Video Games

Bullet Points: Crysis 2, Part 3


I had a bunch of Cokes with dinner, so I wound up wide-awake at 11pm last night. Played some more Crysis 2, and this morning I’m a tired, half-unconscious mess. Here’s the run-down.

CRYSIS 2, PART 3

  • Starting the level over from last time.

  • Ooh, I just found “reflex sights” for my guns. Now we’re talking! It’s like a laser sight and an iron sight combined. This is my favorite kind of gun sight.
  • I also found silencers for my machine guns. I need to start examining these dropped guns more closely, they seem to have goodies I may have been missing.
  • Killed some soldiers, and discovered I can get into their car and drive around!

  • I’m driving. The dead gunner is still flopping around in the gun turret.
  • Whoops. Now I’m dead after running into two other cars that both had live gunners manning their guns instead of floppy corpses. Well played, enemy soldiers.
  • Note to self: figure out which button lets me jump into the gun position.
  • Okay, starting the level over again. I will be more careful this time. I will not mess around with cars. Wait. That seems like it’s wrong.
  • You know what, here’s some thoughts on what’s wrong with a checkpoint-only save system in Crysis 2:
  • The checkpoint saves are completely discouraging me from experimenting/exploring. I’d love to mess around with some new tactics and take some silly chances and, in general, goof around more. I’d love to get back in that car and tear around the city and try to run over soldiers and smash up my car, but to get to the car again I have to redo the entire first part of the level and take out all of those guys (and collect my new weapons upgrades again) before I can steal the car. And I just don’t feel like going through that only to die stupidly and go through all that again.
  • Checkpoint saves are bad. Quicksaves are good. Quicksaves means you can try stupid shit all you want, experiment, explore more, whatever.
  • Hm. Let me amend that a little, because I just had a really great, long, drawn-out firefight with a bunch of soldiers that was more tense than it would have been if I wasn’t so worried about dying, and I was more worried about dying because I knew I’d have to redo everything if I did. So. There is a benefit to checkpoint saves — it means you’ve got a stake in surviving, just like in real life when you get into shootouts with soldiers.
  • I guess for me, it boils down to this: I’d sacrifice some of the tension for less frustration and more experimenting. PC games should always both have auto and manual saves.
  • Found the crash site. Very low on ammo, so I’m sneaking up behind dudes and killing them with my hands.
  • When I kill dudes, melee style, it looks like sometimes I break their necks and sometimes maybe I stab them with a knife? It’s hard to tell. It’s also sort of weird to not know how I’m about to kill someone. I guess my nanosuit makes the decision for me. My nanosuit is pretty smart.
  • Scientist had me examine the crash site and, I dunno, he said something about something. Now I have to go back outside again.
  • Chopper! Attacking me! I immediately look around for a rocket launcher because I know how games work.
  • Here it is, lying three feet away from me. I wish life was like that. The DVD drive on my laptop is always getting stuck closed, but there’s never a paperclip lying conveniently three feet away. Or a rocket launcher, for that matter.

  • Killed the helicopter.
  • Heh. Literally seconds after I take out the chopper with a rocket, a soldier pops his head out on a ledge above me and says “I think I heard something!” It makes me laugh. That soldier is funny. (He’s dead now.)

  • Whoah! An alien! It is very fast and cool looking and sounding.
  • Oh shit! Hah, I thought the game was going to tease me with the alien for a bit. Sometimes games show you a new enemy from a distance a few times, and then it doesn’t attack you right off (like the Hunter in HL2: Ep 2). But no, this fucker ran right up and started kicking the shit out of me.

  • This is where it becomes apparent that I’m not very good at games. The alien is fast and jumps around and I empty clip after clip and miss a lot. This is why I stink at multiplayer shooters.
  • He came in close and I beat him to death. Welcome to earth!
  • Oh, neat. I took some alien DNA (or whatever) and my nanosuit slurped it up and now I can upgrade. So, there are some RPG elements here. I’m down with that.

  • I can’t wait to stealth-enhance my pinkie.
  • Wait. Didn’t Prophet become infected with alien glop? And now I’m just smearing it willy-nilly all over my nanosuit? Seems like a bad idea. Maybe my nanosuit isn’t that smart after all.
  • Sneaking around, now. Aliens are pretty tough. Watching them kill soldiers is fun.
  • Cloaking, sneaking up on aliens, shooting them while they’re standing still. Running out of ammo since I can’t get ammo off the dead aliens. Could be a problem. Collecting more DNA for my suit, but I don’t want to spend it yet.
  • Got to a checkpoint, stopping here.

Review Score, Part 3: This was a really fun night of playing! Got into a nice long fight with some soldiers, took down a chopper, fought some aliens, got some cool upgrades for my guns, and learned that I can upgrade my fingers. If it weren’t for the annoyances of the checkpoint saves, I’d be an A+ but it’s only an  A

Comments

  1. Checkpoints-only is why I gave up on Far Cry. It gave me a submachine gun and then made me fight a derelict ship full of enemies and a goddamned Hind gunship, and then made me go through the whole thing again when I, big surprise, got my ass shot off effortlessly.

  2. Yeah checkpoint only system is very annoying, it gives me headache.In a level I killed 20 soldiers and 21th fucked me up.So now I have to kill all the 20 soldiers again(Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnoying)…..