f13.net

GOOD NEWS: The Crysis Demo will be available 24 hours earlier than announced.

BAD NEWS: But only if you pre-order the game directly from EA. (http://eastore.ea.com/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayPage&Env=BASE&Locale=en_IE&SiteID=eaemea&id=ProductDetailsPage&productID=80914300)

What's the point of the demo, then?

You've been able to get beta keys for some time on Fileplanet but now just subscribers ones are left.  They'll be getting the demo, too, (at least it's listed) but don't know when, or how long they'll last.  The free for all beta keys went really fast, and there seemed to be a lot of them.

When they delayed it last time they said it would be available today, now they are essentially delaying it again because they screwed up a pre-order promise.

Apparently the demo download is completely screwed up too.  The "problems with the demo" thread (http://forums.ea.com/mboards/forum.jspa?forumID=4086) is already fifteen pages even though most haven't managed to actually launch the game yet.  There are problems getting it to download, then there are problems getting it to launch, then the people with enough luck to have launched are crashing one minute in.  They are fucking this up pretty good.

I think that's for the multiplayer, this demo is the single player game itself.

Sounds like it's the miniscule carrot to the massive smacking on the head from the stick.

Just thinking, if I preorder it then why would I need the demo?  Also if I was in beta then why would I need a demo?  Am I the crazy one here?

I think you're correct.  I downloaded it, but haven't been able play it.  Not that I have tried anyway, just lack of time.

My thoughts too.  Surely a demo is an advert to persuade those of us who haven't pre-ordered or have no intention of buying the game to try it and be converted and wanting to rush out to buy it.

This seems either a pointless marketing exercise or highly cynical manipulation of instant-access impatience.

No, I believe you are the sane one.

But... EA. You know. The air is different up there.

You know you CAN be crazy and right.  Trust me.

It's Crysis. Why bother messing around with demo or beta nonsense when you can soon just play the finished complete product, which will be full of greatness and pewpew?

Pewpew is hard to enjoy at 3 FPS.

Point.

The idea behind a demo is to make sure the game has Pew Pew and is not Le Pew.

I've conceded Hammy's point, but I don't concede that one. Crysis will be a fun game.

Hey, I'm working with the general consensus here.  Your husband and you should have dinner with my wife and me sometime.  Then we can determine who is crazy and who isn't.


HINT: It's everyone else!

HAY GUYS NO DEMO 4U IF NOT PREORDAR SO UM DONT BUY IT WHEN RELESE INSTED WAYT FOR DISCOUNT BIN!!!!

makes perfect sense to me.

 :roll:


edit - found this locally.

http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/31644

Also available here: http://files.filefront.com/Crysis+SP+Demo/;8895696;/fileinfo.html

I enjoyed it. Really plays like an updated Far Cry with some neat extra stuff - the suit's strength and camo come in handy a lot and the health system (a la Halo) is very forgiving. I played it on Normal though. Also it's very pretty and my computer stuttered on some of the ingame cutscenes, running it at medium. It definitely requires a beefy computer to run at full settings but still looks great at medium.

Downloaded it and played it on my machine. Its a Core2Duo 6750 w/ 2 gig DDR2 800 ram using a 7950 GTX video card. It should have handled it well, but even on medium settings it was like playing through a wall of pudding. I don't think this game was very optimised to do stuff using Dx9, so I'm gonna wait till I get a Dx10 card.

Got about 50FPS stable on nearly high everything.

Game feels uninspired and dull.

Maximum Boredom.

It's beautiful, but it lacks the heart of Half-Life 2 or Thief or any of those games. It has less heart than Bioshock even.

What resolution were you going at? I initially setup my game for 1900x1200 with 4x Anti-Aliasing since I was getting smooth as silk settings at default, then I went and adjusted the Video Options to Optimal.  I got giddy when it said everything was set to Very High until I started playing and got about 3 FPS.  I kept bumping my resolution and AA down until I got something that was probably 20-25 FPS (Not very smooth, felt like pudding like you said).  That's WITH a DX10 card (Geforce 8800 GTX).

1280x1024.

It's visually impressive and I enjoy the open, less linear game play but the combat isn't terribly fun.  I'll buy it because I like to explore and the environment (especially the sounds) are great but to be honest I will probably use some console hacks so that I don't have to bother with the fighting much.

Clearcutting the jungle with a jeep's maching gun was entertaining, unloading half a clip worth of ammo point blank to kill a cotton shirt wearing North Korean, wasn't.

