Xbox 360 - Crysis 2

Crysis 2 by Crytek / EA

Format: First Person Shooter
Save Type: Checkpoint only
Rating: Mature

Ever since I'd heard about the Cryengine 3's 'fabulous' rendering capabilities, I'd been anxious to play a game that actually uses this engine on a console. Well, Crysis 2 is finally here. Unfortunately, it's not everything it's cracked up to be. Oh, it's definitely better than many game engines, but I'd say that it's not that much better than the engine driving Halo 3, Gears of War or even what is driving Bioshock.

Graphics

Ok, so let's start out with the best part first. The graphics are very very good, but are by no means perfect. I was actually expecting a lot more out of Cryengine 3. The shadows of objects on the ground is fairly well done. The edges are 'softer' by using very small dots rather than big block to create the shadows. So, while the shadows are better than what's in Halo 3, it's not that much better because the shadows are kind of flickery. Specularity is good, but not great. Sunlight color appears natural.

Although, there are some other problems with the shadow system, too. A big feature of the Nanosuit is that it can be cloaked. However, even though the suit is cloaked, the shadow is still fully dark on the ground. If light were truly penetrating through a transparent surface, the shadow would also become much more faint. This is an issue that should have been addressed and wasn't. So, either the Cryengine 3 doesn't manage this properly or the coders didn't write it correctly. Either way, the shadow needs to reflect the cloaking. Seriously, if there was a solid shadow on the ground moving around, you'd definitely know something was cloaked.

Story

The person operating a Nanosuit (armored biosuit), Prophet, is just about spent due to the suit's symbiotic relationship. So, just as he is about to die, a wounded soldier (you) happens upon him. He takes the opportunity to shed the suit onto you and then he kills himself to sever the link to the symbiote so the suit will accept you as the new host. That's where the story begins.

As you progress, the suit gains strength (and points) from the hard-to-kill alien DNA. As you kill more aliens, you gain more DNA from them. So, it enhances the suit's capabilities.

Physics

This game's physics system is a bit on the weak side. When you kill an enemy, the enemy falls to the ground and stops in an unnatural way... sometimes with their arms or legs straight up in the air. Also, when bullets penetrate a surface, it does nothing to the surface (it doesn't leave a mark, yet the bullets sometimes do hit you). If you're going to spend this much time on realism, please add these small details that really make it seem real. Basically, the physics system should have been tested better.

Bugs as a result of physics

There are times as you are playing where the enemies will randomly kill themselves. I've seen this happen several times. In one case, it was an enemy soldier. He was jumping through a window. The move seemed to work going through the window once. On return jump through the window, the character seemed to get caught on the window frame and then he becomes a projectile who then flies across the room and dies.

The second time I had this happen with a soldier, it was on a level where you are tasked to sneak across an island and disable the power grid. In this case, there is a round staircase that leads to a lookout post. Under certain specific timing conditions, the soldier at the top will do something and then die as a result of some physics glitch. The issue with this particular glitch is that it will trigger your presence if this soldier doesn't respond to a request for status. If he doesn't respond, then the soldiers become alerted to your presence even though you had nothing to do with that soldier's death.

I've also seen this physics bug manifest with the Seth aliens as well, but not as a show stopper as above.

Gameplay

The gameplay is about standard for a first person shooter. You have mostly one-handed weapons that fire a variety of projectiles (bullets, missiles) as well as grenades and C4 explosives. Nothing spectacular here with regards to these weapons. I was hoping for more, but no. The weapons don't even have much in the way of cool factor. But, that goes back to another issue which I'll discuss further down in this review.

As you progress through the levels, you find alien DNA (as you kill each alien) that acts as points to buy upgrades.

Environments

Crysis 2 heavily borrows its look and layouts of some interior and exterior environments from games such as Enslaved, Half Life, Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST, The Darkness, Fallout 3 and F.E.A.R. On the one hand, the environments are familiar, on the other it's a bit too familiar. Whether this was intended as an ode to these games or simply cutting corners is not known. What is certain, I would have preferred to see more original layouts.

