. I just don't like how the suit upgrading is randomly dropped in the player's lap out of no where in 2, and its story is definitely not way better than 1's either like you imply. But I don't see why people hate 2 either, it's still a lot of fun.

[@raeltarantino]

My custom pc from 2008 ran this perfectly maxed out. I loved this game.

[@detectivelizard9532]

Gggmanlives I've only made a KZbin account for the first time yesterday and I just wanted to thankyou for making all these first person reviews throughout this short amount of time. You got me back into FPS games and I have a new respect for the genre. Again thankyou.

[@Gggmanlives]

+Detective Lizard Thanks for your kind words, bro!

[@biggied3690]

GGGmanlives you do realize for the helicopters u can shoot the fuel of tanks on the side and they will exploded and destroy the helicopter

[@Gggmanlives]

+isaac breia Sure but they will still shoot you to ribbons.

[@BIadelores]

The performance issues are pretty overstated. I own a rig from 2011 that was mid range back then and while I can't play it maxed out after lowering some settings it almost never stutters for me.

[@presidentsnow7315]

Thank you for another great review. I recently completed a game on steam called "Chrome." I really liked it and I thought that it had a lot of charm. It reminded me of Crysis accept a bit more primative due to the fact that it was made in 2003. It also had, in my opinion, better character development and story than Crysis. The sequel/prequel was also enjoyable. Are you familiar with it?

[@madhatter984]

Cyris is love crysis is life

[@eat_your_jimmies]

Cyris is love!

[@MrMleczkp]

Crysis 1 is one of best fps ever made.

[@eat_your_jimmies]

I respect your opinion, but unfortunately I was quite disappointed. I enjoyed the first half of the game, the Gauss Rifle, and the appearance alone of the Ceph. I didn't care for any of the vehicles you're forced to use or the stupidity of the AI. I found myself just wanting to be done with the game when I was about 4 levels from completing it. Oh and I have a GTX 970, i7 2600k, 16GB RAM and I cant even run this game on high settings in 1440p. Antialiasing? Don't even fucking try the in-game option. The game's engine cannot even handle all of its graphical effects. I'm hoping Warhead, 2, and 3 are much more satisfying.

[@MrMleczkp]

It sadly wasnt made to be played in 60fps because i bet thats what you mean by >cant even run this game on high settings because in 30 or 45fps it runs perfectly ,as for later chapters yes i must agree that game gets wors once ceph begin to be your main enemy. It was simmilar with Far Cry and trigens. But despite that its still much much better of a game than (and one of best fps ever) 2 and 3 unless you really like console shooters. As for warhead its almost same as 1 but levels are bit smaller and game is shorter also you can now dual wield smg's.

[@eat_your_jimmies]

Go to the in-game menu. Click on Options, System Settings, then Advanced. I had to have the majority of the options set on medium in order to have 50fps+ in 2560x1440p resolution. I don't believe any PC in existence could run this game on max settings (including antialiasing under the Graphic option) in 1440p. If you don't fully understand some of these terms but truly want to know, Google is your best friend.

[@janveidt2700]

Wasn't getting high marks just for the graphics (and sound), but also the interactivity, freedom to use various different approaches, raw combat,...

[@yellowblanka6058]

It was mainly the graphics. I mean, it's a decent game, but there's a reason "but can it run Crysis?" became a meme.

[@zeuscoleback]

@@yellowblanka6058 Bad logic. Just because one aspect of a game became a meme doesn't mean the rest of the game wasn't acclaimed when it released. I remember Crysis' release perfectly. It was lauded for way more than just its graphics. In fact, that was the least of it. I'm not saying the game is perfect, but this narrative that the only thing it has going for it is its graphics (or that that's the only real praise it's ever gotten) is ridiculous.

[@yellowblanka6058]

@@zeuscoleback I was there for the release as well, and I never said it only had graphics going for it, but if you read any review of the game at the time, the central focus did seem to be how good the game looked. That's not to mention the fact that in the later portion of the game all freedom to approach combat in various ways is thrown out the window, and it becomes a linear shooter.

[@zeuscoleback]

@@yellowblanka6058 A linear shooter with extremely fun and intuitive abilities that not many games made huge use of at that time. It also has a unique setting, great sound design, impressive performance, and responsive controls. The "It was mainly the graphics that received praise" argument is just flat-out wrong. Moreover, I have my own gripes with the game, but to suggest it wouldn't have been acclaimed without the amazing graphics is incorrect.

