Crysis demo released.

NRS Guardian · Post by **NRS Guardian** » 2007-10-27 01:27am

http://www.gamespot.com/event/live/crys ... lk=topslot
As the subject says the demo to Crysis came out today. I'm downloading it now, it's the first level and almost 2 gigs.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2007-10-27 02:16am

The game runs surprisingly well! High detail DX9 is totally playable at 1024 with my 2600XT, and even if you turn it down to medium, the graphics are still very impressive.

CaptHawkeye · Post by **CaptHawkeye** » 2007-10-27 09:20am

^Same. I was worried for a little while Crysis just wouldn't hack it on my mid end machine. And that my 7800GS would be at the mercy of the game. Thankfully it isn't. My 1GB of RAM is a bottleneck. But one that is easy to fix. I know that's where my performance problems come from if they arise.

Gameplay wise? The shooting is solid. Weapon mods are badass, but i'd appreciate it if the demo had let us use more. Also, the first level seems to suffer from "script-itis" unfortunantly. Compared to what's been advertised, the first level seems pretty linear. Instead of the large free roam play areas we've been told about, we more have just a bigger level.

The AI varies from intelligent to dumbfuck. I "Vader Choked" a North Korean while he was talking to his friends and since his friend didn't see me do it, they were still talking. I'm not kidding you, they kept their conversation going even while he was in my hands.

The suit abilities are neat. It's cool to have a grenade tossed at your feet, flip to "Maximum Speed" (And by the way, the suit has a cool voice, I flip around the options sometimes just to hear it talk.

) and avoid death by moving 0-50mph in a second. Or "Maximum Strength" which grants you psuedo Gravity Gun abilities. Pick up a crate and cram it into some dude's face!

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2007-10-27 10:38am

How do you choke somebody?

CaptHawkeye · Post by **CaptHawkeye** » 2007-10-27 10:45am

InnocentBystander wrote:How do you choke somebody?

Erm, by "Vader Choke" I was referring more to what Vader did to Captain Antilles. No you can't force choke.

But you can pick people up by the neck and toss them into things. (Run up to them and press F.) With maximum strength, you can knock down walls and trees with them.

Laughing Mechanicus · Post by **Laughing Mechanicus** » 2007-10-27 01:12pm

I don't know why, but I had the distinct impression this game was DX10 exclusive and so was completely ignoring it because I'm not interested in upgrading to Vista any time soon. Anyway turns out I was wrong, so I gave it a try. I'm glad I did, this had been moved onto my buy list. As others have said it runs surprisingly well (except the first time you run it it chugs like crazy as it does some texture caching).

Stark will have an aneurysm, but I actually really enjoyed FarCry - enough so that I've played through it twice. The lame mutants were indeed stupid, but it had good soldier AI and the outdoor environments really did give you the option of approaching the entire level any way you wanted.

So Crysis, on top of the open level design also adds the suit and weapon customisation meaning you have even more options about how you play. The actor models are also stunningly good, as in, best recreation of a human face I've seen in a game as far as I can remember. The scripted sequences were well executed without intruding too much on the gameplay. The demo level was a little more linear than most FarCry levels, but then again the first level in FarCry was more linear than the rest of the game too. The suit and all it's functions I love, because I remember playing Half-Life and wishing the HEV actually acted more like the high tech exo-suit it was supposed to be rather than just an excuse for Quake style armour.

And yes, the Optimus Prime voice telling you about your suit status is awesome (you can change it to a female in the options menu, but it's not as cool).

DavidEC · Post by **DavidEC** » 2007-10-27 01:25pm

Will report on how it runs on my T5600/X1600/2GB laptop, but the gamershell servers (which are generally very fast for public servers) are creaking like hell, all at 90%+ and some at 100% usage.