Bosses

Repetition here is the key. Once you see the bosses, this is what you have to beat over and over. The AT-ST style walker, which is a nod to Star Wars, is a bit annoying once you understand what you need to do. It's also highly annoying that the bosses always 'see' you whether or not you're cloaked. However, if you get far enough out of their sight box, they will then focus on other threats and leave you alone. That is, until you fire a single bullet. Then they 'see' you again and immediately come after you. So, killing the bosses takes far too long to do as mostly you're just trying to avoid being shot up. This is not challenging, but it is frustrating.

Controls

There are times where the controls and collision detection severely lag. It is especially bad when you're in a battle doing melee hits. So, you know that you've hit and killed the enemy (it has fallen to the ground dead), yet the enemy manages to get one last damage hit into you long after it has hit the ground dead. So, you're standing over the dead alien body and you're being hit by some phantom projectile. In one case, it was enough to kill my character. This is extremely frustrating and enough for me to put this game down. But, I'll work my way through it only because I'm about halfway through this so far.

The first time this phantom projectile happened to me, I thought there was another alien somewhere close hitting me. Yet, I've looked around and there wasn't another on the level. So, the game is definitely glitchy here.

Sound

The sound is average. Nothing spectacular here, but noting horribly wrong either.

Overall

The upside to this game is that the environments are mostly very polished and look great. The 3D look appears solid and has a realistic feel, until you get up close. Then everything breaks down. This game does not use levels of detail for up close viewing. So, if you get close to a sign, everything is extremely pixelated and barely legible. So, this is a disappointment in what should arguably be one of the best looking game engines out there.

The fact that Crytek chose this game to be a first person shooter makes the whole idea of the superb graphics combined with the Nanosuit a frustrating experience. Here you are in this cool looking Nanosuit, yet you get to see only one arm in the view window the entire game. The game never pans away from the suit so you can see the whole suit from a different vantage point. It doesn't even do this in cinematics. This is very disappointing. Since the game is all about the suit, this game should have been a third person shooter (or toggle between first and third) so you get to see the suit.

Unfortunately, this is a drab and uninspired first person shooter wrapped in a nice looking package. The problem is, the developers spent so much time making the graphics engine look good, they forgot all about the gameplay, the physics and the motion capture. So, the characters move in odd stilted ways and the physics of the game is, at times, bad (weights are off, characters don't fall down dead believably, etc). Crytek now needs to take time to mature the physics and collision detection engines. They need to spend as much time on these as they have on the rendering engine. Only then will this game engine rival those of other game campanies.

Score

• Sound: 8/10
• Graphics: 9.5/10
• Gameplay: 5/10 (average shooter)
• Story: 6/10
• Bugginess: N/A
• Controls: 6/10
• Bang-to-buck: 2/10
• Play Value: $20 (rent first, then buy)
• Overall: 5.5/10 (average gameplay overshadows excellent graphics)

Xbox 360 - Dragon Age II

Dragon Age II by Bioware / EA

In November 2009, Gamezelot reviewed Dragon Age Origins (DAO). Gamezelot gave this game a 6.5 out of 10 rating. It was, by no means, a perfect game. It has its moments, but it also has it share of problems. Fast forward to today. Dragon Age II is now out.. so how is it?

Starting out

The game starts out by allowing you to choose your character's class. While you are stuck being human, you can choose to be a mage, warrior or rogue class (male or female). After choosing the class, you can then choose your cosmetic appearance (mostly facial features). You can't choose a body shape, though. Also, even though there are Dalish, Dwarves and Elves in the game, you cannot choose one of these as your race. You are stuck as human only.

Story

The story picks up pretty much where Dragon Age Origins leaves off. So, you're still running around killing Darkspawn. It almost seems, though, that they ignored the story in Awakenings, but that was more of a side game anyway. So, after battling a bunch of Darkspawn and confronting a Dragon, you're out of Ferelden and off to another city by boat.