Pro-tip: Strength mode increases weapon accuracy by quite a bit. Especially helpful if you're trying to shoot midrange and further.

--edit:
Also, hilarious thing to do, if you're about to attack a camp: Spot loners somewhat farther away, sneak up to them cloaked, then grab 'em at their throat and pull them away from the camp.

This is the kind of shit that I love about Far Cry, and I would imagine Crysis. Run through a mission like this. Then drive a jeep in, guns blazing. Then maybe soften it up with snipers, get everyone running around looking for you, and lead them on a merry chase, flank....

Far Cry was a lot of fun due to it's non-linearity, lending replayability.

heck yeah, I played through the demo a few times just to experiment. pop the gas tank on a jeep so it goes boom, shoot the gunner and then punch the driver in the jaw, run into them with a pickup truck and everyone dies. good times.

the only places I really got chop (dx9 @ 1280x1024 2xAA) were cinematic cuts, and the frosty shit which ripped out my card's processor-testes and puked on them. :cry2:

Ah, shit. I got home last night and was going to download the CRYSIS demo. Had ye olde farte dela brain and downloaded Hellgate. Shit.

I caved in and preordered a 8800GT and hope it's ready to pick up tomorrow! And I hope that play.com delivers the game early.

according to a mag review this game is 2% sucks.  :-P make up what u will of it.

What mag gave out a 2% score?

I'm getting my 8800GT today. I'll report back on performance.

I think he meant 98% awesome, 2% suck. But with engrish.

Christ.

I won't buy it but I had a lot of fun playing the demo. Several times (this is several more times than most). Also apparently the map editor is pretty awesome.

I hate the stupid goddamned rotary selector for your suit's abilities.  I saw on the menu that you can allow suit shortcut hotkeys, but it never seemed to actually do anything.

Anybody know what gives?  I wouldn't mind the selector if the game paused while you're fucking around trying to select an ability, but as it currently stands, it blows.

You can definitely bind the suit modes to hotkeys, although in the demo you might have to use console commands to bind the keys, and I don't know what they are.

Down a couple days with a stomach bug, I downloaded this and a few other things to pass the time. I'm sold, this game rocks. I agree activating suit powers is kind of a pain (I used the hotkey, better than M3 button imo) and the powers are brief but functional.

At one point I ran out of ammo, so I crept up on a small guard station with two guards. Ran up stealthed, punched out the first guard and used his gun to kill the second. Then there was a larger outpost accessed by road. I grabbed a civilian truck, drove it close and went to scout. Hummer sitting in the middle of the outpost, and lots of guards, me with scant ammo. So I jump back up in ye olde pickup truck and whup it up to ridiculous speed....and jump out just before slamming into the Hummer, blowing up both vehicles, sending bodies flying and smashing parts of a building. Jumping into said building...grenades! I lob a couple out into a knot of enemies and decimate two other huts. More enemies approach from the other side, supported by another Hummer. Grenade the foot troops and shoot out the truck's gunner, take the truck to the next objective.

I found myself retrying areas in different ways, taking me right back to Far Cry. Good deal. Better, I'd say. My only knock would be telepathic enemies. There was one point where I was prone in the grass, crept a hair forward and a whole camp went up in alarm. Amazing vision, these guys. Even worse was crouching in the deep bush, pretty far inland, and a boat I could barely see that wasn't even in the lagoon I was near, begins firing at me, barely hitting me but alerting everyone in the area to me. Crazy. Still fun, but a bit silly.

Far Cry had a bit of that as well. Not always, but those boats could snipe you from three kilometers away with a rocket launcher through 2 meters of foliage before you knew what was going on...

AI-see-through foliage is a problem in virtually every game that has outdoor areas.

Yeah, I need to echo what other people have already said.  The game feels like Far Cry 2, only with unarmored enemies that can take 15 point blank rifle rounds to the chest.

I think the game could actually be fun with a "always full energy" cheat activated, though.  I can see running around like the predator snatching people left and right, but that's really all that would be fun, because the gunplay sucks.

Gunplay sucks in FPS single player anyways. IMHO, of course. It's always been about game maps to me, which is why FarCry kept my interest longer than other games.

98% in this month's PC Gamer.

Either the demo is not representative of the final game, or PC gamer is so bought.

Did Call of Duty 4 get a 136%?

<checks> CoD 4 is not in this issue.  They must still be working on the 40 page review/cell phone ad.

I finally tried this demo this morning, right before I tried the COD4 single player demo.

