Crysis - Shipping in November 07?

[Ruslan74]

taken from here. (http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3story.html?sid=6150139&pid=931665)

Crysis could very well be the best-looking game at E3, on any system. The next first-person shooter from Germany's CryTek and publisher EA looks like it will define what next-generation visuals really means, thanks to its incredible graphics. And the good news for PC gamers is that Crysis is a Windows exclusive, which means that it's only for the PC.

Executive producer Rob Letts gave us a tour of two levels on display, both showing real gameplay. We got another chance to see the incredible battle against an alien Hunter, a huge, mechanical walking tank that's seen at the end of some of the Crysis trailers. Be careful--don't read further if you don't want spoilers to the plot.

According to Letts, the game has three acts. The first deals with a mysterious asteroid that crashes to Earth on a remote Pacific island. The impact didn't vaporize the island, so something strange is going on. Unfortunately, the North Koreans get there first and seal off the island, and you're a member of a US Special Forces team that parachutes onto the island to investigate. The first act is characterized by tense jungle warfare against the North Koreans.

The second act occurs after the asteroid opens up, revealing itself to be an alien vessel. The vessel somehow flash freezes the surrounding jungle, turning it into a frozen paradise, and changing the nature of the game, the environments, and the opponents. It is during this act that you are returned to the aircraft carrier that is your home base, and it is here where the aliens attack with the Hunter.

The third act sounds like it'll be kept a surprise for now, but the first two acts both look and sound incredible, from what we saw. Crysis will support both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10, which means that you can run it on a Windows XP PC, as well as an upcoming Windows Vista PC. You'll get the absolute best graphics with a Vista machine, but DirectX 9 still will look good. The version of the game we saw was using a DirectX 9 machine "simulating" DirectX10 by brute force, and it looked amazing. The battle against the Hunter is incredibly realized, and the lighting and particle effects are unmatched in any game that we've seen. There's also a very cool object-based motion blur effect that Letts told has only previously been seen in CGI animated movies, but now it's in a game.

We also got to see a jungle level, where you must battle North Koreans to get close to the asteroid. The jungle graphics are jaw-dropping, and features such as destructible and interactive foliage bring the game to life to an incredible degree. Bullets affect individual leaves, or the jet wash from the transport aircraft sends waves through the jungle foliage. You can cut down trees with bullets, and Letts said that the designers were directly inspired by that famous scene in the movie Predator, in which one of the commandos grabs a chaingun and mows down an acre of jungle. True to that, we saw a similar effect in Crysis, as the character manned a heavy machine gun and started chopping down trees with hot streams of lead.

Just as impressive as the graphics, though, is the dynamic gameplay that the designers are gunning for. Crysis just won't be another pretty, mindless shooter. Far Cry showed that CryTek could make excellent gameplay, and Crysis looks to elevate that higher. You will have a true option to go with stealth or action to get through a level. It's possible to sneak around or battle your way through. Meanwhile, you'll constantly be making tactical decisions thanks to your character's special nano suit. The idea is that you can divert the suit's power to different systems to give you more strength or more speed. If you're battling the Hunter, you may want to drop the heavy Hurricane chaingun and dump power into speed, and that way you'll move a lot faster, letting you dodge the Hunter's freeze ray. If you're caught in the ray, you can divert power to strength to let you break out of the ice faster. You'll pretty much be able to tailor the game to your playing style, which sounds cool.

Crysis looks incredible, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a better-looking game at E3. The game is scheduled to ship this winter, and that may be 2006 or 2007. It just depends on when CryTek can finish the game to its high standards.

:banana:

[stoke]

Kewl ... bullets affect trees and leaves and ... that must make spotting the enemy a freaking nightmare ... /melikes !

[rainy]

I hope the story is somewhat better than in Far Cry :D

[Ruslan74]

it involves North Koreans, Aliens, US Spec-Ops, Huge Monsters and lots of vegetation and ice.

how could they go wrong with that! :D

[stoke]

It's starting to sound like Ice Age 3 .... :)

[Ruslan74]

recall the E3 video's of the crysis showing off its stuff?

here it is again from
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3502375929069803475&q=crysis" in a 15 min shaky-cam mode.

