Platform: PS3
Genre: First person shooter with a sci-fi premise.
Setting:
Like Crysis 2, you're in New York City, which is in lockdown mode. The year is 2047, 24 years after Crysis 2.
Story:
Since this is final instalment of the Crysis series, it's obviously the conclusion of the human Nanosuit soldiers' war against the technologically advanced alien Ceph occupiers and the human Crynet organisation, which seeks to rule the Earth with absolute power. Nanosuits are technologically advanced suits which grant the wearer advantages in combat, like temporary invisibility, brute strength and other things of a similar nature.
Graphics:
* The usual high, Crysis series standard, but, on PS3, without the "Wow!" factor that I felt when first playing "Uncharted 2". Maybe "It's so good that you don't even notice it!"?
* Character models look excellent in the cutscenes.
* Illusion of wide open spaces in New York.
Audio:
B grade dialogue at times, e.g. Psycho's comments.
Good about the game:
* Unlike Crysis 2, this has replay value and I was actually interested in chasing trophies...using or upgrading the Nanosuit!
* The AI has improved over the comically bad at times implementation in Crysis 2. E.g. the CELL AI are in some ways smarter than they were in Crysis 2 and at least there aren't the glitches that the previous game had, either...well, there was just one Ceph which tried to walk through a blocked door continuously...maybe the developers put that in for people who wanted a bit of Crysis 2 nostalgia thrown in?
* The Ceph don't really work together to defeat you, which is a blessing, as on the harder difficulties I'd personally find it extremely challenging and frustrating if they did.
* Story information is provided by data which you can choose to read or listen (good) to but sometimes it's not quick enough to open and you can find yourself not being sure on how to find it again via the menu (bad).
Misjudgements in the game:
* 3 button presses to start the game! I think that you have to press a button which then brings up this sequence: "Press Start to begin", with the next option being "Resume game".
* No "Save" option for the game (it autosaves at checkpoints) and...sometimes you don't trust the game!
* Opaque on how to achieve Secondary Objective in the "Gods and monsters" section, as far as the cooling towers requirement went. There was nothing on the HUD to indicate where to go or what to do on that front.
* It could have been signalled better on how to progress at times. E.g. even though I had acquired the weapon to attack a communications tower, it wasn't obvious to me that I had everything that I needed and what I should do next...so I felt that I had to lookup up a video online which showed you what to do.
* For some reason the Ceph Stalkers attack you even when you are in stealth mode.
* The Alpha Ceph battle gets tedious with all the reloading of autosaves that I found myself doing (due to dying) but fortunately the game does enough checkpoint saves to prevent it from becoming an intolerable imposition on the poor player. I thought I'd need to look at an online video to help me progress past this section but fortunately I didn't need to do that. I think that my note on this section says that an object which provides you with power-ups necessary to progress past this section are hard to see.
Bad about the game:
* Glitched trophies. I didn't get the trophy for having all weapons and attachments. Even though I'm sure I satisfied the requirements for this trophy, it seems that there is some (unmentioned) method of confirming that you have the weapon attachment which you do in fact have. Extremely irritating. Presumably I'd have to replay the game from scratch (no saved progress) in order to do this...and only by slavishly following an online video on how to do this "properly"...i.e. watching the ENTIRE game on video and following it PRECISELY. Absolutely pathetic. It's the worst kind of grinding, scavenger hunt which games can employ.
* Feeling that I needed to look up videos online on how to progress at some points. E.g. for killing the Ceph Mastermind. Also, I need to consult a video to get to the Control Tower...twice!
* Interminable VTOL sequence (a flying gunship)...it gets frustrating trying to progress to the next stage of the game when you keep dying in it! I.e. some more checkpoints in this sequence would have been appreciated.
* Annoying hack at the part to do with the Nexus (for the turrets, I think)...I found it impossible.
General observations:
Initially I found the controls daunting and wondered if they were different to the previous games, but I must have come to terms with them anyway (I'm writing this review almost a year after I completed the game).
After my negative review of Crysis 2, it was pleasing that the final game in this series marks the high point of this series. Unlike Crysis 2, with it's interminable length, Crysis 3 encourages replays due to its much shorter running time (hmm...but actually...looking at my trophies for these two games, it seems that I completed Crysis 2 quicker than I did Crysis 3...but maybe I put more hours into the former?). In any case, Crysis 2 FELT interminable, which is my complaint). Also, I could be bothered going after trophies in Crysis 3, unlike for Crysis 2, which were of a "Who cares?" variety.
Miscellaneous:
* An in game NPC's ID card expires in 2099...about 52 years from the game's present!
* Easter egg after the end credits.
