Cory's Game Reviews

The Story…

The story picks right up from Crysis 1 Remastered following Prophet as he continues to stop the alien invasion. At the start of the game, we are introduced to a new character who we play throughout the game, Alcatraz. Alcatraz is a marine who barely survives an alien attack, but is saved by Prophet and dragged to safety.

The story then unfurls as Alcatraz dons the nanosuit to continue Prophet’s quest. It has you running around New York City where you’ll meet various characters in an attempt to thwart the invasion. You’ll be fighting Cell and Ceph (aliens) alike. Cell are a group of soldiers employed by CryNet, trying to hunt you down for the nanosuit and the Ceph are an advanced alien race who are trying to take over the world. I really enjoyed the whole story of this game, right through to the end, and aside from some minor bugs during cutscenes, it was good! In fact, it might be my favourite out of the 3 games.

The Gameplay…

The gameplay as stated in my previous review of “Crysis 1 Remastered” is like shooters such as Call of Duty and Halo that came out around the same time. Expect the main difference between them and this game is the nanosuit. 

The nanosuit is a High-tech piece of military equipment that allows the operator to do incredible things and survive events that would kill the average person. Through using the various modes, it provides you an armour mode and a cloak mode which give you an advantage over your adversaries. You can walk straight into enemy fire and not feel a thing using “Maximum Armour”. You can sneak past people if you want to avoid confrontation using “Cloak”. Either way, you’ll eventually go through levels blasting through your foes. One thing you’ll have to keep in mind is the power gauge used to power the various modes of the suit. If it runs out while you’re in the middle of fighting off enemies, you really will be in trouble so management is key.

While using the tactical visor, you can assess situations before jumping in. See that sniper post, get yourself down there and start picking them off! See that flanking position, get behind them and cause some chaos. It also allows you to scan the environment for ammo and weapons as well as enemies to see what they’re equipped with. There are tons of ways to proceed through missions depending on the type of player you are.

The nanosuit has had a bit of a change this time around. After you progress into the campaign, you’ll unlock the ability to use upgrades to make the suit more powerful by killing Ceph. This allows you to use abilities such as the ground pound and allowing you to stay cloaked longer before needing a cooldown. They’re all nifty and help you use the suit how you want.

The weapons are just as customisable as the first game, allowing you to add scopes and suppressors to go hand in hand with your playstyle. It even allows you to change it on the fly, do you feel you need to be quiet if there are a lot of enemies? Silence your weapons. Do you need to clear a room? Add an underbarrel attachment such as a grenade launcher. The choice of how you play this game is limitless. I thoroughly enjoyed playing with all the gadgets and weapons through my playthrough.

The Graphics…

In terms of graphics, the game looks beautiful. From the raytracing and reflections off of the water on the ground to the lens flares hitting your suit’s visor from the sun. It all really holds up well in 2023. The first game was dubbed the “PC-killer” as most PCs could not handle it and honestly, this game is no different. I played this on the Xbox Series X, and it worked well for the most part, aside from a few graphical bugs during cutscenes and the framerate tanking when you got too close to an enemy and shot them. The likely cause was down to the flare of the gunfire, but it didn’t happen too often so it wasn’t too much of a problem.
As you explore the levels, you’ll see a lot of lush greens from the plant life which stand out as they did with the first game. They make the levels feel like they have so much life in them in contrast to the greys of the buildings and rubble. The environment and Cell operators sort of melt together sometimes in comparison to the Ceph enemies.

Speaking of the enemies, as I stated, the Cell guys don’t stand out as much with their white armour and uniforms. The Ceph however, with their metallic armour stand out well, as does their jelly-like bodies under the armour, having a very visible pink colour definitely shows their weak spots… The colour popping from their eyes looks good too, lighting up crimson in the dark, dingey environments makes them feel so much erier and more threatening. Speaking of lighting, it looks crisp and bright and provides you with sight during the dark sequences (obviously). If you choose to not use the nanovision much that is.

The Sounds/ Soundtrack...

The soundtrack is fine, it’s your typical shooter style soundtrack and comes alive during key moments and set pieces. It’s really punchy during set cutscenes where you’re in the nanosuit and it’s talking to you between levels. The weapons also sound like they punch like a gorilla, having a hefty amount of weight per shot which sounds like they look. From the standard pistol sounding poppy, knowing you could one tap human enemies with headshots, to the Scarab assault rifle which per shot sounds like it’d shred through anything. The gun sounds have been absolutely nailed in this game as they did with the previous game. The PSG-1 still sounds beautiful…

The nanosuit sound effects have been nailed yet again, which based on what suit mode you’re in, depends on how loud it will be. For example, if you’re in the armour mode, every footstep sounds like you weigh more than a tank. Whereas, in contrast, the cloak mode is so much quieter and more efficient, which can be upgraded through the upgrade system as stated earlier.

In Conclusion…

Crysis 2 is a fantastic shooter for fans of the genre. It adds new challenges in terms of managing the suits use as well as how you approach each level.