[Lt_Duff]

Hope the game kick A$$. Looks fantastic though :)

[Ruslan74]

seems like ATI cards will have the edge in this game... or maybe i should just wait for the X360 version of it instead since it runs on ATI? :D

[SlappY]

Picked this off a Gamespy article.



Due the the inferior hardware, Crytek as decided to not support the XBOX 360, and console licenses will be issued soley to Sony for the PS3 version. Further to that Crytek president also stated that due to limited input and controller freedom, the console version would be a "light weight" version of the PC one. One feature that has made the cut is the often used "Swiss Army Knife" in the game. Players will now not be able to access the other features of the knife such as the magnifying glass or bottle opener, and console gameplay will be limited to the primary cutting blade.

[Ruslan74]

lol... thanks for the info Slappy! maybe a redux version will be out... :rolleyes:

[Ruslan74]

some news on the specs for this game :

Minimum Requirements
CPU: Athlon 64 3000+/Intel 2.8ghz
Graphics: Nvidia 6600/X800GTO (SM 2.0)
RAM: 768Mb/1Gb on Windows Vista
HDD: 6GB
Internet: 256k+
Optical Drive: DVD
Software: DX9.0c with Windows XP

Recommended Requirements

CPU: Dual-core CPU (Athlon X2/Pentium D)
Graphics: Nvidia 7800GTX/ATI X1800XT (SM 3.0) or DX10 equivalent
RAM: 1.5Gb
HDD: 6GB
Internet: 512k+ (128k+ upstream)
Optical Drive: DVD
Software: DX10 with Windows Vista

Ouch.

[stoke]

Ouch indeed.

[fivel]

Rus, you just posted that to ruin my day knowing that I think that Far cry is the greatest game ever made and I would do anything to be able to play Crysis :mad:

[Ruslan74]

i think i will wait for a console release... but hey, its 8 months down the line... by then Nvidia and ATI will have more powerful cards at lower prices! :D

My apologies to Fivel though. ;)

[Chris]

Yeah, AMD just dropped prices by up to 47% so it should be more affordable by the time Crysis comes round.

[fivel]

Yeah, AMD just dropped prices by up to 47% so it should be more affordable by the time Crysis comes round.

It's not the processor that I am most worried about....the DX10 gpus are going to be E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E :(

[Ruslan74]

its still going to be DX9.0c compliant... you will loose the ability to see the bugs on the leaves... thats all. :p

[fivel]

But i want to shoot the bugs :)

[Ruslan74]

if you are looking for plenty of bugs to shoot get BF2142... it should have plenty! :p

[Scooby_Doo16]

gonna need a new pc, mine battles with bf2 on med.

[fivel]

Check out some new screenies in this thread http://forums.tweakguides.com/showthread.php?p=42730#post42730

[Albereth]

Apparantly it is only going to be availble on PC and will be distributed by EA.

[doobiwan]

And Sony paid them to say nice things about PS3 ;)

[TG]

This article is appropriate:



NY Times on Vista's widescreen gaming woes

Posted Jul 25th 2006 7:25PM by Christopher Grant



Vista promises to give PC gamers an experience that's more Xbox than XP but, as the New York Times' Seth Schiesel discovered, they've got a ways to go before delivering on that goal. His umbrage: widescreen gaming. Hardcore PC gamers -- a profligate breed whose annual technology budget amounts to more than the last 3 generations of consoles combined -- and their requisite widescreen gaming displays are an important audience for Microsoft's latest OS upgrade. So what's the trouble? Schiesel explains:

"Beta Vista simply does not run games properly on many of the big monitors that Microsoft and media companies are encouraging consumers to buy. I have no doubt that Microsoft will come up with a solution before Vista is released. But it is such a glaring problem, and one that goes so directly to the heart of the gaming experience, that if any halfway serious gamers asked me right now if they should install the beta Vista on their main PC's, I would say no."

