Crysis 2

[Serenius]

i'm also interested by the amount of negativity for the game, i wonder if there would be so much if perhaps it was simply a game unrelated to crysis 1.

That's really the source of it. When there's a big shift in design from an original game to a sequel, the backlash is bound to happen.

My only complaints are bug-related, that will likely be fixed in upcoming patches, and some plot holes that had me scratching my head.

[Rick_D]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend it or anything, I think you guys have really valid points and opinions on the subject. I don't want to stifle the criticism, hopefully the guys here take it on board

[Serenius]

Just look at Mass Effect 2 as another instance of where it happened. In the sequel, there was a big shift from a focus on the story and character development with the usual semi-open worlds that Bioware is known for towards a focus on linear 3rd person shooting action, with story and characters taking a backseat.

Overall the game was excellent, and it was a less drastic shift in design, but the backlash from fans of the original was still there.

[-HP-]

Am I the only one who played Crysis here? Crysis is NOT sandbox, that's GTA, RDR and all that. Crysis is still a objective base linear game, it's just the environments are fairly big (For some levels, anyway).

Crysis 2, the levels are much smaller but the style of game is more or less the same, just the theme is not jungle anymore.

But then again, I worked on the game, and saw it growing in front of my own eyes so it's hard to tell what people was expecting exactly, I just never realized that some people were expecting a GTA5 to some extent.

Crytek has prooven it can do jungles and islands better than anyone else, it was time to move on, and move on it did. Surely, it was a bumpy ride, loads of sweat and tears but I still think It's a Crytek game at heart.

Obviously, some adaptations needed to be made, console market is a whole different market. And, it's where the MONEY is! Unfortunately, the times where you could focus on PC, top of the line tech and make money with it, is gone! You will never have exclusives AAA PC games anymore, simply because these take millions and millions of dollars to be made, and you're lucky if you sell 500 000 copies!

Crytek is also known for tech, well, truth be told, it is a tech oriented company. But this time, the challenge wasn't grabbing a PC from the future and make a game for it, the challenge was grabbing a 5 year old box and make a game that runs on it AND make it look the best game out there. Now publishers will see CE3 runs on consoles and you can ship a game on it, they will start licensing the engine. That... is business, for the good or the worst.

[Jetsetlemming]

I played Crysis 1 recently (though didn't finish it, got sidetracked by Fallout New Vegas's release ), and yeah, it really wasn't THAT open of a game, not as much as Far Cry for example. The first few levels are much more open but then like an hour in I recall going down a thin path next to a river and up a mountain, and soon after that was when there's the first alien spotting and you regroup with your squad, and from pretty much there on, it's all pretty much a chain of arena fields that I played. There's plenty of SPACE, but that's mostly about circling around objectives, not really a choice in how to proceed. Suited me fine, but again, not enough to keep me going through the whole game. I never even fought the aliens everyone complained about.

Actually, the main reason I bought it was because of that Mechwarrior mod... and then I never got around to playing that either. >_>

Anyway, I remember playing Far Cry 1 and being absolutely stunned by how big the first level was (either the first or the second). It was absolutely enormous with no loading until I had to go into a half sunken boat (for reasons I cannot recall).

":16dremed]

Obviously, some adaptations needed to be made, console market is a whole different market. And, it's where the MONEY is! Unfortunately, the times where you could focus on PC, top of the line tech and make money with it, is gone! You will never have exclusives AAA PC games anymore, simply because these take millions and millions of dollars to be made, and you're lucky if you sell 500 000 copies!

Uh, that's what Crysis 1 did and it sold like 2M+... I remember even right after release EA bragging about how they broke their sales expectations by a lot. Not that I begrudge being platform agnostic, except in that I miss games that are designed with the speed of mice in mind. I buy more new games on my Wii these days than my PC, on PC I get by on sales.

[Jenn0_Bing]

I agree with HP on his point about scale. Crysis was also a linear game, you travelled between arenas with fighting through a corridor (in this case a beach or a jungle road) you do the same in Crysis 2 except you corridors are now roads and rooftops. I would go as far as to say the arenas you fight in are probably comparable in size to the majority of the hot-spots with fighting you saw through Crysis, what's changed here is the look of corridors and arenas. I mean I haven't been able to open levels up side by side yet, but I cant imagine the scale is that different on average where it really matters, it's just the illusion of being boxed in caused by all the skyscrapers . Again this observation is just based off the first few hours though.

If you guys patched save games in, it would easily double my enjoyment of this game.

[Gloglebag]

As much as I dislike some of the choices with the graphics in this game, it's still very big and very open. In Crysis you could go all the way up a mountain which meant diddly squat for any practical combat purpose, here there is still a lot of room for manoeuvring, and in all practical sense the game is as open as it's predecessor. And I like the city more because it has more objects you can use in combat and clearer spots for hiding. What I do miss though is hopping on shacks and breaking them apart.

