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hardcore_gamer

Is the original Crysis the most underrated fps of the last decade?

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When Crysis first came out I (and most people in fact) wasn't really able to play it properly because of the insane system requirments (you still need a fairly decent PC to play it at max settings), which meant that I got mediocre fps and had a fairly subpar experience. I gave up playing the game before getting too much into it. Recently however I gave the game another go because I just got a new pc and got a chance to finally play it the way intended, and what I got was easily the best fps expereince I have had in years.

The game is technically linear, but you can approch each mission objective from many different directions, and the game world is very open. You got many different suit powers which allows you to play the game very differently depending on your playstyle, and combined with the open levels you get very high replaybilty.

Basically I think the game got so much hate at release because nobody could really experience the game properly because of the insane system requirments.

Do you think the original Crysis is underrated?

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hardcore_gamer said:

Do you think the original Crysis is underrated?

It got very good reviews on release and currently has a "Universal acclaim" 91 rating on metacritic. You really cannot objectively ask if such praise is not near enough and expect to be taken seriously.

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Plenty of people hate any modern FPS that comes out unless its open world. The entire genre is underrated.

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Quast said:

It got very good reviews on release and currently has a "Universal acclaim" 91 rating on metacritic. You really cannot objectively ask if such praise is not near enough and expect to be taken seriously.


I am talking about gamers, not the reviewers. Also keep it in mind that the reviewers probably had access to state of the art hardware so that they could play the game at the highest setting, while most normal people probably had to play at medium settings (which looks horrible) or if they are lucky, high (which is ok but nothing special).

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Since we are splitting hairs here, are you talking about casual gamers or hardcore gamers of the FPS genre?

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TheCupboard said:

Since we are splitting hairs here, are you talking about casual gamers or hardcore gamers of the FPS genre?


Everybody who played the game. Gamers. Lot's of people were underwhelmed with the game when it first was released.

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I've never played the game but I remember hearing a good bit about it when it was new.

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"The most" is as usual a dubious qualifier, but as far as I'm concerned, yes, it was underrated. Metacritic has little relevance in that regard; it's not a question of whether the game had fans and positive reviews, it certainly did. It has more to do with several aspects of the game being overlooked. Hence, underrated.

Inevitable really, because the few people who praised the wealth of options were drowned out by the noise of the graphics discussion, both pro and against; and it wasn't a difficult game either, so even if you managed to bring up gameplay you'd get the tryhards telling you how they totally could walk through the game with their eyes closed, missing the point and derailing the discussion in one go.

In postmortems Crytek reflected on the perils of challenging player perception as they named their graphic options conventionally and people went in with the assumption the game should run on "very high" because other games ran on "very high", despite Crysis looking years more advanced than everything else at the time, and then they'd bitch about it; but I think it was just as true of the gameplay itself. For the most part you had this sandbox for you to play and experiment with; yet it was wrapped under a very standard handholding listen to NPCs follow the arrow to the next checkpoint type plot, and very much like the graphics issue I think many people were fooled into playing it like a corridor shooter, and had a bad experience as a result. Looking back there was definitely a mistake in tone, although it makes me grumpy to see people so unwilling to just have fun and enjoy themselves unless they're explicitely told to...

Then you had other problems here and there, like the alien ship was troublesome for plenty of people with motion sickness. Still a fantastic game IMHO. Ironically it runs worse on my current computer than it did back then, getting some gamebreaking microstuttering issues due to win7 64 + certain hardware combinations I think... So much for the game being futureproof. ;)

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Phml said:

In postmortems Crytek reflected on the perils of challenging player perception as they named their graphic options conventionally and people went in with the assumption the game should run on "very high" because other games ran on "very high", despite Crysis looking years more advanced than everything else at the time


I would argue that the game actually looks better than most of the games we can play TODAY. One of the things that makes Crysis look so fantastic are all the little details which many modern games lack.

