Real Talk By: KJ

After jumping into the Beta for Crysis 2 one thing is evident. This game looks freaking great. When you see it in action, it truly speaks for itself. Hopefully the Campaign will be on the same level visually. But visuals were never this franchises problem. It’s all about the gameplay at the end of the day that brings people back. Crytek’s Beta released Tuesday morning. The only map you receive, is a map simply titled Skyline. You won’t hear me complaining. It’s a tremendous level that shows off the game properly. You can find a gorgeous outside area, with plenty of places to take cover. All of the structures are incredibly detailed. Inside the building, there’s several rooms that have a unique vibe. From Locker rooms, to a war-torn greenhouse outside, and even a dance party inside. This is probably the first time I haven’t complained about a beta having just one map.

Most of your advancements in the Beta are exactly like Call of Duty’s. Unlocking perks, and weapon add-ons along the way keeps the game feeling fresh. The Nanosuits make way for some cool abilities. Stealth, extra armor, and the power to jump very high. You can even send out holograms of yourself Halo Reach style. If you choose to jump high, while your characters in the air, you can follow it up with an stomp. The Air Stomp makes a huge shockwave, killing anyone that gets caught in it. As you can see, there’s unique moments always happening with Crysis 2. To explain the overall feel of the game, take A hint of Killzone 2 for its graphics, throw in Halo Reach for the perks and COD’s controls, and you have yourself Crysis 2. While some will complain that it borrows from these games too much, reality is there’s not many games that don’t anymore. Crytek just took the traits that I love from each and blended it into an experience that feels absolutely fresh.

Team Instant Action (Team Deathmatch) and Crash Site (Domination) are both playable in the beta. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Not sure if unique modes of play will be arriving at launch, but here’s praying that it will. Playing  these modes can be great for some, but there is also some issues that need to be addressed. I talked to 30 people about the beta. While most enjoyed it, there were some that had similar issues. The biggest one right now is the game freezing up. This would happen constantly to these individuals. Of course, the lag that we expect from EA does rear its ugly head at points. As cool as the ground stomp looks, right now its hard to kill someone with it. When I do something that is amazing it needs to be acknowledged!

The one thing that I grabbed from the Beta the most, was the Dog Tags. When you kill an enemy, they drop a tag. Kill a certain amount of enemies, you a start a killstreak. One is a radar, and another one is an alien strike. The thing about the streaks, if you camp like a coward in the corner killing thinking you’ll get your alien strikes and radars, that’s not how it works. You have to go over to the body and pick up the tag to work as credit toward the streak. A nice feature that I hope becomes the norm.

All in all its a solid Beta, but there are tweaks that need to happen. At the end of the day, I think Crytek did an Honorable job. Expect the whole show on March 22, 2011