CRYSIS

[Morgoth]

Although I'm myself not overly hyped about Far Cry (never bought it) or FPS in general, I'm never hesitant of digging out some infos about the latest & greatest technologies in development.

Germans biggest PrintMag "GameStar" visited Crytek and got a world-exclusive preview about CRYSIS, a game that splurges around with super-smart AI, crazy weapons and aliens that try to frozen the whole world. Here's a picture of the cover.

 

Here are some facts from the preview I could derive from the forums (I do not have the abo myself anymore):

 

-There're no levels, the entire game consists of one big chunk of landmass (Isle?), no loading times at all.

-You can upgrade Jake and weapons thanks to a nano-suite. (a'la Deus Ex?)

-You can almost move and destroy every object in the world (i.e. you cant get stuck on a little bough when roll over with your vehicle.. you just crush it)

-Enemies can find Jake due to his traces that you cause in your environment.

-Persons remember what you've done through the course of the game (i.e. killed allied units). However, with some skill you can also establish a romance with a female soldier.

-There're no cutscenes a'a Half Life 2.

-There're boots with magnetic soles. (Gamestar also mentions a space ship)

-You can now use aircrafts and helicopters

-Day/Night alteration (Gamestar also mentiones weather-effects)

-Multiplayer should be improved over Far Cry

-Free saving allowed

-Around 10 hours of gameplay, but highly replayable.

 

People who have the mag are also raving around about the realistic faces (like a true photo). It's just too bad there haven't slipped any screenshots through yet.

 

And here's a techdemo (not related to Gamestar's video) that some of you already might have seen... I'm just downloading it now.

 

I hope for Crytek that they have more powerful/verstatile tools available when they try to license the tech to other devs... otherwise Epic (Unreal Tech) will stay as the only inarguable ruler of sellable next-gen tech.

 

Ohhh, and I wouldn't mind a great RPG from Obsidian using this tech at some point in the future. Please?

[mkreku]

I loved the viewing distance of Far Cry. It ran silky smooth on my computer, yet I was able to climb a mountain and admire another island two miles away in the distance. I loved that!

 

I'm looking forward to this, even though you'll probably need SLI-connected 7800 GT's to run it.

[Hurlshort]

That does sound pretty interesting. I remember hearing very positive stuff about Farcry, but I stay away from most FPS games (and save points seemed lame to me.) It's exciting to know they are going to a more freedom based design. It sounds like a GTA style setup with regards to the story progression.

 

Why do the cut scenes get axed though? I like cut scenes.

[Slowtrain]

Farcry was pretty standrada FPS fare, maybe a bit worse than that actually.

 

Its 2 big pluses were its amazing viewing distance and stunning exterior enviornmental grahics, and the very good (but not great) AI of the enemy mercs.

 

Fora mere ten ten hours of gameplay though, I'll be picking the next one out of the bargain bin.

[Morgoth]

I'm looking forward to this, even though you'll probably need SLI-connected 7800 GT's to run it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Probably... but eventually, nobody's spared from the horrors of hardware-upgrading when it comes to next-gen stuff.

Ohh, and it was also mentioned that Crysis will be the first DX10 game, using advantage of Shader Model 4.0 and stuff....

I'm even not sure whether there'll be DX10 cards available at it's planned Q4 2006 release!?

[metadigital]

I would expect that a little detail like the availability of DX10 Shader Model 4.0 capable graphics cards would be co-ordinated with the game ... certainly if the devs are designing an engine to take advantage of the tech then it must be nearly available for general gaming population ...

[mkreku]

Yeah, it's one of the oh-so-necessary features of Windows Vista.. You know.. the next-gen OS that will require you to have 1 GB of RAM just to be able to run it. Nevermind the actual applications.

[metadigital]

But don't you want anisotropic filtered window panes with wordprocessor and spreadsheet documents floating in real-time on your virtual desktop?

[mkreku]

No. What I want is a superfast OS that only loads the bare essentials for me to load my own applications whenever I need them. No browsers, no internet search, no built-in firewalls, no telnet, no messenger, no paint, calculator, notepad, textpad, wordpad, whateverpad. I want a clean system with nothing else but a compatible platform for the things I choose to install and run.

 

Of course, I would still need DirectX..

[Morgoth]

DX10 or not, it's probably just ending up like the Doom3 demo and the introduction of the Geforce3: Teh Shaders will revolutionize teh games!!!111.... whatever. It should run on DX9 hardware too.

I just got the chance to take a look at the Gamestar in a kiosk, and I was indeed blown away by it's graphical splendor. Those pictures where the aliens with their ships are frozening a jungle in Mars attack style really looked cool. As for the story, it seems like that you fight humans (war against Korea) first, later on the aliens start their invasion, humans unite and then you blow off slimeheads instead.