The beginning of the story is a bit convoluted and starts out twice, actually. Once, it starts as a fanciful tale and then the person listening doesn't like what she hears and asks the storyteller to tell her the 'real' story. So, he backtracks and tells it all over again. During the storytelling phase, you get to play the game in certain parts to get you familiar with the gameplay as a small tutorial. Unfortunately, that really fails for new users. You really must be familiar with Dragon Age Origins already to understand the controls and the game play. So, if you're new to this game, you might want to read the manual first.

When you arrive at the city gates, your envoy is kept out of the city because there are already too many people trying to immigrate there. So, your first quests are one of two different and you can choose which one to do. The first quest choice is to kill someone as a favor. They will then get you into the city. The second choice is to retrieve money from a local shopkeeper. Either one you choose, you'll get into the city. The easier one, of course, is the one that doesn't involve combat. I'm not sure exactly how it shapes your character overall, but the choices may change how the story progresses. I do know that you will receive individual Xbox achievements for doing each of them. So, save your game right before you choose. You can then do one, get your achievement, save, then load and then do the second and receive that achievement. When you find quests that allow you to do one of two things, save and attempt both because you'll likely get Xbox achievements.

Once in the city, you get access to the map and you can roam the city looking for battles and loot, primarily loot.

Menu System

The interface to the system is still lackluster. To get to the journal (your quest list), you need to press the Start button on the controller. This lea ds to the main menu. Unfortunately, this menu is the wrong place for the the journal. The system needs its own place that's separate for this task and single button press that brings up the top level inventory (to change armor or weapons) rather than multiple button presses Start->Controller Right->A Button. Then B twice t o back out of it all. No, it should be a simple one click in and one click out. When will game designers learn this?

When you click the left trigger controller, it does bring up the fast select menu so you can get to consumables and spells easier. But, you still have to go through the main menu to get to everything else.

Yes, you can map the potion to an easy access key, but getting to them through the main menu method is slow, tedious, interrupting.. and is an incredibly bad design. The only way to get to the journal (and the quests) is through the main menu even though the right trigger allows for easier access to some things.

Gameplay

The gameplay hasn't improved much over DAO. That said, the graphics have improved by a lot. In fact, it looks like the designers have used the Mass Effect 2 engine to drive Dragon Age II. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't always work in all cases. For example, the menu system above. Also, the talking system is jus t as annoying as Mass Effect II. That is, you have no idea which response will lead to a positive or negative outcome. However, the skin surface textures on the characters are much better than DAO. So, there's pluses and minuses.

However, even though the graphics have changed by a lot, the gameplay itself hasn't. The problems that plagued DAO still plague this title. Na mely, that your main character is extremely weak against opponents. Not so much individual opponents, but that the game constantly throws many opponents at you all at once. However, unlike DAO, where you start with yourself and add characters along the way, Dragon Age II gives you four people in your group right up front. So, your group is a lot stronger than when you start out in DAO. Even still, that doesn't resolve the issue. The game throws exceedingly strong characters at the group which makes it difficult to complete a battle with all four of your team still standing. In fact, you usually have one character left and you have to run them all over the game board just to keep from being pounded to death (and give enough time to drink potions).

This also means, save early and save often. If you don't and all characters in your party die, the game is over.

Battles

This is a sore spot with me here. The battles are all real-time, although that isn't the issue. The issue, as mentioned above, the game throws a large number of mid to higher level opponents at you at a time when they should be far easier than they are. Yes, I could move the mode to 'Casual', but in the beginning, the game shouldn't se nd this high level opponents at you anyway.. and especially at 3-4 times the amount in your party. Worse, it keeps spawning them over and over with more and more.

