Crysis 2

★★★★
EA
Genre: First Person Shooter
Price: Rs 2,499 (PS3), Rs 1999 (X360), Rs 999 (PC)

It’s tough when you’re a sequel to a game that was completed by all of three people and used extensively by the rest as a benchmark to check how good your PC is. Yet Crysis 2 manages to up the ante in all aspects that count. So if you’re expecting a shallow game with pretty graphics to test your PC, look elsewhere.

But that’s not to say it looks any less great. In fact, we’d go as far as to say that it’s perhaps the best looking game on any format to date. From the textures to the lighting you won’t believe how good it looks on every platform. It’s still the best on the PC though, even on three- to four-year-old hardware. And this time around it plays well too.

You find yourself prancing around the streets of a catastrophe-stricken New York wearing a suit of armour which gives you insane speed, strength and stealth, all of which you will need to stay alive in a city crawling with private armies and aliens baying for your blood. Yes, that literally is all that there is to the story, but that doesn’t get in the way of being an extremely enjoyable game.

There’s a wealth of gameplay options available. Unlike the earlier games where there was rarely more than one perceived option, Crytek the developers of the game have made every option available at the onset of each situation by a handy tap of a button that brings up the tactical view.  With this, you’re given your options that include sneaking to your objective, finding an alternate route above or below the ground through sewers or building tops or to simply go out and shoot everything in sight. Should you find yourself bored or done with the 12-hour single-player campaign, the multiplayer is a blast too barring a few issues with tracking your progress.

The only problem with Crysis 2, apart from its straight-line story, is the AI ”“ there’s barely any fight from the enemies no matter what difficulty setting you choose, making it a very fast experience. However this shouldn’t deter you from playing one of the more robust shooters out this year.