I also don't understand why crytek never bothered to take a more hublike approach like zelda for example. There are so many well crafted and beautiful areas it's shame you will only see them once, and you won't ever find any hidden depth to them or come back and suddenly see all kinds of amazing possibilities a new power has given you.

Also like it was said earlier the AI seems broken and spots you very quickly.

Dutch members can get the game for 29,- oiros from http://www.game-card.net/crysis-2

Maybe it will also work for foreigners, since it's an EA downloader version.

[Bunglo]

the problem perhaps stems from people expecting one thing and getting another.

i think people are basing their opinions on crysis 2 by comparing it to crysis 1.

i'm also interested by the amount of negativity for the game, i wonder if there would be so much if perhaps it was simply a game unrelated to crysis 1.

Yes, for me this was a huge issue. As someone who was a great fan of Crysis 1, I expected the squeal to exceed it's predecessor, or at least be on par in most areas of the game. Because we only got a multiplayer demo, which I never tried in the first Crysis, I was left to assume my expectations of the campaign in C2 would not leave me disappointed.

I bought the game on a whim after having my own reasons for not purchasing it the day it came out (such as no editor, for example.) $60 is a sh*t load of money but because I still thought even if they don't release the editor, it's a Crysis game and Crysis 1 was awesome, I bought it.

Fifteen minutes into the game, I knew I didn't buy the experience I was expecting and the rest is history.

If a single player demo was put out, I think a lot of the negativity would be gone because a lot more people wouldn't have bought it. Or at least those who still did would have some idea of what they're paying for.

I replayed the Crysis 1 demo more than I'm going to replay Crysis 2 and that experience didn't cost me anything. One play through is enough for me, I don't think I'll bother with finishing my second run through, it's just like the first time around so there's no point in my mind.

Am I the only one who played Crysis here? Crysis is NOT sandbox, that's GTA, RDR and all that. Crysis is still a objective base linear game, it's just the environments are fairly big (For some levels, anyway).

Crysis 2, the levels are much smaller but the style of game is more or less the same, just the theme is not jungle anymore.

I know what you mean, HP. Crysis 1 wasn't a sandbox game in the traditional sense like GTA but the levels were open enough with enough variety, I had so many options of going though a mission, it felt like a sandbox game in some ways. At least to me.

Crysis 2 just restricts me too much because of the setting of a city. It's like a dog who has an acre of back yard to run on, now he has the hallway of a house to run in. Don't get me wrong, you guys did an incredible job with the art and setting, I just don't think a city environment fits the Crysis gameplay I was used to from the 1st.

[Rick_D]

If a single player demo was put out, I think a lot of the negativity would be gone because a lot more people wouldn't have bought it. Or at least those who still did would have some idea of what they're paying for.

The 360 accounts for 57% of Crysis 2's sales, with the PS3 taking 29% and the PC raking in a miserable 14%.

but even if pc gamers didn't buy it, not much would be lost. i posted that pic earlier with 20,000 people downloading the game on pirate bay (i wonder how many more on private trackers and other torrent sites, not to mention the warez group releases on the file hosts like rapidshare, megaupload and so on), so we're already in a state where i would estimate 50% of people who have played the game on PC haven't actually bought it.

what difference does it really make if some people who probably stole the game anyway are disapointed?

[Jetsetlemming]

but even if pc gamers didn't buy it, not much would be lost. i posted that pic earlier with 20,000 people downloading the game on pirate bay (i wonder how many more on private trackers and other torrent sites, not to mention the warez group releases on the file hosts like rapidshare, megaupload and so on), so we're already in a state where i would estimate 50% of people who have played the game on PC haven't actually bought it.

what difference does it really make if some people who probably stole the game anyway are disapointed?

That's a really super fucking terrible attitude. Christ, dude. A less adult person would wish bad luck on you and yours over that shit.

[Bunglo]

If a single player demo was put out, I think a lot of the negativity would be gone because a lot more people wouldn't have bought it. Or at least those who still did would have some idea of what they're paying for.

The 360 accounts for 57% of Crysis 2's sales, with the PS3 taking 29% and the PC raking in a miserable 14%.

but even if pc gamers didn't buy it, not much would be lost. i posted that pic earlier with 20,000 people downloading the game on pirate bay (i wonder how many more on private trackers and other torrent sites, not to mention the warez group releases on the file hosts like rapidshare, megaupload and so on), so we're already in a state where i would estimate 50% of people who have played the game on PC haven't actually bought it.

what difference does it really make if some people who probably stole the game anyway are disapointed?

