As has become par for the franchise, Crysis 3 is an experience best enjoyed in the single-player campaign, but that’s not to say that the multiplayer component is in anyway poor. Once again outsourced to Crytek UK (the studio formerly known as Free Radical Design), the online side of things does a commendable job of appropriating the Call of Duty class/load-out/perk systems, but works best in the modes that leverage the Nanosuit powers. This is particularly exemplified by the new Hunter mode, which pits two cloaked hunters against a team of CELL troopers. Each trooper killed switches sides and becomes a hunter, until there’s one trooper left to nervously twitch and shoot at shadows. It’s genuinely intense stuff, and well worth investigating once you’ve polished off the campaign.
In preparation for this review we tested the game on a high end PC, a PS3 and a 360. Naturally the PC version (our test machine was packing two AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards) was the visually superior of the three, thanks to its higher definition, better lighting and textures and all manner of other fog effects and shading employed on the highest graphics settings. Having said that, the console versions are still able to hold their own. We expected the six and seven year old circuitry in our PS3 and Xbox 360 to boil into a puddle of silicon soup as soon as we slipped the disc in the tray, but as it turns out Crysis 3 runs well and looks fantastic no matter which platform you pick it up for.
The Verdict
Crysis 3 is a polished iteration on the previous Crysis titles. Its campaign mode features some much needed soul beneath the sci-fi sheen, which gives a sense of purpose to all the killing that has been previously absent from the series. While its multiplayer mode isn’t quite strong enough to tear you away from the genre leaders for long, it at least provides enough of its own flavour to present a worthy alternative.
It’s not quite a next generation experience come early, but it’s a superbly controlled, tightly paced and tactically flexible shooter with a satisfyingly focussed story, and an excellent way to tie up the Crysis series... for now.
8.5
Great
A highly polished shooter experience that doesn’t so much reinvent the FPS wheel as give it a slicker set of tyres.
In preparation for this review we tested the game on a high end PC, a PS3 and a 360. Naturally the PC version (our test machine was packing two AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards) was the visually superior of the three, thanks to its higher definition, better lighting and textures and all manner of other fog effects and shading employed on the highest graphics settings. Having said that, the console versions are still able to hold their own. We expected the six and seven year old circuitry in our PS3 and Xbox 360 to boil into a puddle of silicon soup as soon as we slipped the disc in the tray, but as it turns out Crysis 3 runs well and looks fantastic no matter which platform you pick it up for.
The Verdict
Crysis 3 is a polished iteration on the previous Crysis titles. Its campaign mode features some much needed soul beneath the sci-fi sheen, which gives a sense of purpose to all the killing that has been previously absent from the series. While its multiplayer mode isn’t quite strong enough to tear you away from the genre leaders for long, it at least provides enough of its own flavour to present a worthy alternative.
It’s not quite a next generation experience come early, but it’s a superbly controlled, tightly paced and tactically flexible shooter with a satisfyingly focussed story, and an excellent way to tie up the Crysis series... for now.
8.5
Great
A highly polished shooter experience that doesn’t so much reinvent the FPS wheel as give it a slicker set of tyres.