I think Crysis is the better game between the two. COD4 feels dated and the amazingly rigid structure that I'm sure all the missions have is very annoying. It also suffers from "infinite bad guys spawning behind yonder crate, so long as you neglect to move 5 ft forward" problem that all other COD* games have had.

This PC Gamer Review is the stuff that dreams are made of.


I doubt it.


Sacrilege makes any review better.


Gee, no other game has done that before.


Who is this man, and where's my check for his appropriation of my Vanguard hyping?

I dare you to find page 90 of this issue of PC gamer.  (Spoiler: It's hidden behind a 34 page cel phone ad.)

So, he's saying it's almost as good as Deus Ex and Half-Life 2 and Portal.

Got it.

Actually, I think he's calling anything that's not Crysis:

:Love_Letters:
"excruciatingly linear, stupid-AI-having, plastic-looking, videogame-y shooters"

Mmmm, no, I'm sorry PC Gamer, but the love just isn't there anymore.  :heartbreak:

I pretty much felt the same way while playing COD4 right after Crysis.

Please tell me Steam will have Crysis. That would be  :yahoo:

Nope. Steam is only getting Kane & Lynch and CoD4 this month.

They only rated it so high because this has been touted as the game to justify our two thousand dollar consoles and they don't want to dash our hopes.

Yeah, if you listen to their podcast there are like two members of the staff who felt let down by the game, and they were shouted down by the other staffers who are desperate to stay relevant in an era when paper magazines are an anachronism and PC gaming is heading down the tubes.

Dan Whateverhisnamehis especially annoys me.  He's your typical "If it's not PC it's shit!" douchebag.

Psst: PC Gamer has a lot of hacks working for it now and lots of payola reviews. All the good people were either fired or quit.

They had good people? I always considered them the PC games version of EGM.

I have one question about this game.

Can enemies see you if you can't see them?  I.e. if you're hiding behind some shrubbery, do enemy gunners two miles away still see you instantly because nothing "solid" blocks their line of sight?

This was the thing that made me uninstall Far Cry.  The AI was clever enough to hide in bushes but not clever enough to respond realistically when I did the same.  /sadf

Well, from the demo, it seems like stealth is considerably easier in Crysis.  The world of Crysis comes with patent-pending shrubbery that is mysteriously missing any stems or roots, so you can dive under the canopy and have your own little tree-dome of invisibility.  Even dropping prone (Z key) in thick grass is pretty effective at not being seen.  However, if you are at all exposed, boats patrolling in the water will spot you from an eighth of a mile away and open fire.  I hear the enemy Helicopters (which are not in the demo) seem to have body-heat sensors based on their ability to spot you.

The tricky thing about judging the stealth in Crysis is you've got a suit with a stealth mode that can only be seen through when the enemy is about to trip over you.  By toggling stealth you can dive from bush to thick grass to rock outcropping, recharging in between, and essentially be a ghost.

Quickest Review of Crysis Ev4r: Mildly enhanced Far Cry with a neat suit.

No, they won't know where you are but they will look for you in the area they last saw you.

Single player sounds pretty compelling. I've only been playing the Fileplanet multiplayer beta and am buying it on that alone... particularly since someone found out how easy it was to unlock full visual potential by de-gimping some config file (DX9 folks are limited to "High", not sure if just for Beta).

Yeah, apparently they just copy over the very high detail configuration file on top of the high detail configuration file and they're good to go.  Unsure of if that'll be patched out of retail or not.

For all my derision of the game, I'll probably buy it.  If it's only a better Far Cry with a cool suit, that's still worthwhile to me: Far Cry was (and remains) a pretty good game.

So, except for the getting paid part, how does it differ from this site exactly? 

Yah, you pegged us.   :roll:

I agree. But I've always been a fan of more free-form open gameplay and have never like the MoH/CoD train.

GameSpot joins in on the fun (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/crysis/review.html?sid=6182739) and delivers a 9.5.

Rewriting the rules for the existing genre through subtle improvement of Far Cry.

That's... that's a lot of best.

Well, then.

Personally, I like GameSpot reviews, they're generally closer to the truth than most.  So, assuming Jason Ocampo isn't being given the typical injections (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2304-Zero-Punctuation-Halo-3), it sounds like the demo is not entirely representative of the retail game.

HAY GELDON WATS UP

WE GOT IT

HEY SKY.

I'm actually not trying to trump up this game, I'm actually trying to go with a "why are Game Reviewers having such an orgasm over this game that did not impress me in the demo" angle.  Unfortunately, to my chagrin, it's blown up in my face.  Now I'm genuinely curious.