[@leegsy]

Crysis is one of my favourite PC games of all time.

[@SugarWeasel1227]

The faults in this game were not applicable faults in 2007. You're putting modern expectations on an old game. What did you expect?

[@Gggmanlives]

I don't review games as if I'm in some kind of fucking time machine. I review games objectively in terms of how they've held up over the years. By this logic Asteroids on the Atari is a fucking masterpiece with amazing graphics. No, it doesn't work that way.

[@felixmorar8203]

Gggmanlives c

[@MrVybson]

Gggmanlives Soo, with that logic, you have to fault every old game for having shitty graphics then, right?

[@leegsy]

I always read your comments in my head with your accent :)

[@blake7297]

I almost whole heartedly agree and I'm glad somebody was able to say these things. Crysis is a good game for sure but there are some real issues you can't gloss over. 1) Unoptimized, Yes, it is very pretty but in a fast-paced action game with so many units involved it is not acceptable to be incapable of getting a solid frame rate with max settings on the top tier hardware of the time - this isn't huge, but you have to acknowledge it. 2) Inconsistent AI. Yes, it works fine most of the time, but the line of sight and enemy detection capability is complete BS. Yes, you can do it but no, it isn't fair or consistent. Plus, yes it does glitch often enough. 3) The second half of the game is a big drop in quality. Like the first half, the set up is cool and interesting but in execution you just fight the same enemy in similar small arenas for the better part of 4 hours straight and a lot of the story beats are questionable--not bad per se, but not founded in the minds of greatness as many seem to believe.

[@Fregler]

Not to mention that the Korean soldiers have the same problem as the soldiers in the jungle mission of SoF 2, you can't see anything but the foliage does not exist for them and they perfectly see you.

[@aaadj2744]

The last AAA game title that made for PC gaming hardware instead of console first........

[@z0h33y]

Its crazy how this came out the same year as Shadow of Chernobyl.

[@pauls4522]

Despite the bugs the first half of crysis to me is still one of the best games of the past 13 years

[@MartinTraXAA]

It's a bit glossed over just how fun the physics and destruction worked together. Going 'Maximum Strenght' to ambush Norks and throwing them THROUGH buildings was SO much fun.

[@MrLathor]

I didn’t get half of these criticisms from my play through. The Ceph sections got annoying, but they were still visually I interesting. I never got bored of being a one man wrecking crew and taking out bases of 40+ soldiers solo. Made you feel like a badass super soldier that you were. Also, why the would you expect it to be optimized for a modern computer? Computer hardware has changed completely since 2007 and it’s not like they are going redesign Cryengine 2 to take advantage of modern hardware. There is no way they could have anticipated how GPUS/CPUS would change. Bleeding edge technology, they aimed 5+ years into the future and missed the mark slightly.

[@RevanStarrrR]

I have noticed that market used to be full of shooters, especially Sci-fi shooters from relatively unknown developers but lately, games like that have started to become more and more rare. I guess we have Early Access to thank for it, those games just get buried under several similar games.

[@SerialSnowmanKiller]

Funny thing about those attack choppers: You can kill them with half a magazine from a standard assault rifle. If you can use the cloak to get into a position where you've got a clear shot at the side of the chopper, just put a few rounds into the small propeller at the rear of the chopper. The chopper will start spinning for a few seconds and then blow up.

[@iCANT_BELIEVE_YOU_SAID_THAT]

This game should be the blueprint on how to make a video game. Great gameplay, great story, great graphics and most importantly, no microtransaction. This game was and still is a PC melter.

[@Beregond1861]

Absolutely.

[@GamingPenis]

I really cringe when you praise Crysis 2 (call of dutyfication) but not 1 (arcadey combat simulator) Your views on other doom like fps are often on point, but the more complex gameplay that requires experimentation in crysis went a little over your head it seems.

[@wendigo1619]

Well in the military you can get some pretty cheesy nicknames, those are a few i heard before while in the Canadian army, mine was Drauger

[@clubdrunkify]

Been looking forward to this review as the Crysis games are my favourite series. Crytek did an awesome job creating atmosphere and WTF moments. I was on the edge of my seat during the giant mech walker battle, shoot out verses Korean Nano soldiers, seeing the ship on the island. I disagree with people calling this open-world though. Really large levels, but you are pretty much funneled down a certain path without much explore. Agree with most of the other points brought up.

[@WindyGo54]

The phrase "But can it play Crysis" is because of this games graphics and performance.

