14 DAY TRIAL // I loved the first Crysis and tolerated the second game. As such, I was thrilled at E3 2012 when Crysis 3 showed some impressive visual chops and a solid if limited return to the core gameplay elements that made the franchise a hit – the freedom to use powers and weapons to take out enemies as one sees fit.
Crytek showed a mission, taken from the first third of the game, and one element that immediately captured my attention was the bow, a weapon that can be fired from stealth without detection and has impressive killing power.
The hunting of human enemy soldiers was so enjoyable that I temporarily lost sight of my objective and used up all my arrows, but progress was then possible because of another Crysis 3 innovation: use of alien weapons, which in this case meant an overpowered mortar.
The annoying element of the level shown were the turrets that the development team placed at certain choke points, which are very deadly and tend to slow the flow of the game and force the player to resort to stealth and hacking in order to deal with them.
Crysis 3 manages to impress on a visual level, with the green of the overflowing vegetation mixing in interesting ways with the old decrepit buildings. It will be interesting to see what the development team at Crytek does with the bigger setpieces and the landmarks of New York.
Unfortunately, the team is not yet ready to show off the alien presence for Crysis 3, which made the demo poorer than it should have been.
The third game in the Nanosuit-powered series will also have a multiplayer mode, but the team is not yet ready to talk about it, although a Gamescom reveal is a possibility.
Crysis 3 will be launched during February 2013 on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.