What are your thoughts on Crysis 1 for the consoles?

As some of you might know, the original Crysis has been re-released for the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

I have been playing the PS3 version for about an hour and a half, here are my first impressions:

The visuals are actually really good for a PS3 game even if they aren't as good as they are on the PC, so I don't get the complaints there. In fact, this console version actually has some new awesome visual effects that aren't present in the PC version (though I only played the PC version a little bit because my PC could not run it very well).

The biggest problems however, are the sluggish controls and the poor framerate. The controls aren't terrible, but it can be very difficult hitting anything at all while firing from the hip even when you are just a few meters away from the enemy because aiming smoothly with the PS3 analog stick in this game is just not possible it seems unless you aim down the iron sights. This is an even bigger problem then it sounds, I have literally been in situations where I have missed enemies with a shotgun even when they are right in front of me because the aiming controls are mediocre. The game controls are at least serviceable, though.

The framerate is where the game stinks the most. Its not unplayable by a long shot, but the game just barely stays at 30 FPS and almost always drops to something less when a lot of stuff is going on. The framerate issues are actually worse then they were in the PS3 version of Crysis 2. Just like with the mediocre controls though, its not bad enough to ruin the game.

The one area of the game that doesn't fail whatsoever however is the audio. Simply put: It great. Guns sound powerful and devastating, if you a proper audio system/speakers then you are in for a treat.

All things considered, I would say that Crysis for the PS3 is a fairly good deal considering that its only 20 bucks and that it provides really good graphics for a PS3 game.

Anyone else has an opinion on this re-release of Crysis 1?

Also, here is a video from the console version:

I think it's great that Crytek have come far enough to be able to pull programming trickery to get C1 running on extreme low-end hardware at a playable framerate.

I don't really like the over-contrasted look (stylistically), the original C1 had a "softness" to it's graphics that really made it look natural and real.

W/E, enjoy.

PS what did you think of the new controls? How do speed and strength mode work?

Mr. T said:

How do speed and strength mode work?

Its basically just copy pasted from the same system that was in place in Crysis 2.

There is one good difference however, the fact that your suit's energy now appears to be depleted at a slower rate. I felt that the cloak mode was almost useless in the PC version because it depleted the suit energy so quickly, but now it is actually possible to do stuff with it.

Mr. T said:

I think it's great that Crytek have come far enough to be able to pull programming trickery to get C1 running on extreme low-end hardware at a playable framerate.

Um... the PS3 has a seven-core PPC chip @ 3.2GHz, 256Mb of RAM, and the equivalent of a GeForce 7600GT. That's not insubstantial.

First I've heard of this. Kind of cool to see a "system killer" ported to consoles without compromising the PC version at all.

I bought this yesterday for PS3, just reached the excavation site. It's a nice looking game, but I've noticed a few graphical glitches. My pistol's laser dot was creating 'sideways lasers', a desk kept flickering and I noticed a soldier teleport a few metres sideways. Also I thought it was pretty cool when I accidentally destroyed two helicopters with one missile, they were flying so close. Only thing is the game is quite dull at times, I just try to sprint past all the Koreans to reach the next area.

I plan on playing this sometime this week.

I was waiting for this, thought this was a pipe dream.

Captain Toenail said:

it was pretty cool when I accidentally destroyed two helicopters with one missile, they were flying so close.

That is nothing compared to the helicopter that destroyed itself in my save. It spotted me and started to chase me, I fled into a jungle area that was on top of a hill and the helicopter tried to chase me but just crashed into the hill instead and died.

What a fucking big LOL that was.

Though now that I think of it, the AI is kind of bad at times. Also, I HATE the horrible almost racist accents that Koreans use. I don't get it why the Koreans only speak actual Korean when playing on hard or higher.

Bucket said:

Um... the PS3 has a seven-core PPC chip @ 3.2GHz, 256Mb of RAM, and the equivalent of a GeForce 7600GT. That's not insubstantial.

Ummm it is considering you need 4gb of RAM and a 1gb video card (or better) to play C1 on high at a speed higher than "slideshow"

(1) Consoles aren't running OSes that take up 33% of that RAM just to idle.
(2) The engine hasn't been optimized for any kind of hardware, because lord knows what people are running on their PCs.
(3) Textures can be compressed.
(4) A quad-core PC was considered high-end when Crysis came out, still two fewer cores than a PS3 developer can use.

1. The Crysis app uses 1-1.5gb of RAM, what's your point?

2. Yes. That's why Crysis will run on console HW far worse than any PC hardware. I said that was good in my post before.

3. That's why console Crysis has ugly low res textures (not Crytek's fault btw. Console just does not have enough RAM.). Why are you saying that like it's a good thing?

4. So? with a C2Quad (budget CPU now btw) Crysis isn't bottlenecked by CPU anymore. Consoles CPU cannot handle Maximum Crysis anyway (reduced physics and AI). Number of cores doesn't mean shit. My laptop's dualcore is faster than a 2007~ era quadcore anyway.

I think Crytek has done a great job of porting Crysis. And reviews reflect that. But u need to stop drinking the kool aid dude.

I'm not surprised it was doable. Optimizing an engine for a very specific set of hardware has a lot of performance advantages over trying to make the damn thing work at all when the possibilities of hardware and software combinations are endless like on a PC.

I might check it out sometime, though I only find console shooters enjoyable when it has meaningful split screen support like Borderlands or Unreal Tournament 3.