Super-soldier fights future foes
Name: Crysis 3
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Genre: First person shooter
Rating: Mature
EA’s newest installment of the Crysis series is a gorgeous game. Its creator, the German studio Crytek, has lived up to its promises that it will set a new benchmark for computer graphics. On a state-of-the-art PC, it’s spectacular.
You probably don’t have a state-of-the-art PC, but that’s okay. I played Crysis 3 on Microsoft’s eight-year-old Xbox 360, and it still looks pretty good. If only all that beauty was in the service of something more interesting than another alien bloodbath.
SUITING UP
Actually, Crysis 3 throws two types of enemies at you: the alien Ceph and the human employees of Cell, a corporation that has built a giant dome over the ruins of New York City. As a super-soldier nicknamed Prophet, your job is to get inside the dome and figure out what Cell is up to.
Prophet is equipped with a “nanosuit,” a combination of human and alien tech that has two primary functions — armour and cloaking. If you’re the kind of player who likes to plunge right into firefights, you’ll keep turning on the armour. If you’d rather avoid attracting attention from the Ceph, you can hit the cloaking switch for temporary invisibility.
The nanosuit’s other major feature is a visor that lets you scope out the battlefield before you rush in, pinpointing enemies, as well as locating ammunition dumps and fresh weapons. The visor also helps you hack enemy systems, so you can disarm minefields or turn turrets against their builders.
GEAR OF WAR
Of course, Prophet has the usual assortment of firearms at hand, from pistols and sniper rifles to assault weapons and missile launchers. You can also pick up Ceph plasma weapons, which are somewhat more effective at obliterating the aliens. The silent-but-deadly Predator bow is a little clunkier, but it does let you remain cloaked even while you’re shooting electrified arrows.
HUNTING UP ACTION
Crysis 3 comes with a robust assortment of multiplayer games. There are the expected variations on deathmatch, capture-the-flag and king-of-the-hill, but the real standout is Hunter. It’s a clever game of hide-and-seek in which nanosuit-clad hunters pursue less powerful Cell guards; any guard that gets killed joins the hunters. The suspense is excruciating.
For fans of first-person shooters, the solid online action may be enough to make Crysis 3 a worthwhile purchase. If you’re a PC gamer who wants to show off your new graphics card, it’s probably essential. But if you’re looking for a fresh approach to video game science fiction, you won’t find it here. — AP
By Derrik J Lang
AP
Vocabulary
- installment (n): one of the parts of a story that appears regularly over a period of time
benchmark (n): something that can be measured and used as a standard that other things can be compared with
visor (n): a part of a helmet that can be pulled down to protect the eyes and face
pinpoint (v): to find and show the exact position of somebody or something
obliterate (v): to remove all signs of something, either by destroying or covering it completely
excruciating (adj): extremely painful
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