For example here is a guy who recorded the game at 240fps and then put the game into slow motion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPeVje3geOQ

Note the part at 0:50 where the car goes flying into the air with little bits and pieces coming of it before exploding. Yes I know other games have bits appear when you blow things up, but in Crysis it feels much more convincing. It's those litle details that make Crysis so awesome and immersive. The sequel however dumbed this down.

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Most underrated? I don't know, but I will say it got largely overlooked because of the hype about its graphics. Actually, when I finally got a PC fast enough to run it, I found the armor system really added a new twist to the genre, and I liked that. It's not revolutionary, but it was a far cry (eh, eh, see what I did there?) from being just another boring, generic FPS like everyone made it out to be.

The problem was, all anyone wanted to talk about were the graphics, both defenders and detractors. The defenders praised it for having amazing graphics, the detractors argued it had nothing to it beyond having fancy graphics, but no one really talked too much about the gameplay itself, which I think is a shame, because like I said, I thought the gameplay was actually kind of new and interesting. So yeah, in that sense, because the gameplay aspect of it got so overlooked, I'd definitely say it was underrated, at least by gamers if not by reviewers.

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Crysis was the talk of the gaming world when it came out. Insane graphics, insane system requirements, the nano suit, the island... It was one giant Cryengine vs Unreal war on the internet. This could hardly be called an underrated game or engine. But it did suffer from its system requirements where the mid-range pc's had problems running it...

And i believe that is why unreal took over with such an dramatic number of games from Gears of War and mass effect (1,2,3) to batman Arkham City and the borderlands, because it could run on a lot more systems with a lot less power and with great graphics.

The entire ordeal around its rendering quality and an engine demanding more then what most people their pc had to offer at that time create the illusion of it being an underrated or even less played game.

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I'd say Black for the PS2/XBox is more underrated. It came out to generally favorable reviews but was quickly forgotten. It was one of the few games I can remember that knocked people dead in previews, then went on to deliver on the hype.

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I played crysis when it came out with fairly new pc back then. I enjoyed it and replayed some parts many times like that tank battle in the valley. I also played its sequel crysis warhead but havent since touched the series. I heard crysis 2 was awful and 3 is also out. Maybe I should find time and play them and form my own opinions out of them.

Bucket said:

I'd say Black for the PS2/XBox is more underrated. It came out to generally favorable reviews but was quickly forgotten. It was one of the few games I can remember that knocked people dead in previews, then went on to deliver on the hype.


First killzone for ps2 is also very underrated and misunderstood game. People were dissapointed that it wasn't the promised halokiller but if you think out of the box, its very good game.

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I think 'gameplay' in shooters is underrated in a way. Crysis let you have fun without interrupting you too much, you could stealth or go balls out with just a few cutscenes here and there. Ever since then most shooters have gone down the cinematic route, interrupting the player every five minutes to watch a scripted sequence.

I think Crysis just lacked a bit of character though, there was no memorable Doomguy, or villain. You could punch the shit out of those wooden shacks though, I remember that!

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Bucket said:

I'd say Black for the PS2/XBox is more underrated. It came out to generally favorable reviews but was quickly forgotten. It was one of the few games I can remember that knocked people dead in previews, then went on to deliver on the hype.


I remeber playing Black on the PS2 but while I thought the game was awesome at the time when I look back at it I can see a number of serious flaws. The biggest flaw is that while the game had lots of fancy explosions and destrutable stuff to blow up, the game was very linear and had little replay value. It was like an awesome pop-corn movie. Watch once and enjoy and then forget. The later half of the game also played more like a typical shooter and doesn't live up to the first half.

Waffenak said:

First killzone for ps2 is also very underrated and misunderstood game. People were dissapointed that it wasn't the promised halokiller but if you think out of the box, its very good game.


I dunno, I thought Killzone 1 was just ok even at the time. A couple of years ago I bought the HD version of the PS store and was shocked by how poorly it had aged even though the graphics looked better. It was a solid though generic fps with a interesting story/setting. I perfectly get why people don't like it all that much. It wasn't until the series made it into the PS3 that the games started to get really good, with Killzone 3 so far being the best in the series.

