Because the lack of any risk, challenge or consequence to anything you did in the game was a pretty big blight on the original, I felt. 

I'd be surprised if they did that again. 

Where to start, I guess the obvious thing to say is that its awesome and that you should buy it ;) Also, for those wondering about performance, I could run the game on my gtx460 at the "extreme" setting and had no problems.

The single player is great fun, there are a few key differences from Crysis however, the most plainly obvious for me was that there isn't so much exploration any more. In Crysis you could explore the map in any direction but only certain areas had any actual gameplay in them. In Crysis 2 you are directed through the maps in a linear fashion but each area provides many different routes and ways to get through it.

In each area the game just lets you tackle it however you wish, and gives you a bunch of toys to play with. Cars can be kicked at things and off ledges, explosive barrels can be hurled, and just about any solid object can be moved around as you see fit. It's a playground of carnage and its fantastic :)

Guns! They all feel great to use, really meaty and the customization from the first game is still there to modify your weapons on the fly. A new feature is the ability to customize your actual nanosuit with upgrades also, such as bullet deflection, threat tracers, proximity alarms, reduced energy usage for modes and an awesome "air stomp" that will take out multiple enemies if you aim it right ;)

Story is serviceable for the most part, there are a few WTF moments but its mostly enjoyable, and its presented very very well, always from first person. There is some slight retconning from the first game but nothing major. A few characters from the first game seem to have gone missing without any explanation however :P

The one thing that is kind of a letdown however is the enemy AI, far too many times they will remain stationary and not attack, or get stuck in some sort of animation loop bugginess. It also has the ability to amaze however, some of the alien enemies will jump from floor to wall to ledge to another wall then slam you in the face and its very very impressive indeed.

I've been playing the MP also, not really enough to offer a decent opinion but I'm liking it so far, its very similar to call of duty but with added nansuit powers to mix up the gameplay a bit.

One final thing I'll add, I really love the sense of movement the new cryengine manages to convey with its motion blur. 99% of games I've seen motion blur in seem to apply it to the entire screen no matter what is moving and what isn't. In Crysis 2 motion blur is applied to objects relative to their movement speed as viewed by your player camera. The effect is fantastic and really sells the visuals.

Screenshots (Could be spoilery! You have been warned!) http://steamcommunity.com/id/darrenweekes/screenshots?tab=public&showdate=1&filter=app_99830 

One of the best-looking games as of late. The engine feels a bit like an updated version of UT3, but without the restriction to brown and blurry.

Performance is great indeed. Though unfortunately it's still pretty much unplayable for me thanks to the random system lockups. Hope there'll be an update soon that addresses this issue.

It's a bit unfortunate the game itself turned out to be this consolized, though on the other hand this was to be expected. At least it's not CoD-level. Also quite easy (even on Hard), enemies go down quickly and the assault rifles have an insane accuracy. Perhaps difficulty romps up later on. 

snooze 

It seems the lockups don't occur if I set the game to match the desktop resolution and run it in windowed mode. 

Well, it did allow me to play through the bridge and the lab rat map in one go, but then it crashed in the next map.

The graphics card is new, but there must be an incompatibility issue with some other component. Possibly the PSU - it does suffice spec-wise (780W, 4 +12V rails with 20A each), but it might be faulty still. Using it, I had the MB and my former 9600 GT die just like that. Fucking hardware geek shit.

I should probably file a support ticket with Nvidia. 

99% of games I've seen motion blur in seem to apply it to the entire screen no matter what is moving and what isn't.

I've noticed this in some of the games I am now trying (ie post 2007) and it annoys the hell out of me. What a crap feature. 

Crysis 2... only played the multiplayer so far and there were a number of things that turned me off. I don't like the intense motion blur for example. I also don't like the "consoleness" of it compared to the original Crysis.

From what I've seen, they took the same approach as in Warhead, ie simplifying and linearizing, and updated the engine (with Crytek, "updating the engine" means "dusting the competition" needless to say). I guess the singleplayer will still be good though, it's Crytek and they have a bunch of super talented people there. It would surprise me if it sucked.

I'm not finished with the original Crysis yet (meaning I very actively make stuff for it) and so I'm fine with not playing C2 right now. I'm sure Crytek's level designers can't do much wrong though and the weapons etc. were already beefy in the first game.