[@crazyblue501]

BLacKspARTan 54 and how unoptimized it is lel

[@wabachi]

cuz everyone would use an unoptimized game as a solid benchmark... logic at it's finest...

[@deanchur]

The best part of the game is adjusting parameters in the config to give yourself 1000x strength and so forth. So much fun punching tanks across the map.

[@TurKlack]

I have to say that I recently (Steam Summer Sale 2017) bought Crysis. No bugs (besides a minor Sound bug) and no problems. Game was as smooth as a Cat. It worked, it had a better Story than most EA games, and gave me Options to Stealth or Force my way through the enemy. 9/10 Compared to Crysis 1 Crysis 2 and 3 look boring as hell. And I played Crysis 2 before 1.

[@tuomassallinen5066]

One of my favorite fps games ever

[@fartmangaming9272]

so you make a gamer review - people go to game reviews when they are thinking about buying a game. You then continue to explain the entire story line and reveal all spoilers. well done

[@jeremyhoffman6187]

I went through 4 gaming PC's before my current one which finally runs it "well" and by well I mean in most parts it hangs around 80-100 fps but their are still set pieces that see it drop south of 50 fps (45 is the lowest I've seen) i7 7700 GTX 1060 6gb 16gb ddr4 @2400mhz

[@Vengeance19]

Same here, but i skipped this one at release, not wanting to deal with the game being such a resourcehog. And now i'm trying it nearly 12 years later and my current pc with almost identical specs still dips way below 50 at some points, despite it decently running at 80-100+ fps most of the time. In my opinion, if a 10+ years decent rig cant maintain a steady 60FPS, then this isnt a futureproof game, but just a terribly optimised one.

[@entity8019]

I do enjoy your reviews, and this one you certainly got bang on the head.

[@stoggs01]

love this game. one of my all time favorite shooters, well at least when fighting the soldiers but the alien sections where ok at best.

[@johnnykobra7256]

4:23 how did the Humvee even roll?!!! Damn g-man

[@Francisco-j1e]

click bait title. never heard anyhing bad about crysis. its the most perfect game ever.

[@Gggmanlives]

No, it's really not.

[@Francisco-j1e]

Gggmanlives its just because its a european game and americans got pissed off cause its too good xD

[@archyneverpicked]

+F. Teixeira like they did with the Witcher 3...

[@Francisco-j1e]

Gggmanlives it really is. I've played most games out there. For a 2007 game, its the absolute best.

[@Gggmanlives]

***** It's really not. Graphics are good, gameplay is meh. AI is dumb as a rock.

[@peteralexander2941]

I absolutely love crysis, it may be a pain in the ass to run, even today (I dread to think what it was like back in 2007) but It's still a fun game and of course very pretty to look at, I found the sequels to be very average though :/

[@UncannyXander]

Peter Williams Crysis 2 and 3 beat the shite out of the mediocre pile that is Crysis 1

[@peteralexander2941]

The Uncanny One its just my opinion, if you like the sequels, that's good, cos I just couldn't get into them, the freedom of the first game just wasn't there, crysis 2 was like a nice looking cod clone, crysis 3 was slightly better but too similar to crysis 2 in my mind, the first game will always be my favourite, even if I still can't run it that well

[@peteralexander2941]

Artakha the Creator don't get me wrong, crysis 2 was enjoyable, and definitely as pretty if not more so than the first game, but the massive world and complete freedom granted to you by the game world and the nanosuit in the first game was lacking, what I will praise crysis 2 for is it had better optimisation for pc than the first game, but then crysis 3 screwed up the optimisation again, I'm not calling crysis 1 the best pc game ever made, because it is massively flawed in some spots, but personally, it's my favourite out of the trilogy

[@yellowblanka6058]

@Rob Yagenmyer It doesn't scale well to modern CPUs, the code is not threaded particularly well, so modern machines will still see drops into the 20-40 range or worse (dependent on age of CPU, my Sandy Bridge i7 seems to drop into the high 30's to 40's in towns/areas with a lot of physics objects and I dropped into the upper 20's at points during the mission to rescue that scientist from the village. Eurogamer did an article/video on it - even with a Titan GPU and the most powerful consumer CPU they saw drops into the 30's at points at 4K.

