Crysis: Hands On Preview

Glad to see the parts that I was most interested in seeing: the underwater scenery and beach sand. Good article and I'm happy to see that the authors touched base on portions of the game beyond all the scenic glitter that everyone seems to be senselessly overhyped about.

Cool. I hope I can chuck chickens into a low orbit......

Hopefully the DX10 version will have a bit more fluidity/reaction to the brush.

What resolution where you guys pushing that 8800gts? I really want to run this game native 1680x1050 on my 22". That would SO rock.

:)

Originally Posted by doomguardian
At E3 one of the devs said it would be 12-15 hours running through it.

In an interview with Martin Lancaster, Crysis' lead writer, he told us ten hours.

“We’re currently aiming for around 10 hours gameplay in the single player campaign (of Crysis) but, of course that time will vary from player to player. As for episodic content, we have been thinking about it, as everybody in the industry probably has. With the right game concept, there are a lot of positive arguments for episodic content and it’s definitely something to consider for the future.”

I'm not hugely concerned - the game isn't due out for 3 full months. OK, so lop off 2 of those 12 weeks for it to go gold and work its way through the retail production process. That leaves 10 full weeks for the lads at Crytek to tighten things up. I'm not sure that one game is enough to claim 'a good track record', but Far Cry was decent and I have confidence in Crysis.

Of course, Bioshock is out in 10 days and that will go some way to take the shine off Crysis' graphical splendour - for the longest time the latter has been the best looking game to hit the PC gaming radar. But if the 360 version of Bioshock is any indicator, expect a bit of a dark horse come 24th August :)

I want to know what the FPS are like, on current hardware. This games looks sick but I want to know how the hardware handles.

10 hours? sounds a little low... but remember... that has been pretty much standard in the last few yers for fps games. doom 3 was no longer (except when you got lost in the darkness and coudnt find the way:))

Originally Posted by Neogumbercules

1. Do you auto heal in every suit mode, or just armor mode? How fast do you auto heal? (I f'n hate auto-healing)
2. When you hold enemies up by their necks, can you punch them in the face?
3. How many weapons did you get to use?
4: Do you know what kind of hardware you were working with, and how did it run?
5. Do you fear this game will carry the EA curse?

2) YES! But you have to grab them while in speed mode to get to punch them more than once. You can stand there going, "Who's your Daddy? Who's your Daddy?" as they struggle and take it. :D It's funny for all of 10 minutes.
3) Pistol, Gun, extra gun, hands (afaik).
1) Everything heals, armour heals faster. It takes ~20 seconds to heal completely which is quite long in combat and it slows down after you hit 50-80%.
4) At least an 8800 and dual core processor. It was beta, I didn't check. It ran perfectly fine, very smooth but it was 1280x720.
5) Yes. Although I didnt see product placement.

You can not judge how it handles UNTIL it goes Gold, the last 10% of coding time gets the most optimisation and tweaking.

Originally Posted by doomguardian
I decided to register here after hearing this rant...a lot of problems in this article.

First of all, there is a huge difference between armour and strength. In armour, you pretty much absorb all the incoming bullets, and health recharges much faster than usual. You're also slower when it's enabled. In strength, well you're pretty much jacked up on incredibly effective steroids. So you can flip jeeps, throw objects far distances, grab enemies by the neck, jump 10 feet high etc. Big difference. Stealth will obviously be tuned - and don't forget that a sniper in thick vegetation with cloak is an extremely powerful weapon. Five seconds seems more than enough, and switching to armour, therefore increasing your energy very quickly, will give you the opportunity to use stealth in no time.

It's not really a rant, it's a discussion of experience and concern on where it's currently lacking. Armour didn't really absorb all incoming bullets otherwise you'd just wade through the level getting shot to hell with no consequence. Strength makes you jump further and higher so you can make building tops and gives you one punch kills, but I tried punching jeeps to little effect and I couldn't flip them after spending time trying. You can do a "bit" more, bit it's not as strikingly obvious as speed or stealth.

