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General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: hobo2 on September 21, 2008, 07:24:33 pm

Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: hobo2 on September 21, 2008, 07:24:33 pm
(http://gamingw.net/pubaccess/37386/30153_CrysisWarheadBoxCrop.jpg)


Yes indeed, it's the semi-expansion pack to the original Crysis. I was sort of surprised and almost disgusted that this game doesn't have a topic (maybe I just overlooked the topic) so I decided to do what I rarely do and make a topic about it.

Background Information

Crysis Warhead is a standalone expansion to the original Crysis. Warhead takes place on the other side of the island and you play as Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes. The game uses an optimized version of CryEngine 2 that provides a smoother gameplay experience and enhanced special effects. It introduces many improvements over the original with new weapons and vehicles as well as a retooled multiplayer with a new gameplay mode. The box includes two discs, one for the single player and one for the multiplayer (named Crysis Wars). This time around, they did not create silly limitations between DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 mode and so you can run at the highest setting in both modes without tweaks. That only applies to the single player though because Crysis Wars has the highest settings greyed out for me but they say they're going to come out with a patch to change that. I'm not sure if that'll mean they'll have day/night and tree-breaking physics or whatever in DirectX 9 multiplayer but the visuals will be upgraded at least.

DRM

Yes, I know this is a pretty heavy topic for both gamers and developers. Crysis Warhead uses SecuROM and limits the installations to five machines with each machine allowed to have an unlimited number of reinstallations. Crysis Wars does not have an activation limit. Personally, I don't see how I could use up all of those activations and the fact that you don't need the DVD in the drive to play makes up for the DRM. Plus the $30 price tag seems reasonable enough and they'll probably come out with a patch that removes the DRM sooner or later anyway. However, I do understand that some feel strongly against this and make no exceptions so I guess it depends on what you believe and what you think of the situation.

The Game

I'll start off talking about the single player. The single player is definitely shorter than the original game. I've heard estimations of five hours but I didn't keep track of it myself. As far as optimizations go, this game felt much smoother than the original however I have seen people saying that the game runs the same or even worse than the original so it seems mixed. Mostly though, the problem can be traced to DirectX 10 mode so try adding "-dx9" to the end of your shortcut and see how that runs. Many report that doing that adds more frames per second. The game does look better, especially the lighting effects. Enough about the performance, the single player itself is much more action packed than the original. They also say that the AI has been improved but I haven't really noticed (in fact the aliens sometimes do very stupid things). Missions that have a focus on vehicles allow you to exit the vehicle at any time so you're not forced to use it, which is a nice touch. Cutscenes are more detailed and are many times shown in a third person perspective (unlike the first game where all cutscene were in first person) which is an improvement. The battles are more varied and you'll see groups of enemies together that you wouldn't have seen in the original. I have encountered a few crashes, mostly in single player, I hope this gets fixed with the first patch.

As for the multiplayer, it's quite fun. Crysis Wars has three modes, Instant Action (deathmatch), Team Instant Action (new to Warhead), and Power Struggle. I've been playing in DirectX 9 mode so I haven't been able to experience the advanced physics in multiplayer but the suit modes and excellent level structure provide enough substance to have loads of fun with. Mostly I've been playing with Team Instant Action as I've had the most fun with it. Power Struggle is more complicated and tactical. Basically you have two teams and everyone starts off with a pistol. You gain points by killing enemies and capturing buildings. With those points, you can buy more powerful weapons and other miscellaneous items. This mode is all about control as the name suggests. You need to capture buildings which will improve your technology so that you can eventually have the technology to get the nuke. At that point, you'll be able to nuke your opponent's base and win the match. Matches take a long time and some servers even have rules against using the nuke before a certain amount of time has passed. I didn't have as much fun with this mode but it's worth a try.

Conclusion

Crysis Warhead brings with it a lot of improvements but it seems to have some kinks which need to be patched. The DRM might be seen as a problem but it works fine for me. For $30 I'd say it's worth it.

Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: pburn on September 21, 2008, 07:28:04 pm
I hated the first Crysis since it's so fucking hard for me. Yeah visuals and all are great but I can't ever take down enemies stealthily or all out in this or far cry.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Marcus on September 21, 2008, 07:32:04 pm
The original Crysis was such a good idea that was just executed poorly.  I'm just not seeing anything interesting coming out of a short standalone expansion pack.

