One step away from its original publication 13 years, Crysis is a title that many still have well imprinted in their memory: an action game that was then innovative, fresh, and that entered by force in the videogame landscape by exploiting to its advantage the feedback received from players about other similar titles of that period. Net of so much success and the silence that followed Crysis 3, the first chapter of the trilogy is ready to return in a new - and it is appropriate to say - dress: Crysis remastered, which will be available starting tomorrow 18 September 2020 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, and which is already available from this summer on Nintendo Switch. Although there is always a hand of Crytek, to take care of this remastered was Saber Interactive with a job done that promises excellent technical quality, ranging from new textures and anti-aliasing to volumetric fog, light beams, and software-based ray tracing ... even the support of8K for the machines that can afford it. Clearly these are just some of the improvements announced, and the demo trailers shown in the last few days seem to prove the team right (after public discontent a couple of months ago). Will this new version be worthy of the name of Crysis, or a half misstep as happened with Nintendo's hybrid? Let's find out together.
Between nature and unfriendly faces
Before talking about the technical aspect of the game, the real focus of the review, it is necessary to do a little review on the game so loved to get this mandatory Crysis Remastered. We are in the year 2020. After an important discovery made by a team of US archaeologists in the Philippines, the North Korean army arrives in the Lingshan Islands, right where the studies were conducted, kidnapping the scientists and isolating the whole area. The discovery concerns, as will be better learned in the course of the mission, a very dangerous one alien presence. And it is at this point that we enter the scene: members of one elite team sent by the United States to rescue the scientists and investigate the matter, we are catapulted into the exotic atoll armed with the latest high-tech discovery. This is the Nanosuit, a powerful and extremely versatile combat armor that will allow us to access a series of special abilities.
The suit is in fact able to adapt to our body and the environment around us, being able to absorb and release energy to allow the artificial muscles to perform superhuman feats. We will therefore be able to rely on four different combat modes: the armor (muscles harden and make us temporarily invulnerable to blows), the force (the muscles are enlarged by steroid substance and temporarily give us superhuman strength), the speed (the large amount of inhaled oxygen allows rapid contraction of the muscles in order to increase dexterity and agility) and concealment (the surface of the suit makes us invisible - even to radar - thanks to the use of a material capable of reflecting light). Making the most of the skills offered to us by the Nanosuit will be essential to complete the mission successfully. Also because this will be the only real weapon capable of defeating the alien power ready to invade the Earth.
And in fact, in this sense the weapons are perhaps not exceptionally calibrated. In fact, it often happens that you find yourself forced to empty an entire magazine against an enemy - human or alien - although this is not equipped with an armor like ours. Even headshots with a sniper rifle do not guarantee a 1HKO kill. Clearly, an approach that would instead want to be more stealth is also losing in this case. In this case, then, it becomes important to take full advantage of the concealment mode, given that the enemies are "visually" more attentive than they may seem, while not boasting - and this unfortunately underlines - who knows what kind of AI.
At that time, in the year it was first released, Crysis was undoubtedly a real gaming gem. With crazy graphics and (consequently) extremely inhumane technical specifications required - you remember the famous joke, right? - the world gave that feeling of authenticity, both in terms of settings and in terms of character and weapon design. And that's why the title has aged very well. Thirteen years ago, the title offered an ever-changing environment, a huge sandbox world. Destructibility and dynamism are the two predominant characteristics, with the environmental elements which, if hit with weapons, show signs of damage (or even collapse, overwhelming what is underneath) and which, if taken in hand, can be launched and exploited to hit enemies. But it is impossible not to mention the beauty of the soundtrack (after all we are talking about Inon Zur), as well as all the other sound effects that give the Crysis jungle a breath of life: from the wind to the snowstorm, to even the most disturbing noises produced by aliens.
All point
From a technical point of view, Crysis Remastered is definitely a good product. Even if despite the polish the title presents a couple of uncertainties and the quality achieved is not on par with the top productions of this end generation, the work done by the team with the Cryengine gives a noteworthy graphic rendering: the strengths are the new textures, the light, and the environmental effects, while it could have been done quite better with regard to the faces of the characters, the animals, and the minor errors such as the various interpenetrations. A particular, tactical and versatile gameplay makes this Crysis Remastered a still modern title, which does not have too many problems on the screen after the various tests (Ray-Tracing activation, blur and so on) but which in particularly excited sections on PS4 Pro suffers in terms of frame rate. Being a remastered, unfortunately, as we expected, changes have been made especially with regard to the visual sector, and alas, not too many steps forward have been made with the AI (and there will be some smiles about it).
