Game Cover

Someone down there wants to be found.

Platform played on: PC

# Review

The story follows a member of the US Special Forces with callsign Nomad, who, with his team, is tasked with infiltrating the Lingshan Islands which have been invaded by North Koreans. The main objectives of the team is to extract the civilian archaeologists working on the island and to gather intel on their discovery. The mission quickly goes awry and much larger conspiracy unfolds. The story takes place in 2020, which is very fitting.

The game makes use of the CryEngine 2, which was at the time one of the most advanced engines. In fact, Crysis was so graphically intensive, it became a benchmark for high-end PC builds, as Crysis was only able to run smoothly on the highest end PCs. The game does look impressive for its age, with subtle features such as volumetric lighting and destructable environments, it doesn't look like a game from 2020, but it can certainly pass as a game from the mid-2010s.

Fast-Paced Gameplay

The game is a first-person tactical shooter; while the missions are linear, there are usualy multiple approaches the player can take when tackling them. Nomad wears an advanced Nanosuit which grants him superhuman abilities, such as temporary invisibility or temporary increased strength. The player can switch between the different abilities on the fly depending on the situation. The guns used are all standardized, but the player can customize them. The gameplay overall feels very smooth, if not a bit repetitive at the beginning. The North Korean portions of the campaign felt very bland as the story and objectives were both very vanilla, but near the end of the game, the story really picks up and so does the level design. Overall the gameplay is decent and definitely on the more unforgiving end in terms of difficulty.

# Conclusion

While the graphics aren't as impressive today, the game was way ahead of its time. The gameplay is solid but a bit bland in the first half of the game.

# Overall rating: 7.2

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