[@synthetic240]

I think people forget that many FPS games were basically tech demos because they could make more money licencing the engine than they could in units sold. These days, while some games do try to "wow" with their graphics, a competent team can do wonders with modern engines. That is, new improvements in graphics are often in terms of scale or subtle shader / lighting effects that I can only sometimes notice in a side-by-side. I think there's been more of a move towards the main selling point being fun gameplay and a distinctive art style (when they're not trying to sell gambling to children...) more than "our engine can do what Nintendon't". And as you've shown on your own channel, there are plenty of FPS games that are REALLY fun with modern versions of old engines and graphics styles.

[@napalmhardcore]

I think the biggest thing that makes or breaks Crysis for most people is whether it fits their play style (which it does mine). It's a game that is most rewarding from an entertainment point of view when played a particular way and it loses its value when played as a generic shooter. The Far Cry and Crysis series are two of a very small number of series/games where you can employ hit and run tactics in such an organic and rewarding fashion. Playing stealthily can bring some really tense moments too. I also enjoy games that allow for emergent situations which the aforementioned series do. For its negatives (like the technical issues and the less enjoyable second half where much of your freedom in how you approach situations is taken away) I can forgive it due to how much I enjoy the sandbox gameplay offered earlier in the campaign.

[@maxbrownlie8642]

Just because it's old and it's demanding doesn't mean it's unoptimised, the fact that it still looks good all this time later shows the graphical ceiling we are reaching

[@Exessive-Gaming]

The original Crysis was the ArmA 3 of its time, It was more popular for its online multiplayer custom maps and mods, not for its single player games. It was the real first of its kind, true multiplayer modded gameplay. I had hundreds of hours if not more of gameplay because of the modding community. After Warhead the game became more of a console single player experience, Then Cryiss 3 was released trying to revive its multiplayer experience and fell short due to the game lack of old fanbase. Most people who played Cryis 3 never knew the extent of what the modding community brought to Crysis and very little fanbase is still around in the modding community to keep Crysis alive.

[@Broformist]

Optimisation in this is not a GPU issue, game is simply very demanding on CPUs and doesn't take advantage of multiple cores. It has physics that are still more advanced than most games today have. For it to run at stable 60 FPS with everything maxed we would need a CPU with insane single core performance. Whatever faults this game has, we would fucking lucky to have something like this released nowadays.

[@hoangmusic]

I swear, IGN should hire this guy. He gives in-depth reviews that are usually unbiased.

[@DawidFreeman]

For me Crysis is A DEFINICTION of a TRUE PC GAME.

[@chrisvillan88]

Memories of trying to run this on a Radeon x1950pro

[@Viljami32]

Love your reviews

[@mihirlavande]

If this game had F.E.A.R level AI, it would've truly been an experience.

[@robbiefazle7802]

This game aged kinda poorly, but it was a really nice looking PC video game for it's time.

[@yoitired]

I'll disagree on a couple points. I run Crysis on a core i7 920, which benchmarks at around 5k, gtx 580, and Vista. It runs at max settings with zero bugs or hangups. The appeal of the game is in the sandbox mode, and learning the mechanics of how to survive. You're far from invincible, but you have an edge over the enemy. No other game gave me such a sense of lurking, while vulnerable and greatly outnumbered, but having the advantage of superior camouflage. Far cry just wasn't the same. For me, this game felt the most like real guerrilla warfare.

[@Ryan3d]

Wow ! what an awesome susprise GGG, glad to see you again !

[@Lagger478]

Ah Crysis, the one game that made me build a custom PC... Only took 5 years and a GTX670 to run.

[@user-us6vg]

Hm. This is one of my favorite games of all time. Cannot really understand the complains. :/ This game runs 60FPS on my i7 6700K and GTX 970 at max settings 1080p and Anti Aliasing. However, it actually didnt on my FX 8350 and R9 280X setup. In fact I could not even run the game without the 64Bit fix. I also had several FPS slowdowns especially the endfight was UNPLAYABLE. So yeah, might be a bit unoptimized for modern rigs. My actual rig runs it without problems though. Also I love the Story. Really great one, especially with the other Crysis games. Gameplay is great too for a shooter. I never encountered too many bugs. Except maybe some self collision kills lol. Yeah, the AI can be dumb but its not really on Delta. But this game also brought me back into PC gaming in 2007. The graphics were amazing and I built a monster rig back then for it. Was still not enough to play it good playable on anything but high and 720p. So I also have memories with it. The feeling, environment/graphics, gameplay and the iconic soundtrack just lets me directly love this masterpiece of a game. Yes it has some flaws like technical issues and a dumb AI at times but beside of that... Well, I also liked Crysis 2 and 3 so I might be kind of biassed with the games. Many games we just love even though they have their flaws. We learned to ignore them or see them in different light. I actually for example kind of like the AI in the game... It can be dumb but also how its act is kind of unique. Wish they would release a remake on PC with latest CryEngine. Or maybe just remake them all in a collection for next gen and PC. Crytek seems to have some issues though right now which is really sad... Hope they survive. Not sure if they overrated the game back in 2007. I agreed with them not only because of the graphics. 2007 was a different time and this was often rated slightly below HL2 which was just a perfect rating for it. But probably one of the highest rated shooters ever.

