E XS CRYSIS 3 SERIES

Hacking is certainly a handy addition that lends itself well to Crysis's freeform approach to firefights. Opening locked doors is a fairly mundane means to an end, but the fun really starts when you hack automated turrets to turn on their owners, or electronic minefields which you can subsequently lure your enemies into. You can now use the Nanosuit’s upgraded visor capabilities to hack electronic devices found in the environment, which is executed via a short timing-based mini-game. The new game is every bit as fluid and flexible (and fun) as fans have come to expect from Crytek's more sandbox style of shooting, and there are a handful of new additions to your arsenal that make each enemy encounter all the more entertaining. Like its predecessors, the gameplay of Crysis 3 is almost exclusively about killing, be it via an all-out assault or more surreptitious forms of slaughter. You won’t be cloaking yourself and sneaking up on someone in order to give them a surprise snuggle and a kiss on the cheek.

E XS CRYSIS 3 SERIES

That’s not to say that the Crysis series is suddenly a sensitive new aged feelgoodery. For a game about a hero that’s become more machine than man, Crysis 3 has a surprising amount of heart. It's not quite Half-Life 2, but it's still a substantial jump in storytelling for the series.

Thanks to uniformly excellent dialogue, voice acting and facial animation, Crysis 3's characters are able to emote at a level well beyond the reach of the loud-mouthed marines typically found in the genre. One is desperate to cling to his last traces of humanity, the other, newly stripped of his Nanosuit and tortured by CELL, is struggling to come to terms with his own mortality. Crysis 3 roots its narrative in a fight against the oppressive CELL Corporation and the pursuit of the alien Alpha Ceph, but the story is propelled along by the relationship between protagonist Prophet and his sidekick Michael ‘Psycho’ Sykes. It’s clear that this is an area that Crytek has largely directed its focus, and perhaps why the core gameplay experience hasn’t really changed too dramatically from Crysis 2. Play So the biggest surprise that hits when you first sit down to play Crysis 3 is the noticeable leap in quality displayed by its story and characters.

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