First off: SPOILER WARNING.
For those of you who don't know me (read: everyone) I've become something of an urban legend within my house for my chronic computer problems. It all started around Christmas of 2006 when, having moved to University of Leeds halls in September with a computer that was about ready to die, the unthinkable happened as my beloved rig breathed it's last, coughed, and rolled over to die in a pathetic heap. Sparing little time for remorse I set about remedying the situation with some money I had tucked away and within a month or so I had all the gear I needed to play the most demanding game of the time: Supreme Commander. This is where the problems started.
You have to understand something about me: I'm a man. I'm a man who knows he can get shit done. So when a few boxes full of electrical equipment turn up at my house my natural reaction is to chortle quietly and get to work making that stuff function for daddy. My mistake here was that while I understand how to build a computer I'd never actually done it before. I'd swapped graphics cards sure, and exchanged bits of memory on occasion, but the moment I drew that motherboard out of the box a small voice in the back of my head suggested I might be better off leaving it to an expert. I didn't leave it to an expert. As of November 2008, after inumerable attempts to get supposed experts to fix it, several broken processors, a broken graphics card, a fried motherboard and two-bloody-years of patience the damn thing had died again. I sent it to the shop to get it reformatted, the same shop I'd send it to at least half a dozen times beore to try and work out what exactly was wrong with it. When I went to retrieve it in January of this year the dude hands it to me and says: "All done... Oh, and you had some bad RAM in there. Swapped it out for you. Good as new now". Bad RAM? Seriously? Are you fucking joking? Two years and all I needed to do was spend £60 on a couple of new memory sticks? I was simultaneously delighted and furious. Delighted that for the first time in two years I could actually play games on my computer and furious that a problem so simple took so damn long to remedy.
I've set about making up for lost time these past few months, blitzing out Dawn of War (all expansions), Supreme Commander, Defcon, Oblivion, Fallout 3. All the games I couldn't play because my computer was whimpering quietly in the corner. I finished them all in what must be record time (although saying I 'finished' Fallout is something of a redundant statement given the scope of things to do in that game) and then set my sights on the newer stock. With a job under my belt I could afford to feed my habit and so picked up Crysis and Left 4 Dead a couple of weeks ago with the intention of keeping myself occupied for a long time. Unfortunately I got ill so Left 4 Dead hasn't really seen much of my attention yet, Crysis on the other hand has and it is this game that will be the main focus of this vitriolic blog entry.
Crysis is a great game. I can see that. Even though my rig isn't top shelf anymore I was able to run it at decent settings and the technical side of it is nothing short of breathtaking. Jumping onto a building, punching through the roof and killing everyone inside before they even knew you were this is an immensly satisying experience. Slaughtering Koreans is, for the most part, very entertaining and can lend to the gamer hours of fun. For the most part. You see, the Korean campaign is only fun for a couple of hours beore it gets repetitive because the game suffers from being unable to decide what it wants you to be. You're powerful enough that creeping around seems unecessary but not quite so powerful as to avoid embarassing death if you make a wrong move. To be brutally honest the Korean part of the game seemed like a dull sandbox mode that occasionally decides it's going to fuck you over. And it lasts six chapters. Six chapters. That's half the game.
This guys face, but for 12 hours The best parts of this trawl through east asias finest are the moments that boost the narrative: the frozen ship in the middle of the jungle or the occasional emergence of an alien who appears out of nowhere to grab one of your men before speeding off into the canopy. These moments made me feel like I was making my way towards some crucial zeitgeist from which the rest of the game would spew forth. Don't get me wrong, using the suit to kill humans is brilliant but that game mechanism alone is not enough to push the experience as a whole forward. It was the narrative and the feeling that some unpalpable force was waiting just around the corner, ready to turn me from your average super-powered marine (HOO-RAH) into humanities last hope. When the aliens finally turn up (properly at least) it's a breathtaking experience. Thrusting into the heart of their organic sanctuary and witnessing first hand the abstract nature of their design is frankly stunning. There are smacks of the first appearance of Farcry's Trigens in this 'Core' chapter as opaque aliens launch themselves at you with increasing vigour but fortunately Crytek managed to get it right this time (i.e. You can actually kill the damn things without a shotgun). You find yourself unable to put the game down, wondering what will happen next. Your escape amidst all hell breaking loose is a tense and juicy experience that I will no doubt repeat, but herein lies the problem: the only part of the game I want to repeat is the part after the aliens turn up. The story is so much better there, the game more involving. The thing is, this part of the game only lasts five chapters.
Following several hours of tense combat and retreat, I found myself, as one often does, fighting a giant alien exosuit on the deck of a burning aircraft carrier and I realised I had become stuck, so I swallowed my pride and went online to see how to bring the big bastard down. I found the info and then noticed, sitting there on the side of the page, mocking me as only a bar of formatted text can: 'Chapter 10: Ascension, FINAL MISSION: Reckoning'. 'Final mission'? You mean I don't get to do anymore of this? Bitch I've just started. But no, there's nothing else, just this admittedly exhilarating boss fight (only the second in the game. Seriously. Two boss fights), a cut scene (and I'll get to that little problem later) and the credits. Crytek have, at best, not finished the damn game and, at worst, just left the second half out to make some money. Don't get me wrong, I understand companies need to make money and Crytek wanted to make a sequel. I understand that the game still provided me with hours of entertainment. But seriously Crytek, that's bush league guys. I killed the exosuit, blew up an alien ship, jumped on one of my own and flew back towards the island ready to show the alien menace what Uncle Sam thinks of it. I was ready guys. I wanted to go back and finish the damn things off, to purge deep into the heart of darkness and return victorious, but you wouldn't let me.
"Swing round tank and continue fighting alien hordes? Insert £35"I'm not asking you to kill the franchise Crytek. I don't want to absolutely erase the aliens from the face of the earth at the end of the first game, I just wanted to go back to the island and finish them off there. Let me use the new mini-nuke launcher you've just given me more than three times before you end the game, let me cleanse the island and you can leave the massive planetary conflict for the second game. If you still want another game after that then you can take the fight to space. There's so much you could have done with that story that didn't necessistate you cutting the first game in half like that. As it is all you've got is an admittedly enjoyable and overly elabroate prologue with an ending that features a dozen or so lines of dialogue and takes a maximum of three minutes. If anything the succint ending scene is testimony to the fact that Crytek knew when they made Crysis that they were, rather than making the first book in a trilogy, in fact only making the first chapter. It just so happens this first chapter is a hundred and fifty words long and only the first ten and the last fifty are worth reading.
This has probably been far wordier than any reasonable blog entry ever should be, but the feeling of disappointment I felt when those credits rolled was something I've not felt at the end of a game for a long time. I need my games to tell a story, I need to feel like I'm a part of it and most of all I need to feel like it's drawn to a natural conclusion. There's nothing wrong with a cliffhanger, but if you spend half of your game aimlessly meandering around before trying to cram all the necessary materials for an effective ending into the other half chances are either your game is too short or you need to revaluate A) Your storytelling and B) What you've commited that first half too. All are true of Crysis, which could have been one of the best games of all time, but - because of it's ending - is destined to go down as a stunning and incredibly entertaining sandbox game.
Cheers.
- Jimmy D