But, here's the stupid part. Running around the city, people and guards are standing around. So, you are battling right in front of a city guard who stands there motionless. Seriously bad. Every other game would have had the guards join right in and either help you or help the opponent. Either way, the guards need to join in and bystanders need to run away. Where was the thought and design behind this?

Questing

The questing is much the same as DAO. It's improved slightly, but not much. The quests names appear briefly on the screen and then go into your 'Journal'. Although, the journal is more easily laid out from DAO, it's still hard to determine where you need to be to complete a quest. Unlike Fallout 3 that lets you pick the location where

you need to be next, Dragon Age II still doesn't seem do this easily.

Sparse Cities and Loot

While wandering around the cities, you'll notice there are tons of buildings and lots of doors. Yet, none of the doors can be opened. In fact, when you wander the cities in search of treasure, there's very little anywhere. Even after a battle in DAO

, there would be a lot of dead bodies with loot (probably at least half or more of the enemies). In DA2, you might kill 20 enemies and end up with 2 bodies with loot.

For creating such a detailed environment, there's really very little to do in them. It's sad that game developers are producing such detailed environments and so drastically under use them. I just don't get this part of game development. If you add a door to a building, plan to allow the gamer to use it. Don't create buildings with doors that don't open.

Map

The map is pretty much worthless. In fact, it's not really a map at all. It's more a poster on the wall with destination points. So, you really have no idea the relationship between one city and another. I'd rather have a real map that shows me the landscape, terrain and where I'm traveling. Fallout 3 at least has a real terrain map that corresponds one to one to a real place in the environment. Dragon Age II doesn't.

Overall

I'm disappointed in this title. It should have been a drastic improvement over DAO, but isn't. They used the Mass Effect 2 engine, but pulled out the VATS-type targeting system that made ME2 a much better game. Without some kind of targeting system, the real-time battles just end up worthless. Why even have four people in the group? It's easier just to run around avoiding them until you can do them in one at a time.

Granted, some longer ranged weapons do offer targeting, but usually blanket targeting rather than individual targeting or, more specifically, limbs, head or torso. It's these little missing things that make this game less than what it should be. It's these attentions to detail that Bethesda seems to never miss, but Bioware seems to

ignore these details in most of their newer games. That is, especially now that EA owns them.

The Qunari segment ending is complete garbage. Not so much from the story, although that is fairly lame. No, the gameplay is just plain frustrating and lame. Note that I am playing this on 'Casual' mode at this point. First, they throw a small wave at you that's easily defeated. Then they throw a wave of 20-30 enemies at you that en

ds up killing your entire group in less than 2 minutes. The spells they throw at you, you have no defense against (not even the mages). The Qunari commander has a fatality move that there is no way out of. Worse, there is no way to know what Qunari has in store to prepare before you get to this part. Even lamer, targeting is near perfect on you by the enemies. So, if you're standing behind a pole on the level, they can still manage to hit you fully (either spells or melee). Even if you're running away or on the other side of the room, they can still manage to fully stab or hit you with their melee weapon. Was this game even play tested?

This is also yet another game that cheats. This lack of t

hought to the combat is complete garbage. Bioware has completely lost its edge. What's left is a hollow shell of a company. At this point, the only major game companies left are THQ, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Valve and Rockstar. Pretty much every other company has either lost their edge by being gobbled up by larger companies like EA or Atari or they just can't produce solid games anymore. Oh well, this is probably the last Bioware

game that I'll review here on Gamezelot.

Note, I haven't completely finished this game yet. But, I don't have to complete the game to already know the frustrating aspects of Dragon Age II.

And last but not least... at least they could proof the copy

Score

• Sound: 8/10
• Graphics: 8.5/10
• Gameplay: 6/10 (still many fundamental problems)
• Story: 6.5/10
• Bugginess: N/A
• Controls: 8.5/10
• Bang-to-buck: 2/10
• Play Value: $15 (rent first, then buy)
• Overall: 5.5/10 (graphics improvement, gameplay is worse)