Like most PC gamers, especially fans of first person shooters, I'd been waiting for the release of Crysis since I played Far Cry, the first game created by Crytek, which took everybody by surprise with its spectacular graphics, realistic AI and playability.

Since the development of Crysis was announced, every new gameplay video released was more incredible than the one before. Fans were waiting anxiously for the game to be on the stores. Finally, the game was published, and Crysis proved to be exactly what Crytek had promised.

Some weeks ago I had some time to play, so I went to the store and bought a copy of Crysis, installed it and couldn't stop playing till it was finished.

The first and more obvious thing you notice are the graphics. Thanks to the videos, I knew what to expect but, wow, they are really amazing. I had a similar sensation to that of playing Far Cry for the first time, even better. The jungle seems so real, the models, the illumination... everything looks great. Of course, all this comes with a price, the hardware requirements are high, but you don't have to own a state of the art PC to enjoy the beauty of this game: my ATI HD3850 (a recent but not too expensive graphics card) allowed me to play the game with most of the important options in 'high level' an the rest in 'medium' and, believe me, that's enough to make your jaw fall.

Besides the graphics, the game is very entertaining. The story puts you in the shoes of an American special operations soldier of the near future, who will have to fight first against Korean soldiers and, afterwards, against aliens. The first part, the one in the jungle fighting against the Koreans is very similar to Far Cry, only this time you wear a cool suit that allows you to be invisible, stronger, faster or better shielded. At first, I didn't like the idea of the suit, but I have to admit that, once I started playing the game, I really loved its potential and positive impact in playability.

After this, aliens appear and the game changes. Action is more fast paced and fights grow bigger and bigger in number of enemies, the size of some of them and the number of allies helping you. Even though I usually prefer human enemies in a FPS, I also enjoyed this part of the game a lot, with the exception of some levels inside an alien structure that I found a little boring.

Crysis is almost perfect, graphics, AI (although somehow it didn't seemed as good as Far Cry's), atmosphere, plot... Crytek has made an incredible job. If I have to say something bad about the game it would be the ending. No spoilers here, I'll only say I thought It was too abrupt and lacked tension. It seems Crysis is gonna be the first part of a trilogy, but I still think they could have made a better ending.

Summing up, Crysis is a must have for every fan of first person shooters.

my rating: