Crysis 2

Finally here after years of waiting since the release of the original Crysis. Crytek has been hard at work on developing their newest title. Published by EA, this game has lived up greatly too its name through the story and the multiplayer mode. You can expect aliens, private military companies, and one suit that does more and more as you go through story set in a New York city. We start out the game in a submarine getting a little briefing before things get out of control.

The city of New York is hit by some new virus that strikes without prejudice and is extremely lethal. You are sent in to find professor Ghould and bring him out so that he can work on the antidote for the virus. The main character Alcatraz is talking with some of his squad members when the submarine gets hit by a unknown source that sends you and your team in a panic to get out and to the surface. You reach the surface to see an alien ship shooting down at you and your teammates. You flow in and out of consciousness as you see a man in a nano suit shooting down the aircraft. Prophet, the man in the nano suit, pulls you out of the water and next thing you know you are in some abandoned warehouse with a slightly used nano suit on. This is where things start to get fun, with a new suit on that gives you overwhelming power and a task given by prophet to carry on his mission. You start out in a compound area that is controlled by the PMCS and you need to escape to the inner city and meet Professor Ghould. The professor will know what to do about virus. You listen to some radio chatter and sneak by the guards or if you want you can just mow them all down I mean its not a difficult task for the nano suit. You finally escape the compound to the what is left of New York.

The way the game flows is done extremely well and you really get a sense of being extremely powerful when you are using the abilities that the suit gives you. One power that the suit gives you is armor mode where you can take on damage and the suit will absorb it as long as you have energy. This is really useful for jumping into a fire fight or jumping off a rooftop. With the armor mode active you can dish out plenty of damage while taking hardly any. Another power up is the stealth mode where you can sneak up on just about anyone as long as you don't get to close. This makes it so that you can handle a situation without even killing anyone and only depending on the stealth to make it through the level. It is either that or you can just sneak around killing them from behind one at a time. There is also the super speed and the super jump. These both do pretty much what there name implies and that is making you jump higher and run faster. These are useful for escaping a fight that is not going in your favor or just getting up a ledge to get a better view to snipe your enemies. The nanovision is a ability that was not in the original Crysis, this lets you detect heat output from everything that is in your field of view. All of these abilities use the rechargeable energy that the suit provides. Along with the powers there is also a lot of weapons that are customizable and feature a wide variety of styles of play. Now what makes this game strong is that all this stuff transfers over into the great multiplayer.

The multiplayer mode has a lot of customizable features that make it accommodate anyones play style. This also leads to very fun and intense matches, with that one guy always using stealth and sneaking up from behind and the other guy with the heavy machine gun and heavy armor makes for some fun times. There are several multiplayer modes with the standard modes of deathmatch (Instant Action) and team deathmatch (Team Instant Action). There is also the territories mode where it is just simply a king of the hill with a moving hill. These well recognized game modes allow for ease of play and less time trying to figure out why you lost when you had a lot more kills. The balance in the multiplayer from what I was experiencing feels very good with the cloak not 100% invisible and the armor mode not 100% invulnerable they have a good balance. Now you can purchase stuff as you rank up so you can choose what you want instead of waiting for it to unlock. This is very similar to Black Ops without the money, instead you get unlock credits.

This game would appeal to someone who is looking for a good time and wants to feel really strong. There will be times when you die but hardly will there be a time where you could not of prevented it. With the amount of abilities at your exposure it can sometimes make the game feel really easy and that you are just  cruising through it. There are different levels of difficulty for someone who is looking for a challenge but if you analyze every situation you will come out on top a lot of the time. I would not really think that someone would have fun with this if they are not looking for that type of game. A shooter with all these different modes can seem really overwhelming for someone who wants something simple. It will not get easier as the game goes on as you need to time out when the best time to activate stealth mode and armor mode is and when to sprint behind a corner to stay alive and recharge.

In conclusion I would say that Crytek did a good job of bringing Crysis back and changing the setting up. I have been really enjoying the game along with the mulitpayer. It is fun being able to sneak up on people not being careful as well as just mowing some people down while your armor is up. I like the feeling of jumping off a roof top to smash the ground and destroy a group of enemies. All in all I would say this is a great game to add to your collection and you don't need to play the first one to understand what is going on