I'm so quoting you on this next time you chime in on a gaming on a big screen thread.   :grin:

Gamespot review is just weird. Felt exactly like the Halo 3 review to me where I end up thinking, "yah, but how did you give this a 9.5.  Where's the revolutionary, life changing experience from your headline?  I don't get it. Looks like another FPS. "   :|

Time to see if the demo doesn't rape my pc.

Edit: No dice.  HOG.

I loved Far Cry.

As a result, this game fits into the narrow list of PC games I'll likely buy within a week or three of release.

Years of the george grief title have numbed me to that one. Besides, gaming on a big screen is the shiz and you all know it. Some day you'll all write books about me and they'll compile them into a bible of sorts and you'll fondly remember your big-screen-gaming messiah type early adopter. And drink some red wine and eat crackers.

 :uhrr:

I feel like the Demo did something of a similar disservice that prompted folks here to recommended the Beta of HG:L over that demo. I keep hearing some tech issues with the Crysis demo, of course of a different variety, that I just haven't experienced in the multiplayer beta they had on Fileplanet. That game, even with its one map, is pure money. I'm not even on some super high-end rig (C2D 6600, 2gb RAM, single 8800GTS for now, XP of course) and it not only runs like butter, it looks fantastic, particularly with the blurring-when-turning, plants that move out of your way (and therefore show others), the water (commenting on it these days is becoming somewhat cliche though damned it's awesome here, particularly swimming), and the explosions.

The other thing I don't understand though is complaints about the AI in the non-Delta mode. Does AI really sell an FPS game these days? I'm actually surprised they still make a lot of effort in that area. I wasn't surprised when UT and Quake 3 Arena both launched without campaign mode, and that was almost nine years ago. Is the resurgence of campaing mode because people don't go online as much these days as they didn't back then? Or is it because more and more FPS games are going console, of which a less percentage are connected?

My one gripe is the silly "future proofing" nonsense. How do you know if it's going to look awesome if you yourself can't test it because the "hardware doesn't exist yet"? Come on. That noise might work for an MMO which could get better looking over time. But for an FPS game the only players you'll have in a year or three are the type that down-sets everything so they can maximize performance. And no, I don't think it's a good idea for MMOs either.

Crysis was touted as having good enemy AI,and it does (in my opinion). I can't speak for Q3 but the UT games have always had pretty great AI as well.

A lot of you seem unimpressed at Crysis in comparison to other games like CoD 4, and I'm not really sure why? Did CoD add something to the shooter formula that made it a better game than Crysis?

Some of the hype of CoD4 imho is its departure from WWII (finally). I don't consider the AI any better or worse than any others though, mostly because I couldn't care any less about it. Same question in my mind: are most people still playing these games in offline mode?

Never played CoD4 so I can't comment on it.  (I hear it hasn't changed much from the original CoD roots, though.)

When it come to AI in FPS, it's not just about challenging the player, it's actually another major platform in which the suspension of disbelief is tested.  When you've got AI that just rushes at the player, discerning gamers will often realize the futility of the thing.

It's not really specific to FPS, though.  It's rarely exciting when the player comes under the realize that their opponent is a lifeless computer program.  Convincing AI emerges as such a necessity it's not even funny.

Caveat - Haven't played or got Crysis yet, but based on it being Far Cry v2.0:

Chenghiz - SP CoD4 is (mostly) a great experience but I strongly doubt it's nearly as good a game as Crysis is. CoD4 feels much more scripted than CoD1 was, not to mention the original MoH games that these guys worked on when they were with EA.

Darniaq - there'd be no point in buying more than a couple of FPS games if we didn't play the SP campaign, would there? May as well just keep playing the latest Battlefield 2 and TF2 and CS:S until the world ends. MP gives some of them longevity, but there's only a select few FPS games I'm interested in playing MP after I finish the SP campaign. I hadn't even considered playing Crysis online.

Korean sailors have amazing vision in this game. It's pretty much the only shit bugging me in game. And wtf is up with helicopters that just stick at you even though you are invisible, how the hell?

I dunno man. I am definitely no export on FPS games. Well heck, I'm no expert on anything, but even less so of FPS :) But even while some may assume the only purpose for the genre is to push ATI and nVidia R&D spend, these games have definitely evolved. I can't see how anyone would think Crysis = TF2 = CoD2/4 = UT4 = Halo, and that's even just considering the multiplayer side. Maybe I'm just a recent convert, or maybe things have changed, dunno. And I don't want to discredit the AI work that has been done over the years. Maybe I'm just biased. I'm as interested in Crysis AI as I am in playing offline RPGs in general.