But I'll probably pirate it because that's how I roll.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: hobo2 on September 21, 2008, 07:32:22 pm
Quote from: Psyburn on September 21, 2008, 07:28:04 pm
I hated the first Crysis since it's so fucking hard for me. Yeah visuals and all are great but I can't ever take down enemies stealthily or all out in this or far cry.

Have you tried playing on the easier difficulties?
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: DS on September 21, 2008, 07:40:35 pm
rami bought this two days ago, beat it earlier today. It's pretty short (took me like 6 hours) but I really liked it. Overall it works better than Crysis although I had some annoying slowdowns. It's more action-paced and the driving levels were easily better than in the original. Fighting aliens was a lot more fun too because they had mixed things up by making you fight aliens and Koreans at the same time, that and the alien AI seemed better as well.

I think it's a great game and Crytek have managed to improve things a bit but it still has same issues original Crysis had. My main issue with Crysis is that it has so much potential with all the cool things it has but it doesn't really show. You aren't really forced to destroy anything, it doesn't matter that you can shoot trees and make them fall and so on. The physics are great but they don't really matter. They really need to work on level design and make the levels more compact and interesting. I like the sandbox approach and how you can approach missions in different ways but comparing Crysis or Crysis Warhead to say, Half-Life 2, it just lacks that something. Well, even so, Crysis and Crysis Warhead are my favorite FPSes besides HL2 and Bioshock.

Also, I don't see how Crysis is too difficult unless you are playing on Delta. On Delta, enemies hit you really easily even if they are far as hell so you are forced to cloak around a lot but on easier difficulties you don't need to mind your surroundings that much. I'd say Crysis is too easy if anything.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Kaworu on September 21, 2008, 07:46:50 pm
crysis is so easy. Seriously a game that can make you invisible to hide from enemies...
I love having fun mucking around in Crysis so I hope my torrent for Warhead kicks up soon!
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Neophyte on September 21, 2008, 09:20:37 pm
Quote from: DragonSlayer on September 21, 2008, 07:40:35 pm
rami bought this two days ago, beat it earlier today. It's pretty short (took me like 6 hours) but I really liked it. Overall it works better than Crysis although I had some annoying slowdowns. It's more action-paced and the driving levels were easily better than in the original. Fighting aliens was a lot more fun too because they had mixed things up by making you fight aliens and Koreans at the same time, that and the alien AI seemed better as well.

I think it's a great game and Crytek have managed to improve things a bit but it still has same issues original Crysis had. My main issue with Crysis is that it has so much potential with all the cool things it has but it doesn't really show. You aren't really forced to destroy anything, it doesn't matter that you can shoot trees and make them fall and so on. The physics are great but they don't really matter. They really need to work on level design and make the levels more compact and interesting. I like the sandbox approach and how you can approach missions in different ways but comparing Crysis or Crysis Warhead to say, Half-Life 2, it just lacks that something. Well, even so, Crysis and Crysis Warhead are my favorite FPSes besides HL2 and Bioshock.

Also, I don't see how Crysis is too difficult unless you are playing on Delta. On Delta, enemies hit you really easily even if they are far as hell so you are forced to cloak around a lot but on easier difficulties you don't need to mind your surroundings that much. I'd say Crysis is too easy if anything.
Yeah this.

This game is a lot better than the original Crysis. They did a decent job on the actual story, with a little more character development. They really worked on cutscenes as well, because they're 50x better in this game than in the original. As far as performance, it's a big difference for me. I averaged 24FPS on the original Crysis, with tweaked settings on an 8800GT. Now the game averages about 30FPS even in the ice levels.

But yeah, while the engine is really really good, it's not being used to its full potential. The objectives are still the same(hit checkpoint, destroy something, etc), and there really isn't much else to it. They vary somewhat, but it still lacks something. Overall though, it's a really good game.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: pburn on September 21, 2008, 09:22:55 pm
Quote from: hobo2 on September 21, 2008, 07:32:22 pm
Have you tried playing on the easier difficulties?
Easiest possible.

You know even if I go invisible I can't do anything with it except get 5% closer to the enemy camp and than get spotted.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: big ass skelly on September 21, 2008, 09:27:15 pm
JESUS CHRIST PSYBURN STOP DOING THIS TO ME.

