I’m going to bed way too late, but I just tried Crysis.

All I can say is: Wow. The graphics are truly stunning.

Ok now that I have slept some I have to come back and flesh out a little more detail. First, click on the image thumbnail to see a comparison of Crysis graphics to real life. Yes the graphics really are that good. I knew it was something special when I killed a patrol in the jungle and couldn’t find his dropped ak47 derivative in the weeds. The detail is so well done that it’s easy to miss things like grenades sitting on a table ready to be picked up… or the sniper scope that I apparently totally missed in the command center.

The second, and really cool, thing is that the game doesn’t force you into a single mode of play. There are literally hundreds of different ways to approach the same problem, and the game environment only sets you up with eventual destinations/goals to reach on the map. How you get there is up to you. Take for example how, early in the game, I went after a checkpoint. There were patrol boats in the bay and they were carrying some heavy machine guns. My job was to take out a GPS jammer, then move along the coast to a checkpoint and eliminate it. At first I took out the GPS jammer then ran along a narrow road because the patrol boat was shooting at me and hurting… only to find out I ran into a humvee with a mounted machine gun and nifty armor plating. I died. I reloaded.

The next time I moved along with cloaking on. I managed to take out the machine gunner and his driver and realized that I could get in the humvee. Cool. Except I got in the back right seat… oh… press 1,2,3,4,5 to try different seats. Seat 1. Driver’s seat. Whoa. I can drive and shoot at the same time. Cool. Well execept for the not being able to cloak the whole humvee thing and the patrol boat with the big gun. Humvee go boom, and me with it. I reloaded.

I tried the humvee again but this time stepped on the gas a little faster. Nice. I made a getaway and got up to a respectable speed. Oh wait. There are humvee patrols further up the beach? Oh and big rocks. Boom . I reloaded.

This time I decided to take care of the boat and see if I could drive it since that big gun was making me run faster than I wanted to without proper recon. I cloak to the end of a pier where the boat is idling waiting for a glimpse of me. Using the sights I headshot the gunner… but then the boat driver gets scared and takes off… hmm. That sucked. I jump in the water. Thankfully the pimp nano suit serves as diving apparatus. I had tagged the boat so it was showing up on the map. After a long underwater swim I end up in some rocks near the beach. Looks like the driver beached the patrol boat and jumped out to try and defend himself. I cloak up and kill him then jump in the boat. There’s a humvee patrol close by and it notices. I jam the boat in reverse and… go nowhere. The damn idiot driver really did beach the boat. Argh.

… and that’s all within minutes of starting the game. I had managed to cover maybe half of the small distance to the small intermediate goal.

Wow. Just wow.