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Don't know what to say about Crisis. Haven't played it in years. When I played it, it didn't seem that great. The visuals were the benchmark of DirectX 10 (and 9) compared to other games. I found Farcry to be much better. I think any game that takes voice acting and story telling too seriously just becomes worse than it has too, and Crisis seemed that way. Duke 3D and Farcry are both entertaining and have great humor, and the other Build engine games. Half Life too. Crisis seemed kinda bland, linear, slow, and when I progressed I didn't feel like I accomplished much.

I think a lot of modern FPS's make the mistake of being too linear and restrictive (and terribly lame gibs. What happened to "House of the Dead" like gibs?). For example, once you go forward you can't go back. They need to be more dynamic and give players the ability to go backwards to previous levels with cool stuff to do there (like spending hours underwater). Kind of like an adventure game: new enemies appear, different traps, new weapon, new vehicles, but the same level when you first started 10 hours ago. Similar to dejavu. Painkiller is the only fps that makes it fun blasting through stages, besides Build engine games. Probably because it doesn't try to be like Doom (found that key card yet? Get it? Don't want the player to place his mind on other things right?).

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Holering said:

Don't know what to say about Crisis. Haven't played it in years. When I played it, it didn't seem that great. The visuals were the benchmark of DirectX 10 (and 9) compared to other games. I found Farcry to be much better. I think any game that takes voice acting and story telling too seriously just becomes worse than it has too, and Crisis seemed that way. Duke 3D and Farcry are both entertaining and have great humor, and the other Build engine games. Half Life too. Crisis seemed kinda bland, linear, slow, and when I progressed I didn't feel like I accomplished much.

I think a lot of modern FPS's make the mistake of being too linear and restrictive (and terribly lame gibs. What happened to "House of the Dead" like gibs?). For example, once you go forward you can't go back. They need to be more dynamic and give players the ability to go backwards to previous levels with cool stuff to do there (like spending hours underwater). Kind of like an adventure game: new enemies appear, different traps, new weapon, new vehicles, but the same level when you first started 10 hours ago. Similar to dejavu. Painkiller is the only fps that makes it fun blasting through stages, besides Build engine games. Probably because it doesn't try to be like Doom (found that key card yet? Get it? Don't want the player to place his mind on other things right?).


BioShock?

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Pure Hellspawn said:

BioShock?

No (but Bioshock is definitely a better FPS IMO). More like a cross between "Oblivion" and "F.E.A.R.".

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I hardly even consider Bioshock an FPS. I mean, it has FPS elements, but the game is really more about (more or less) leveling up your character and strategic use of your powers than it is about twitch reflexes. You can't really just run and gun your way through the game - especially with the boss characters, bullets and dodging alone just aren't enough to get you through. In that regard it seems more like, say, an Elder Scrolls game - it took me a long time to get into the Elder Scrolls games, because it took me a long time to figure out that simply mastering the combat wasn't enough when dealing with higher-level monsters and whatnot, you actually have to get your stats up for combat mastery to matter (in other words, it doesn't matter how good you are at timing your blocks/slashes, a high-level enemy will simply smash through your defenses and not take any damage).

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Along with many other gamers here I don't feel that Crysis is underrated so much as it has been overlooked for the most part. I've never actually played Crysis so I cannot attest to it's playability, but I imagine gameplay was not given full attention when the game came out. Was Crysis underrated during it's release? I cannot say for sure as I did not pay much attention to it back then. Is Crysis still underrated currently? Not at all.

I have no doubts about the game being fantastic, but every time I hear the name "Crysis" I giggle & remember this silly video posted in another Crysis thread on Doomworld (it seems you have started more than one of these threads, hardcore_gamer) -

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Crysis has been talked about a shitload since its release, and I've rarely heard people criticise it. It's still somewhat popular and take any modern gamer and say "hey, heard of crysis?" and the answer will be "yes" 99 times out of 100. I don't really know how much more praise a game could need..

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