You're one of the only asians here and you CAN'T DRIVE WELL and you're BAD AT FPS GAMES
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Ryan on September 21, 2008, 10:00:18 pm
please don't mark. he literally spent hours saturday whining about how much being asian sucks.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Rowain on September 21, 2008, 11:43:25 pm
QUick, give him some math problems to boost his self esteem.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: dragonx on September 21, 2008, 11:50:12 pm
he sucks at math too i asked before
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: AdderallApocalypse on September 22, 2008, 01:06:09 am
What kind of asian is bad at math? Also, I haven't played the original Crysis game, because it would slaughter my computer.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: DS on September 22, 2008, 11:50:32 am
I read somewhere that if you set colorgrading to 0, it increases your FPS by 5-6. I also ran the game in dx9 mode and even though my FPS average was about 25, I didn't get any major slowdowns when I beat the first level which was a good sign. I'm not sure if it's because of dx9 mode or what (not even sure if it affects me because I don't have dx10 compatible gpu even though I have 64bit vista) but the gameplay is pretty smooth for me and seriously, the game looks really good even with my pretty much average pc.


Unfortunately I can't play it with rami's pc (way better than mine) because rami's PSU is probably broken and can't handle gaming.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: hobo2 on September 22, 2008, 03:53:43 pm
Apparently there are already tweaks for this game. Mostly they are carried over from the original Crysis but they seem to work. Tweaks can be applied by creating an autoexec.cfg file in the Crysis Warhead folder. Then you just input commands from there. From what I've seen, this really helps:

con_restricted=0
sys_budget_videomem = 512

Change the "512" to whatever amount of memory your graphics card has. Supposedly Crytek made the game take up 256MB of vram by default. For additional tweaks, there is a program that made tweaks for Crysis that will also work for Crysis Warhead.
CCC 2.21: http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=23117
Just select your preferences and install. All it'll do is make an autoexec.cfg or system.cfg file. Don't select anything in the "Extras" section as those may not work with Warhead (Time of Day definitely won't work). Then just put the autoexec.cfg in your Crysis Warhead folder. However, this tweak doesn't include the "sys_budget_videomem" line so add that in the generated autoexec.cfg somewhere.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Eltee on September 23, 2008, 12:23:50 am
I might get this sometime, granted I finish Crysis beforehand (I do like Crysis so far though)

How big is this?
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: The Dude on September 23, 2008, 06:39:10 am
Quote
DRM

Yes, I know this is a pretty heavy topic for both gamers and developers. Crysis Warhead uses SecuROM and limits the installations to five machines with each machine allowed to have an unlimited number of reinstallations. Crysis Wars does not have an activation limit. Personally, I don't see how I could use up all of those activations and the fact that you don't need the DVD in the drive to play makes up for the DRM. Plus the $30 price tag seems reasonable enough and they'll probably come out with a patch that removes the DRM sooner or later anyway. However, I do understand that some feel strongly against this and make no exceptions so I guess it depends on what you believe and what you think of the situation.

What happens when I want to play this years down the line, and have gone through several computers (I'm bad with computers). I mean, from the looks of it, this probably won't be memorable outside of the multitude of FPS's nowadays, but come on...
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: HL on September 23, 2008, 07:10:10 am
You ask them to give you more activations / they remove it after 1 year anyways.

But I don't buy DRM games, so. Downloading this one for sure.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: reko on September 23, 2008, 07:49:49 am
Yeah I bought this only to find out that my computer is about to break (overheating and rebooting itself when trying to play this). Thanks Crysis Warhead...
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: goat on September 23, 2008, 12:52:19 pm
That's funny, I found it too easy to be stealthy. I would cloak, line up a headshot, quickly go to strength, take the shot, and before he could hit the ground, I was back in cloak. The CPU was RETARDED when you were cloaked, as long as you didn't walk right next to them.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Artis Leon Ivey Jr on September 23, 2008, 03:15:08 pm
MAXIMUM STEALTH
MAXIMUM SPEED

repeat ad nauseum, youve beat crysis!
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: DS on September 23, 2008, 03:32:12 pm
Yeah, goat is right that with cloak, Crysis becomes way too easy. That's how I pretty much beat Crysis on Delta too, used cloak, switched to armor for the second I shot someone and then back to cloak. If I had to kill more than one NPC, I just switched to armor used speed, went behind some rock etc. and switched back to cloak, it's pretty easy that way. It would be cooler if some NPCes had some heat censors or something so they could know where you are even if you are in cloak mode. Or that they would notice you easier when you are close to them and so on. Anyway, I don't mind it too much because you can play the game the way you want to and especially in Warhead there are moments when cloaking doesn't really do that much good.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Rowain on September 23, 2008, 07:28:31 pm
um pidgeoto10203, it's "CLOAKED ENGAGED" not maximum stealth...i bet u never even played Crysis.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Barack Obama on September 23, 2008, 07:31:38 pm
Quote from: hobo2 on September 21, 2008, 07:24:33 pm