Well, if we're only gonna be talking about beta software having bugs, then count us out. That's why it's not out yet! Granted, Vista probably should have been out now a couple times over, but this is another reason why it isn't. Schiesel focuses his criticism with, "But this video-display issue raises a question about how well the company really understands the hardcore players who will always be the tastemakers and most faithful customers in PC gaming."

Good question. I use my 24" Dell monitor to play my 360 in glorious, widescreen HD. PC games ... eh, notsomuch. Any gamer with a widescreen monitor has spent more than their fair share of time traversing widescreengamingforum.com fiddling with arcane settings in the attempt to duplicate the seamless experience we've grown to expect from consoles. Microsoft is going to need more than a fancy new operating system to make all games widescreen compliant, they're also going to need the full support of an increasingly diverse development community.


SOURCE (http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/25/ny-times-on-vistas-widescreen-gaming-woes/) (Reg required - or use bugmenot.com)

[BambisRevenge]

I watched a video of it... its actually stupid how good the graphics are STUPID!

some of it literaly looks like real life!!!!

[stoke]

Hmmm ... the Vista debacle.
I wonder how much he gets paid to keep Vista in the media.
And ... real life ... skimpy clothing ... YUMMY ! :p

[Ruslan74]

mmm... funny... i have not been having issues finding games that support widescreen in native mode on my PC... even old games like TA, Ground Control 2 have native widescreen support and thats not even listing the newest ones out there!

[Pios]

I am soo getting this the moment it comes out ...

[Ruslan74]

and a new PC with it too... :p

[Pios]

suppose it may be a good thing :)

[rainy]

From a German news site (loosely translated):

Crytek founder Cevat Yerli said in a post on the official Crysis forum that "Crytek and EA cannot state a definite release date yet." The game will definitely not be released in Q1 2007, as expected. Yerli says the studio took some more development time to reach the self-set quality goals. Crysis is expected to set a new bar in terms of graphics and gameplay freedom, and it is supposed to be the first game to use the possibilities of DirectX 10. Nonetheless, the developers are also working on supporting older hardware. The multiplayer mode also requires a lot of work still. Currently, 130 people are working on Crysis, with a budget of 20 million Euros.

[StaticS]

Im gonna have to upgrade before i get this game heard the graphics are nasty...

[Ruslan74]

If they can support older software then they can optimize their code. Pushing the boundaries with innovative stuff is OK, but to simply let brute force run the game shows typical lazyness in the programming.

And to make matters worse they got bought by EA... ouch. I am scared its going to be nice and shiny but full of bugs. :p

[rainy]

They weren't bought by EA (yet), it's just their new publisher (previously UbiSoft).

http://pc.ign.com/articles/532/532930p1.html

[Ruslan74]

mmmm... thanks for the link. Well, its still a step into their abduction by EA anyhow. Sad.

Knowing EA's ambitions they will downscale the Crysis engine to fit on consoles. Just to make a quick buck. ;)

[rainy]

Far Cry has already been released for the X360. Saw it at BTGames today.

[Ruslan74]

Thats old and based on the Far Cry engine. It wasnt actually a bad game so hopefully EA will downsize/optimise the Crysis engine for consoles. I mean Gears of War is using the new UE3 engine to great effect on the X360.

[Ruslan74]

Some fresh news on this title, a preview on 1UP (http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3159101) is available.




Crysis hangs its success on DirectX 10 supergraphics, holy-s*** moments involving absolute-zero alien death machines, and possibly too-high technology -- but it hangs its hat on permutations. Pile custom weapon loadouts (no matter how nonsensical) on top of nanosuit configurations on top of everything-breaks physics, then add a layer of ice and toss it all into zero-g, and we've got n-factorial questions.... What happens when x + y is divided by z? What happens when you introduce w? If Crysis is a collection of details from which complexity violently erupts, where's the limit? The Crytek crew pauses to bring Crysis' high concepts back to the ground, and to explain what could happen -- and what probably won't.



