Hands On: Crysis 2

Crytek is premiering their new engine, CryEngine 3.0, in the upcoming Crysis 2, a new first person shooter featuring an enhanced version of the Nanosuit which is set to change the setting for the alien invasion from a remote island to the very heart of New York City.

Yesterday I declared myself a convert to the religion of RAGE, seeing in the game a revolution in how first person shooter look and how they play.

And one question which immediately popped up was how the id Software made came measured up to Crysis 2, the new game from Crytek. Today I found out.

Electronic Arts, who handles the publishing, and the developers are offering a look a Crysis 2 in three dimensions, first through a prerendered trailer that shows how creatively the team managed to turn New York into a battleground littered with the remains of famous buildings and then through a portion of gameplay taken from the single player mode.

3D really suits Crysis 2, especially in the shown footage, which featured one of the huge mechs the aliens will be using this time around and a lot of destructible scenery.

It seems that the player will have access to a lot of new weapons, some of them pretty crazy looking, and that he will need to use them well to take on the more agile or better armored enemies he will face.

I also got a chance to play a bit of Crysis 2 multiplayer, with the developers promising complex maps, customizable classes and load outs and maps based on well known New York landmarks.

The game is pretty fast and allows the player to use either a stealth mode or enhanced armor.

There is a perk system and the choices are pretty significant in the heat of battle. The battlegrounds offer a lot of options for movement around and Crytek promises even more verticality in the final version of the game.

Crysis 2 is set to launch on March 22 on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC.

Crysis 2 Gamescom 2010 multiplayer screenshots:




Crysis 2 live multiplayer footage from EA's Gamescom 2010 press conference: