Asteroids, aliens and jungles
On the Electronic Arts stand we saw some stunning games proving that EA haven’t lost their touch with grabbing new titles and wringing the most from them for us gamers.
Crytek, the guys behind the surprise hit Far Cry, are working on Crysis, their new first person shooter and we have to say that this looks just bloody amazing. Sorry about the swearing there but having seen the game in motion it really is gobsmackingly good.
Click for larger imageLet’s get the story line out of the way first and then we can crack on with the game itself… In 2019 a massive asteroid is detected heading towards, despite launching nuclear missiles at it (and probably sending up Bruce Willis to destroy it a la Armageddon) nothing can move the asteroid from its collision course. But rather than cause a massive, life destroying impact, the asteroid mysteriously crashes causing little, if any, damage at all.
Click for larger imageThe asteroid lands on one of a chain of islands near Korea and very soon the North Korean government seals off the whole chain from the rest of the world, claiming the asteroid for their own. Of course, this doesn’t go down well the United States and they send in a special task force to have a look at what’s going on. Just as things start to get tetchy between the US and North Korea, the asteroid opens up to reveal an alien ship which immediately generates a massive force field around itself forcing North Korean and US forces to team up and fight off what is the start of an alien invasion.
Click for larger imageRight, so that’s the story bit out of the way, let’s have a look at the game itself. In our session with Crysis, the very first thing we noticed was just how incredibly detailed the environment is. Think of Far Cry and how lush the jungles were there… now double it… no, treble it… yeah, that feels about right. This is easily the most detailed representation of a jungle setting on a PC so far, bar none. Just check out those screenshots for proof.
Click for larger imageBut all that eye candy isn’t just there for show as Crytek have been working hard to put real world ‘rules’ into Crysis. What they mean by this is that you’ve got a high powered machine gun, yeah? And you’re wearing cammo gear, yeah? So, if you hunker down behind some foliage, you’ll be harder to spot and hit. Stands to reason, really.
Click for larger imageBut all this scenery isn’t just there to look at, it’s fully interactive too. Say you can see some bad guys over yonder and you decide to give them a burst from your gun. If any unfortunate saplings happen to be in the way, they’ll get chopped down by errant bullets. But the coolest thing is, you won’t just see some animation of a tree falling down and leaving behind a stump, you’ll actually shop the tree off where you hit it. Any budding tree surgeons could have a field day and I fully expect to see some Topiary Machinema from Crysis shortly after release.
Click for larger imageNot only do the accurate damage effects add hugely to the realism, they also have an effect on how the game plays. We were trapped in a smallish clearing with incoming fire from three sides, so lobbing a few grenades around us not only helped to get the enemy’s heads down but it also cleared a lot of their cover out of the way. If you get lucky, you might even manage to clobber a bad guy with a falling branch as it drops from the trees above! The CryENGINE 2 does a superb job of not only rendering the world but figuring out how it all interacts and it’s very, very impressive. (And yes, if any Predator fans are out there, you can stand there and mow down half the jungle with a mini-gun...)
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