EDIT: WTF I don't have a T7200, must have had a brain fart. Maybe I'm confusing it with my hallmate's.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2007-10-27 02:08pm

It runs fine on Medium on my x1900XT. My only beef is that Anti-Aliasing doesn't work whatsoever. Either my card is too slow, or bugs in the drivers.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-27 05:15pm

When Internode decides to stop breaking my download at 80% I'll be able to laugh at how Halo didn't have a superhero, but Crysis does. Ha!

DavidEC · Post by **DavidEC** » 2007-10-27 05:57pm

I can't comment on graphics since my system is nowhere near powerful enough for the top stuff. It seems a very competent shooter, with good storytelling, interface, it's challenging, etc.

What especially strikes me is the believability of the physics engine. Smashing up the ramshackle houses, chopping up vegetation, it is what Half-Life 2 Episode 2 tried to be in terms of 'cinematic physics'. Everything behaves in a roughly believable manner and it feeds into the way you play the game - don't like this building in your way? Smash it down! If it were a film, I'd give a round of applause.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-27 05:59pm

Are you saying you don't knock shelves over by walking past, or send coffeecups into orbit by walking near a desk?

DavidEC · Post by **DavidEC** » 2007-10-27 06:11pm

Unfortunately I don't have the privilege of being a nanotechnologically enhanced supersoldier, but you can bet yo ass that I would kick down doors instead of opening them, shouting "This is Spartaaaa", and I'd smash up gas-guzzling SUVs just to make a political statement.

On that note, the Nanosuit is a triumph of sinewy muscular awesomeness in comparison to the "look at my man-breasts" Mjolnir armour.

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2007-10-29 06:00pm

Stark is talking about what happens in games with lesser physics engines, the collision detection lags as you touch an object and by the time it's calculated you're already inside it's geometry or something and it's calculated like if a bullet had hit the object causing it to shoot out of it's place at high speeds, this happens a lot in Bioshock, just approach anything to see it in action.

Oh, also, the game runs great on my 8800GTS, at 1680x1050 on high. It does get a bit choppy during the high detail cutscenes, but never below maybe 15fps, i would say, so it works just fine. In game it looks above 30fps easily.

DavidEC · Post by **DavidEC** » 2007-10-29 08:40pm

I've discovered the Sandbox editor. An editor which allows you to play on the fly. Ownage.

It was a bit odd, frankly, of Crytek to include the multiplayer map Shore - as well as loooads of weapons from the rest of the game - and not allow us to play multiplayer with the demo. Seriously, look through the files on the editor and Crytek have included a LOT of extra files, including the nuke-RPG and the helicopters as well as a slew of armoured vehicles, although in the vehicle regard I don't think it quite matches Battlefield 2.

Shogoki wrote:Stark is talking about what happens in games with lesser physics engines, the collision detection lags as you touch an object and by the time it's calculated you're already inside it's geometry or something and it's calculated like if a bullet had hit the object causing it to shoot out of it's place at high speeds, this happens a lot in Bioshock, just approach anything to see it in action.

Oh right, I wasn't sure how to respond to him to be honest. In Bioshock on 360 I can't say noticed that. UE3-engined games tend to have very odd physics in my experience - noticeably the weightless bodies in Gears of War. Crysis is the most impressive physics engine I've seen since HL2. Try being a lumberjack... with an assault rifle.

Was Stark denigrating Crysis physics?

Oh, also, the game runs great on my 8800GTS, at 1680x1050 on high. It does get a bit choppy during the high detail cutscenes, but never below maybe 15fps, i would say, so it works just fine. In game it looks above 30fps easily.

Do you have the 320MB or 640MB version, out of interest? If the former then I'm very impressed, I would have thought the 320MB would seriously hold it back at such high resolution.

You are the most modest 8800xxx owner I've yet seen. A lot tend to bitch when they get framerate drops when they have 16xAA on... And here I am with 3-4 fps at 1280x800, on high, no AF or AA.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2007-10-29 08:47pm

DavidEC wrote:Was Stark denigrating Crysis physics?

One might automatically assume so (Sorry Stark, I still love you), but rather he was just checking what they're like, given he's being roally ass-raped by his ISP. As usual.