The AI may not be something you deliberately look for in a FPS, but it's something you miss when it's gone.

I really don't give a shit about online play anymore. Too many years of too many public servers. I just want to get in and play a game for a while, not deal with people who would rather fuck around or cause trouble. When I get Crysis, I won't take it online. For me, it's all about the SP campaign and the freeform emergent stuff.

AI is critically important. Not the cheaty supreme difficulty aimbot style, that's easy to code in. Rather, the realistic kind of AI that uses lots of tactics and can make mistakes in a somewhat realistic manner.

I've ALWAYS championed better AI, and though I've been playing games since the mid-70s, the AI still sucks. You get some improvement now and again, but it's still garbage for the most part. It's HARD.

This is why I don't like the MoH/CoD franchise to this day (AI and my other peeve, shooter on rails). I've posted it before, but the short version is the British commando you are to escort in MoH:AA and shooting me in the back when I stand in a doorway to kill the nazis outside. I move out of the way so he doesn't kill me, he charges out into the yard to get cut down in the crossfire. Either die or fail the mission. That's why AI is so important, I still cringe whenever I get an escort mission (though the escort mission thing goes waaay back to at least Syndicate when I uttered the quote "Don't make me babysit your drooling AI" or something to that effect).

Offline RPGs? Have you played the Witcher yet? It embarasses most RPG and I wouldn't degrade it by putting it into the same class as crappy mmo. Mmo is a great time-killer, but it's hardly good gaming.

Ok, I can see that (on the FPS AI thing). I haven't really checked back in a number of years on it. I just don't get much into games that don't have an online component. I think it's mostly because I never finish games. There's nothing driving me to beyond self-motivation, which I don't have much of unless there's other people either cheering me on or trying to stop me.

I should spread my wings a bit maybe :-)

If by 'spread your wings' you mean download the International version of the Witcher, I agree! :)

For my post in the new geforce thread, I linked to a site with dx9/10 comparison shots of the crysis demo. They also included some shots of the hacked dx9 demo that allow a lot of supposed dx10-only stuff. It's pretty sickening that this stuff is artificially removed from the game to pimp fucking Vista.

Hacking in those effects makes a noticable difference, very nice. Just played around for a bit with them enabled.

Yeah, I saw that based on the demo. So the gfx settings are fully hackable in the retail version as well then?

Dunno, haven't bought it yet. Fucking GH3 blew my budget. Wanna buy it? :P Hell, I'll trade GH3 for Crysis + shipping for both :)

Heh, I'd buy GHIII if it was for the 360.  That goddamn thing is sold out everywhere.  Damn Christmas rush makes stuff impossible to buy.  Well, I suppose I'm part of the problem, considering I'm buying it as a gift.

I pre-ordered for $99, sold on clist after getting tired of playing all the shitty songs, a week later, for $90. I'd say I got my moneys worth.

Already got it (GH3). The wife loves it. Shipping might have been a bit much anyway, though.

The best part of the demo is blowing the fuck out of all of the palm trees and watching them fall. Oh and optimized for Quad Core? Bullshit. It's all graphics based. It uses hardly any CPU even with physics at very high. The shaders and water at very high in DX10 are awesome looking too.

Krakrok, how is it better in comparison to a hacked dx9? Seems all the features they're touting except maybe the underwater effects are in the very high settings under dx9. I've been having a blast (heh) with the demo after setting up the haxxorz.

I'm appalled there's not been more outrage at the intentional gimping of Crysis to make it seem like a lot of those shader effects (and high-res textures and view distance!) are somehow tied to dx10.

Probably nothing. The screen shot of hacked DX9 looked pretty much the same as the DX10 one (with the god rays). The underwater effects are pretty cool looking (light filtering down into the water). Do you get the shader of the water wicking away from the view screen when you come up out of the water? What about the ripples when you shoot the water? Or the rainbow effect up through the water?

Yup, all that stuff. My fiancee rolls my eyes as I ooh and ahh. She's on to me, she actually muttered "graphics whore".

But that's why I kinda see this as a Big Deal, like...why isn't this front page news. Why aren't people upset that somehow Crytek was compromised to gimp their game to sell copies of Vista? Herro?

Your fiancee rolled your eyes? Are you a sock puppet?

Err...


Yes.