Time for an upgrade for PC gamers soon?

[TG]

XBox ftw, pc ftl! woot!

[Sminty]

I have been eyeing the little video I have on my hard drive showcasing the interactive/fully destructuible environment and the dynamic day/night cycle n everything for over a year now....even then I figured this thing will never run on anything I have....but it seems I may be wrong.
I have to say that this is probably the first game I have anticipated as much as this since PacMan 2 (what a disappointment). I canna wait

[BambisRevenge]

Crysis is gonna be frikken awesome...


...if u can frikken run it! :o

imo its the best looking game ive ever seen and i aslso saw that video showcasing the engine and its capabilities and i spent the whole 10 mins in awe with my mouth open... i was totaly shocked, its like nothing ive ever seen before!

ill have to buy a whole new pc just to run it hahahaha

[Sminty]

and to think...in 5 years time we are going to wonder what we saw in such a lame game ;)

[Ruslan74]

in 5 years time DNF will whoop its arse so badly it wont know what happened! :rofl:

[rainy]

I think we'll be lucky if we have some early alpha DNF screenshots in 5 years time ;)

[EyeBall]

I did some checking , It's got multiplayer available , but doesn't seem to have online play ?

That would really not be nice ?

[Sminty]

DNF? errr? Did Not Finish? I just know I am going to feel dumb asking this question.

[TG]

Did Not Finish is quite correct.
It is a common example of Vaporware.

Duke Nukem Forever

[Ruslan74]

I did some checking , It's got multiplayer available , but doesn't seem to have online play ?

That would really not be nice ?

It will have online gameplay since its predecessor ( Far Cry ) was quite popular in that department. ;)

Although dont expect it to compete with the BF series or the upcoming ET: Quake Wars.

[EyeBall]

Why not ? It looks very very cool , alot of customization possibilities ?

Would be awesome playing that in sqauds and in clannies

[Ruslan74]

I dont think the engine can handle more than 16 people though, seems to be very resource hungry unless its a dedicated server.

Time will tell.

[Sminty]

without VOIP I'm gonna be sticking to BFx though.

[EyeBall]

What NO VOIP ?!!! :banghead:

[Ruslan74]

Some folks ran the Crysis demo on a Toshiba laptop :




Running on a high-powered Toshiba Satellite notebook packing a brand new DirectX 10-capable nVidia GeForce 8700M GT card, it can only be said that Crysis looked no less than stunning. The top shelf graphics accelerator had no issue churning out the visuals and handling the game's physics; amazingly enough, all from a notebook. That alone makes Crysis, as well as nVidia's new cards, worthy of anticipation.

[...]

Damn, this game is beautiful. It's hard to take in the lush, organic jungle environments and not be impressed. The beautiful water, the wonderful lighting, the fantastic character models... and every last inch crafted with such amazing detail. Towards the end of the demo, I found myself transfixed looking at the rocks on the ground. Rocks! It was like, "here I am, walking off the dirt road and onto this mountain path and… Ooh! Those rocks look sooooo... rocky!" That's not to say it's all perfect. Even running on a top-of-the-line PC, the framerates still frequently shuddered, although it was hard to tell sometimes as this often blended with the game's "blur" effect when turning.


Link to the whole article (http://www.dignews.com/preview.php?story_id=24171) for the DX10 demo on that powerful laptop. Geez....

[stoke]

"Blur" is cheating.

[Ruslan74]

As per the EA's CEO (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6176010.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6176010) :




During today's post-earnings report conference call, Electronic Arts CFO Warren Jenson narrowed the ship window for Crysis, the eagerly anticipated shooter from German developer Crytek. "We are now planning to launch Crysis in early November," he told analysts. Previously, the game only had a tentative 2007 release date.



Very tentative but then it will get torn to shreds by coinciding with the release of UT3. Bad move EA.