DavidEC · Post by **DavidEC** » 2007-10-29 09:00pm

By the way Shigoki are you aware of this?

DX10 Crysis

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-29 09:24pm

Sadly, it really seems to be Far Cry Again. It's pretty, and it's got some good UI elements, but it's 100% linear, the enemies are incredibly stupid (it's a shame the 'fire flares for reinforcements' seems scripted, as that'd make being a snipzor much more interesting) and the vehicle handling is still crap.

The physics are fine, but really only come into play when destroying buildings. At least whole desks don't shuft around, but there being no 'grab' function is a real shame - the only way to move anything is to pick up, hit or explode them. There isn't even a choice: you can't 'push' a boat back into the water, you have to hit it with a gun or a car. Things 'stacking' and 'falling' properly is very impressive, however, and the building destructions (while 100% set-up) is useful.

The game handles you being 'under' something very badly: at the alien command post, being 'under the boardwalk' locks you into a certain stance and you can't change it, even to a lower stance.

Still, far more enjoyable than I expected. Here's hoping 'normal' is actually 'easy' and 'elite super lord master' isn't just 'have 2 bullets and all the badguys have the hitpoints of an elephant'.

The suit stuff is a lot of fun, and really shows how much awesome Halo missed out on by wanking MC so much in novels and leaving him so lame in the game. Setting speed and running someone over, crushing them, is great fun, and the stealth using more power the faster you move is great. I hope they move the regeneration back a bit, though: armour takes 3-4 hits and it's gone, but comes back in two seconds, which is a bit too CoD for me.

DavidEC · Post by **DavidEC** » 2007-10-29 09:33pm

Try it on Delta difficulty. That's quite challenging, especially considering it's the game's first level. Even in Max Armour mode, your health will take a beating and will then recover perhaps 2-3% per second.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-29 09:35pm

That sounds great: on Normal (the only one I could use at first) the armour would fully regen in perhaps 3s. That's lame.

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2007-10-29 11:36pm

I have a 640 mb factory overclocked 8800gts, to be precise. I run it at 1680x1050 cause that's my monitor's native resolution.

I did know that, tried it earlier, it does run a bit slower but not by much.

As for being modest, I just rather have the game be playable (for me that means 30fps minimum) than pretty.

Post by **Vympel** » 2007-11-01 10:16am

I just gave the demo a whirl - one of the settings, I don't know which one, but it's one of them, when on high, creates a strange graphics artifact where it looks like there's "bars" going across my screen when looking at certain objects, like rockfaces.

The game runs flawlessly though and it's good fun, though I feel it takes these Korcoms too long to die from being shot.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2007-11-01 03:45pm

The game's awesome, I hadn't had so much fun since Far Cry.

I agree that it's linearity and scripted events are big flaws. AI is not the brightest, although some of the problems come from bugs that I hope will be removed in the final version.

But the best thing is, that Im able to play it on my "a bit obsolete" AMD XP2600+, GF 6600GT. Sure, its on low/medium, but it still looks great.

I was ignoring the game because I thought that a DX10 gizmo would choke my system to death. Im glad to be proven wrong.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2007-11-01 04:03pm

Everything but physics on low settings at 1024x768 and the game still looks decent enough to play. I only played a little of Far Cry, and Crysis is a lot like it. Suit is several degrees of awesome.

Siege · Post by **Siege** » 2007-11-02 08:45am

By the end of the demo level I got the hang of switching from 'max speed' to 'max armour' and so forth on the fly, so that seems to work better than I thought it would. Unfortunately there are still quite a few of FarCry's 'eh?' moments still in there, AKA the enemy is dumb, and yet their body-armour is made of indestructibleness. In the end the best strategy seemd to just max-speed-sprint-blitz the Korean soldier dudes with a shotgun and blow them apart at close range. It looks gorgeous though, so I'll probably give it a spin once it's fully out.