Sales figures rarely if at all put out digital download stats. PC gamers seem to be going with the digital buy more and more as time goes on, such as I did with Crysis 2. Crysis 2 was at the top of the Steam sellers weeks before it's release and even after, now being bumped down to second place by Portal 2. It's more than 14%, how much I don't know but I'd presume there's still a good amount of PC sales that are unaccounted for in such sales figures.

Onto your point though, I think the better question would be, "what difference does it make if the PC gamers who bought the game are disappointed?" If developers only focus on the pirates for PC development and don't give a shit that I just shelled out $60 for their work, fine, I wont bother playing the game. If a developer takes that stance, they don't care one way or another about my satisfaction, I'm not even a customer to them anymore at that point, even if I buy their games. They no longer want my business, that's what that type of philosophy says to me.

Listen to your fans, get them involved in the development of a game as much as you can, reveal your progress to them as much as possible so they can be your best critics, show them that you actually give a damn about who you're making the game for and that in and of itself is usually enough incentive for a PC gamer to buy your game. PC gamers are die-hard, dedicated, bastards when it comes to their games, it's just harder to please us and thank God for it because how else would the industry push itself to innovate if we all just accepted the same game every year (I'm looking at you COD.)

Pirating sucks, you can't get rid of it and you can't really improve it either. Focus on PC pirating, stop making PC games, move to consoles only. Realize that console pirating is a growing problem and then what are you going to do? Pirating is an inevitability, to use it as an excuse to ignore you PC supporters is to shoot your self in the foot. Not saying Crytek is doing that or that's what you're insinuating, but it doesn't make sense to ignore those who bought the game because of pirates.

[SamCom]

The 360 accounts for 57% of Crysis 2's sales, with the PS3 taking 29% and the PC raking in a miserable 14%.

Do those sales figures include Steam or any other digital distribution service?

Because this (Destructoid) is the source of the quote, and they quote this (videogamer.com? Is that a well know site?) as their source, then they quote the "All Formats All Prices UK video game chart", which I think is this, but I don't see the platform number breakdown.

[dux]

I'm pretty certain most devs/publishers don't care to mention steam sales for the PC. I reckon they just see the PC as a pirate ship and ignore any sales at all made through digital distribution as those sales were probably pirated copies anyway somehow. Dirty dirty pirates. But don't worry though meights, DICE hasn't forgotten about its loyal fanbase. Notch even likes piracy - how about that.

[Jetsetlemming]

The 360 accounts for 57% of Crysis 2's sales, with the PS3 taking 29% and the PC raking in a miserable 14%.

Do those sales figures include Steam or any other digital distribution service?

Because this (Destructoid) is the source of the quote, and they quote this (videogamer.com? Is that a well know site?) as their source, then they quote the "All Formats All Prices UK video game chart", which I think is this, but I don't see the platform number breakdown.

Not that it matters because dismissing 14% of the people that bought the game because "they probably pirated it anyway" is just abhorrent.

[Rick_D]

The 360 accounts for 57% of Crysis 2's sales, with the PS3 taking 29% and the PC raking in a miserable 14%.

Do those sales figures include Steam or any other digital distribution service?

Because this (Destructoid) is the source of the quote, and they quote this (videogamer.com? Is that a well know site?) as their source, then they quote the "All Formats All Prices UK video game chart", which I think is this, but I don't see the platform number breakdown.

Not that it matters because dismissing 14% of the people that bought the game because "they probably pirated it anyway" is just abhorrent.

calm down, or you'll get your panties all in a twist.

Listen to your fans, get them involved in the development of a game as much as you can, reveal your progress to them as much as possible so they can be your best critics, show them that you actually give a damn about who you're making the game for and that in and of itself is usually enough incentive for a PC gamer to buy your game. PC gamers are die-hard, dedicated, bastards when it comes to their games, it's just harder to please us and thank God for it because how else would the industry push itself to innovate if we all just accepted the same game every year (I'm looking at you COD.)

but Valve don't do that, they have never shown progress or asked their community for feedback on a game halfway through.

when cod:mw2 was coming out everyone was super excited about it, then they released some details about the game and PC gamers shit themselves with rage.

in fact nobody does that. so why should that be a reason to do it now?

there were plenty of screenshots and trailers released during development, the xbox360 exclusive mp beta came out a long time before the release, and there was even a closed mp beta months before the official one.

there was lots of opportunity for feedback.

i remember working on mods and showing our stuff to people, then having weeks of complaining and nitpicking about everything. i am not too surprised that there's not more involvement from the community, because you can't treat them like adults, as is shown here when someone wished bad luck on my family and I because I ventured an opinion.

no thanks.