Sounds like Cryengine is still full of bugs though. 

there is no word from Crytek about the Sandbox editor yet, only that they want to do something like UDK.

I hope it doesn't become "pay to map". 

It doe's have quite a few bugs unfortunately at the moment, which can make it very frustrating to actually find a game!

Sometimes a lobby will fill to capacity but the match will not start, forcing everyone to find a new game server. There is quite a lot of disconnection happening (to me at least), and the server browser is a bit meh (wtf, no refresh??!).

That said, once you manage to actually find a decent server that will launch games and won't kick you, the gameplay is pretty fun. my pro tip : armour mode takes a second or so to become fully active, so if you hit the armour key *after* you start getting shot it's probably too late ;)

In fact thats probably my only gripe with the MP. Were all wearing these super nanosuits but still it only takes 2 or 3 decent hits to drop us, or 1 headshot it seems :P armour mode helps a lot but like I mentioned you basicly need to be in that mode all the time and its terrible as a reactive ability.

Gb, try playing with "r_MotionBlurShutterSpeed" console variable, might be able to tone it down a bit for mp. 

 

rock-climing game, it's like playing twister on your keyboard. I just played a couple times, haven't gotten past 4.8m:

http://www.foddy.net/GIRP.html


(from the makers of QWOP) 

The over view shot reminds of the "islands" map from Far Cry, where there were 5 or 6 small to medium sized islands on the map and each one had a small objective on it, you were spawned on a boat and basicly told "there are 5 things you need to do, go do them however you want".

Definitely my favourite FC map from the retail game. The Assault level from Crysis follows a similar formula but isn't as open.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, it looks fun from a gameplay perspective :) 

OK I've put about 8 hours in and I can say that I'm getting a feel for it.

Crysis 2 is a very pretty game. It lacks some of the pizzaz of Crysis and Crysis warhead in some areas, mainly on relief mapping on textures from what I can tell. But the finesse of the visuals is still there, in a way it is better. The animations of some of the aliens is jaw dropping, as are some of the set pieces.

The gameplay doesn't actually feel particularly like a console port at all, I found the game to run very smooth and the controls have been responsive. Unlike fallout 3 or Assasins Creed for example. The main giveaway is the lack of any quicksave that I can find. This means that the game runs on a checkpoint system. There is some degree of open-endedness apparently, usually alternative routes become apparent. The checkpoint system can be annoying, but most of the sections are quite fun to play. I went for the middle tier of difficulty.

The AI is generally OK, it could be a little harder, but some of the behavioural stuff the AI does is cool nonetheless, and the animations and the way the motion blur works together quite nicely IMO. Y one criticism is that all of the human AI seems to have the same voice, which is a bit annoying.

The score is a bit annoying aswell, but sometimes it is cool. There is a lot of big spectacular orchestral movie score music, and sometimes I think this is too much and detracts from the atmosphere of the game. You can turn it down/off though....

I found a utility which allows you to adjust all of the graphics options in a similar way to the original Crysis but the presets all look fine I guess.

I think Im gonna play again for a while now..... 

Hah, awesome, I'm a huge fan of QWOP (played it so much with collegues) this one looks great as well, reached 7m! 

i managed to get to 15 or 17 m in my last attempt... it's actually not as hard as QWOP in that regard... you can actually make discernable progress in a few tries. 

I'm wanting to reinstall Far Cry for a while now, in a way it's more entertaining than the Crysis series. More anarchistic and less americanized ("Go! Go! Go!"). 

then i hit what seemed like a dead end, and it was too late to go back down and take the other route (water was too high.) the seagull is a bastard. 

This game looks pretty funny :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TM5x72fk6o&feature=player_embedded 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mjky2QE9DA 

More gameplay :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo&feature=player_embedded
Looks great 

DM gameplay looks suitable MEH, but the style and enviroments still look ace. Definitely interested. 

I think the gameplay looks fun, feels a bit like tribes, lots of jumping around and stuff, I like. 

looks fucking awesome.

I really, really hope they're NOT using insta-hit weapons but simulate ultra fast (but not insta!) projectiles. Would fit the feeling well, I think.