[@mdawni6933]

your reviews never disappoint , well done

[@Bartolomeus002]

Crysis was an excelent game and one of the best shooters when it comes to story and gameplay. The graphics was simply the best back then. Stupid AI? A bit but still one of the best AI in FPS back then. Difficulty had its spikes. Overall it was an awesome game.

[@SuperHns]

+Bartek Bierbasz hahahaha you never played Unreal games than.. Specially UT 99 and UT1, that A.I. is so great you think you play against humans.

[@Bartolomeus002]

SuperHns No I did not. Was it the only game that had better AI?

[@SuperHns]

Bartek Bierbasz F.E.A.R.1 also had great A.I.

[@Bartolomeus002]

SuperHns Yes you comparing semi-open world game with corridor shooter... far crry 1 had very good AI...

[@SuperHns]

Bartek Bierbasz True, however Half Life 2 was also corridor and had worst A.I. than FEAR. But you're right.

[@d1zguy864]

All the points you made about the AI are spot on! I never played Crysis until a year ago. Got frustrated with it and just used a trainer for god mode and infinite ammo. Just played it for the graphics and story., really it a glorified tech demo This is one of those games that are painfully terrible to play without god mode.

[@serbanflorio8153]

I actually cried when I finished this game.

[@kampferadib7155]

well is CRYsis from CRYtek.

[@Kitto0]

"It would be like dating a supermodel with an attitude problem" - Hahaha best pun ever.

[@mechinate]

That's not a pun, it's an analogy.

[@helpihavenoskin8939]

This game blew me away when it first came out I played it non-stop....There was a free online beta before the campaign was released, I remember I had an x1800xt for the beta and got a 2900xt when the campaign dropped. It still is one of the nicest looking games around, and fun as hell to play. The reviewer is also wrong about it not being optimized this engine was heavily scalable, all kinds of hardware was able to run it from older 6800's on up, just not at full settings. The fact it can still push modern hardware is a testament to how forward thinking Crytek was and just how scalable the engine really is.

[@DraKulisCinematicGaming]

its actually the best of the series

[@crazyboyz313]

I've got a GTX 970 and 16 GB RAM which to me seems fairly standard now and it runs at 60fps solid everytime at maximum setting, the game looks AMAZING like this.

[@rottencorpsexxx]

Finally, a review of an older game! I remember the time when the game came out and everybody was just talking about the graphics, nothing else, just graphics. I've never played so the only thing I know is that the graphics were good :D

[@CookieSlaughter]

+rottencorpsexxx The game actually got a lot of hate around me. I remember people talking about the aliens segment that were just not fun.

[@Randoman590]

+rottencorpsexxx I find the game incredibly enjoyable. The technical issues aren't *as* bad as Gggmanlives said, IMO. I'm running it on High/Very High Settings with a GTX 560. Granted, I'm on a 1600x900 monitor, so not full HD. But dad's got a GTX 960 and he runs it flat out maxed at 60fps, full HD this time. There's also a standalone expansion pack, called Crysis Warhead, wherein you play as Psycho and see the events of the game from a different perspective. Psycho is a more interesting character, he's a bit more talkative and you get extra weapons and scenarios to play around in. It's slightly better optimised too. The first half is definitely by far the best bit, a lot of your freedom is restricted when the aliens show up.

[@rottencorpsexxx]

+Coffee yeah I've heard about aliens too and Sonny Jim mentioned them in the review

[@rottencorpsexxx]

+TheJayson8899 well it's almost 10 years old so yeah older, but what I meant is it's not a new release like F4, just cause 3 and others Sonny Jim covered recently

[@rottencorpsexxx]

+Randoman590 I believe I'll enjoy it too (looks same as FC1 but better)

[@goobertrain8060]

I just recently played Crysis for the first time on Delta difficulty and I have no idea why people say the aliens are hard to kill or annoying to fight. Literally just put laser sight on shotgun and switch firing mode to slugs and it takes two shots for the smaller ones. The gaus rifle can two shot the larger ones and all you need is the laser sight and hip fire. Extremely easy to deal with and I never once died to them. Humans were pretty easy to deal with also. Head shots are super useful.