You can grab enemies by the neck in any mode. What's the point of a sniper in veg when you can just run at everyone and pummel them in the head?? The five second stealth isn't really a complaint, it just kills your energy far faster than anything else and it's an alternative to using it to run at someone them pummel them. So, you get an option of pummeling, greaaaaaaaaaat. That's entertaining for all of 10 minutes. I'm just highlighting that it needs some focus.

Secondly, you're complaint about the middle mouse button was rather odd. No other publications felt alienated by it; in fact they seemed to grow onto it.

You have to press a mouse wheel down and hold it there, it's not ideal to press a non-ergonomic button that moves if you're in a firefight. You do get used to it but it'll be FAR easier as a thumb button.

Thirdly, you guys are ranting on how the game is so easy. It's the first level. It's supposed to be easy in order to let the player become comfortable with the control scheme. Not to mention there is also a "Delta" difficulty. This means "it's going to be brutal, and that the action will be more realistic". You'll be just as weak as the North Koreans. And the AI is still being worked on.

Lastly, motion blur can be adjusted via options. Turn it all the way off if you so desire.

BTW, love the new pics guys! :)

I know motion blur is adjustable, and Tim had no problem with it. I'm just worried that a core game play feature can be turned off or adjusted making the experience change for people. My point was that people might find it overhwleming if they are more susceptible to motion sickness that's all, and the blur effect felt "overdone" like in PGR3. When I look around the world doesn't completely blur until I stop moving, but that's because my eyes focus on a new position as I move.

As far as difficulty goes, the AI needs to add to it a LOT and we're aware it's getting fixed. It's half way there and we're just pointing out what is currently there and what isn't with regards to gameplay. Even if it's the first level, having ALL those options available to you doesn't help you learn so much it ends up as a Sandbox: there's no focus to hone your skills currently but what I hope in the final build is that they build it up and don't let you just have everything straight away.

Our absolute main concern is that we really, really hope that it's not been dumbed down because it's being ported to consoles. There was no foliage movement or any really cool features we've seen in the trailers.

btw it was anounced for a november 15th release

clearly sounds like a Alpha problem to me (in RE: to the AI)

Yep, it still needs some work but they've only got 3 months ;)

In comparison, the STALKER beta required two 8800 GTX and 4GB of memory, but playing it was very much like the final game.

Aww man, damm money problems. I knew I should of went to i31

Looks fantastic, just hope those AI niggles get fixed.

I guess this is what I was always scared of, a game I got so pumped about it could never actually meet my expectations - hopefully the AI issues will be dealt with but funnily enough I was always looking forward to switching between speed and strength mode and just sprinting up a chibbing a guy in the head :D

That release date seems soo far away, oh well, Halo 3 between now and then;)
Do you guys think this game will look fine on a large screen, like the Dell 24"?

Sam

looks nice, and I'm sure they will fix the AI (hoping, praying ect..)

One thing though. Assuming what we are looking at in the pic below is the players shadow, does one of the armor modes give you a tail or a really long **** ??
http://www.bit-tech.net/content_images/2007/08/crysis_hands_on_preview/crysis-water800.jpg

Eee...so it's not click, then spin for the suit? Why wouldn't...oh nm, Bioshock will be out next week. :D

yay this comes out like 5 days after my birthday!!

50p it gets delayed :P
nice article tho. you would have thought they would be well past alpha/beta this late in the game, considering its probably been work in progress for many years. and I really hope they dont bring it out on a console or dumb it down for them. FPS belongs on the PC not with some stupid control pad.

Thats a fine looking chicken there.

Originally Posted by phat-ant
50p it gets delayed :P
nice article tho. you would have thought they would be well past alpha/beta this late in the game, considering its probably been work in progress for many years. and I really hope they dont bring it out on a console or dumb it down for them. FPS belongs on the PC not with some stupid control pad.