[@PabloB888]

when crysis 1 came out, I had gf 8800 ultra with q6600@3GHz and with max details on win xp (there was a mod enabling all the missing details on xp) I was able to run this game with 26-30 fps on 1680x1050, but despite console framerate game was perfectly playable, people even commented how well it run on my PC, game was so responsive and smooth that without fraps I would never quess it was only running with 30 fps. I think crytek used very good filters that masked low framerate.. So even back at the time when crysis came out I liked how it run on my PC, I could play it maxed out with very high resolution, and with lower resolution like 720p and high details that game run twice as fast and still looked way bettet tahn all the other gamrs.. DX10 was where I could see reall probles, I was vlimited in dx10 and I could see memory leaks, but because game in dx9 looked the same and run great I didnt care about it. OK crysis was demanding game, but the thing is it looked spectacular and looks great even 9 vears later. During these 9 years there I could play many games that looked worse and required more PC power, so I think crysis very optimized game after all. Yes, on current modern PC crysis1 could be better optimized, but back then multithreaded CPUs just started hitting the marked, and so game was made to use 1 core thread most of the time. In last 9 years GPU's technology made huge advancement, but not CPU's. Single thread performance on my Q6600 in games was only x2 slower compared to my 3770 i7, and even to this day q6600 can run games with playable feamerate. So despite 9 years CPUs arnt that much better besides multithread features, so Im not blaming crytek that their game can dip to 50 fps on modern PC's because of CPU bottleneck. Even vears ago on 3770 i7 and with OCed 680gtx I could play that game with unoptimized dx10 mode, 1080p + msaax4 and locked 60 fps for 99% of time. During entire game there was maybe few places where I could see 50 fps dips (tank battle) for short amount of time and thats because of CPU bottleneck, not GPU, so IMO this game was very playable the last time when I play it. Of course Crysis 2 is running even better, but that game was already made with multithreads in mind. If during that 9 years CPS technology would advance with similar performance gain like GPUs, crysis 1 would run with something like 500 fps, but because single thread performance on modern CPUs arent much faster crysis runs how it runs even 9 years later.

[@Tumoxa89]

You actually not supposed to take hits from aliens. They hit too hard, but have somewhat slow moving projectiles, so enable your speed mode and strafe around them doom style. I only discovered it on my second playthrough.

[@feliperojas-doomride]

that marksman sniper supersight accuracy absolutely killed the game for me. 80% of the time I would't know where they were shooting from and I was death regardless

[@Zockopa]

Crysis 1 is one of those games where freedom is given to the player to play tactical. Which needs at least the activation of a bunch of gray cells during gaming.

[@matthiasruf]

What are the odds that I start going batshit crazy for more Steam games, then find a review for Crysis, and notices it was literally just recently uploaded? Thank you for this review, I will keep all of this in mind for my final purchasing decisions.

[@Battleneter]

Most people will find it hard to believe including the OP it seems, but this is still one of the most advanced engines of of all time, far more graphically demanding than most FPS console ports of 2016. Crysis graphics were nerfed in 2&3 to make it more commercially viable. Lastly I really enjoyed Crysis, the games to come felt a bit like COD BS.

[@SerbStar2011]

The game doesn't push your video card to the limit. Its unoptimized on modern cards. I was monitoring my fps, gpu usage and cpu usage with msi afterburner while playing on my gtx 960. The game rarely went above 70% usage of my video card so most of the time i was below 60fps. Its also why you struggled to get a steady frame rate because the game is not using all of your cards power.

[@louismanet3656]

Bad memories from the alien ship section. Floating around that thing gave me motion sickness!

[@chatteyj]

I'm a far cry 2 and 3 fan and own a ps3. Is this game worth buying on ps3? It looks gorgeous, I remember reading about it in PC mags years ago.

[@timothyades9983]

I couldn’t agree more. I remember playing crisis for the first time expecting my mind to be blown. But once you get over the visuals, the gameplay just didn’t keep me entertained. It just became boring to shoot the same enemies in the same looking environments. It lacked direction and pacing, and I too became tired of the AI (or lack of). I actually though the sequel was better - level design in New York was far better, and the more on-rails approach helped give a feeling of progression. Sure the sandbox concept was diminished, but it was never as much fun as it was made out to be anyway.