Not really. We got STALKER beta in Jan/Feb and it was released in April :)

90% of the work in 15% of the time.

Originally Posted by Caj Darkmoon
Most anticipated FPS of the year?

Common, that stuck out like a sore thumb. Easily HALO 3 takes that title among the general population.

I'm not sure I agree, but if you ask console gamers then you may have a point. If you ask PC gamers then Crysis would ne no.1 I'm sure.

The article was a very interesting read, I'm also more than satisfied to see that my upgrade has been worth while :D.

If there is one thing I'm disappointed about it must be the measly 10 hour Single Player action. The game will be busted in no time....but then OK that leaves a few months to frolic on the beach and amongst the lush vegetation.

As for the bugs though, at only 3 months from launch does anyone else see this being more than a little tight? Better speak to HR about some holiday time in Nov.

Originally Posted by Tim S
Yep, I think we broke that news here: http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2007/07/23/writing_for_the_lcd__fps_games/5

oh I must have missed that

Originally Posted by The_Beast
oh I must have missed that

don't worry about it dude

I always felt this was going to be the case for Crysis tbh, that it would be like Far Cry and blow us away with graphics, but suffer on the gameplay and story front.

It'll be most interesting to play the later levels of the game on the Alien mothership, where Zero gravity send you spinning with every shot fired. THAT'll give Bindi some serious motion sickness.

[QUOTE=Dr. Strangelove;1535415]looks nice, and I'm sure they will fix the AI (hoping, praying ect..)

One thing though. Assuming what we are looking at in the pic below is the players shadow, does one of the armor modes give you a tail or a really long **** ??
http://www.bit-tech.net/content_images/2007/08/crysis_hands_on_preview/crysis-water365.jpg[/

That's the dudes pistol in a holster :|

RE: hardware, to clarify it was a QX6700, 8800GTX (not GTS as Tim said, sorry) and 2GB of 800MHz DDR2, picture was smooth (subjective rather than framerate) on both a 32in NEC 720p LCD TV and a 1,280 x 1,024 LCD monitor (the latter of which wasn't as physically painful on the eyes as sitting 3 inches from a TV)

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

Quote:

Originally Posted by doomguardian
Secondly, you're complaint about the middle mouse button was rather odd. No other publications felt alienated by it; in fact they seemed to grow onto it.

You have to press a mouse wheel down and hold it there, it's not ideal to press a non-ergonomic button that moves if you're in a firefight. You do get used to it but it'll be FAR easier as a thumb button.

Actually pressing and holding "V" (by default) on the keyboard was a heck of a lot easier than using middle mouse, no risk of entering the radial menu by pressing the scroll wheel while choosing weapons.

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

Quote:

Originally Posted by phat-ant
50p it gets delayed :P
nice article tho. you would have thought they would be well past alpha/beta this late in the game, considering its probably been work in progress for many years. and I really hope they dont bring it out on a console or dumb it down for them. FPS belongs on the PC not with some stupid control pad.

Not really. We got STALKER beta in Jan/Feb and it was released in April :)

90% of the work in 15% of the time.

Speaking to one of the dudes from EA, they apparently had to get a couple of fixed DLLs e-mailed over to i31 literally just before the demo went live because of problems where screwing up Intel/Scan's machines; frankly the guys were surprised the build on show was even working on the machines at Multiplay as the code hadn't statred to be optimised or entered QA yet.

All in all, having played for a similar time on both Crysis and Bioshock I definitely feel more excited about the latter.

Originally Posted by Archangel
RE: hardware, to clarify it was a QX6700, 8800GTX (not GTS as Tim said, sorry) and 2GB of 800MHz DDR2, picture was smooth (subjective rather than framerate) on both a 32in NEC 720p LCD TV and a 1,280 x 1,024 LCD monitor (the latter of which wasn't as physically painful on the eyes as sitting 3 inches from a TV)

uh oh :(

i have 20' with 1680x1050 native wit x2 3800+ @2.95Ghz + 8800GTS 640........