DRM

Yes, I know this is a pretty heavy topic for both gamers and developers. Crysis Warhead uses SecuROM and limits the installations to five machines with each machine allowed to have an unlimited number of reinstallations. Crysis Wars does not have an activation limit. Personally, I don't see how I could use up all of those activations and the fact that you don't need the DVD in the drive to play makes up for the DRM. Plus the $30 price tag seems reasonable enough and they'll probably come out with a patch that removes the DRM sooner or later anyway. However, I do understand that some feel strongly against this and make no exceptions so I guess it depends on what you believe and what you think of the situation.

this shit gets cracked on release(sometimes earlier), why do they even bother?
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: hobo2 on September 28, 2008, 05:01:38 pm
Speaking of cracked. I logged in today to see a cracked server staring right at me. It says something like "cracked server. NO CD KEY REQUIRED" so if you want to give the multiplayer a try but you don't have a valid copy, there you go. It's a pretty good server. They host Power Struggle games with a maximum of 32 players. I played there once to try it out and it felt almost weird playing on a cracked server with a legitimate copy.

Anyway, I've been playing Power Struggle more and more now. It could be that Team Instant Action is mostly "BATTLEGROUND 24/7 LOLOL" but I'm not sure if that's really the case because I just end up looking for Power Struggle games. Once I got used to playing Power Struggle, I got hooked. This really is an amazing multiplayer mode and I'm surprised that this mode hasn't been talked about more.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Artis Leon Ivey Jr on September 28, 2008, 05:03:46 pm
Quote from: Rowain on September 23, 2008, 07:28:31 pm
um pidgeoto10203, it's "CLOAKED ENGAGED" not maximum stealth...i bet u never even played Crysis.

I actually haven't played much of it but I thought it was all MAXIMUM ________ not SOMETHING ENGAGED. oh well i forgot!
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: something bizarre and impractical on September 28, 2008, 07:15:17 pm
It is MAXIMUM SPEED, MAXIMUM STRENGTH, CLOAK ENGAGED, MAXIMUM ARMOUR
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Carrion Crow on September 28, 2008, 09:43:11 pm
I think if Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock didn't exist I would feel pretty sore about spending money upgrading my PC hardware. Crysis is not worth the cash.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Eltee on September 29, 2008, 11:34:35 pm
does this mean psycho doesn't die


thanks for spoiling me the entire game gw i hate you
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: hobo2 on November 06, 2008, 02:56:13 am
The first Crysis Wars (yes, only the online component has been updated so far) patch has been released. It's very minor in terms of in-game improvements but it does have some nice things to come along with it (removes online authentication and adds the 64-bit version of the game). There is also added support for Linux servers so I'm hoping to see higher quality servers.

Patch info is here: http://www.mycrysis.com/newsdetails.php?news=39037
The game will automatically update through auto-update but you can manually do it if you want as well.

Whoops, forgot to add the *for the lazy* part:

Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Vanit on November 06, 2008, 12:20:16 pm
Can someone explain to me why tanks can see through stealth at any distance? QQ
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: DS on November 06, 2008, 02:11:18 pm
stealth is useless online anyway
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: hobo2 on November 06, 2008, 06:13:21 pm
Cloak is actually extremely useful online. The things you have to watch out for is your shadow (which is still created) and the noise the cloak makes. Other than that, you're pretty much invisible unless the person is expecting you to appear in a certain area which would make the distortion noticeable if they are focusing on that area. As for tanks, it depends really. Did you cloak while you were in their sight? Was your shadow visible? did they kill you with an explosive blast and/or bullet spray (which could have been just luck)?
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Vanit on November 07, 2008, 02:46:20 am
It happened in the airport towards the end of the Warhead single player, the place is filled with quite a few patrolling tanks. I was trying to stealth in and my alert meter was empty, but the tank just kept firing at my exact direction, even when I was out of sight I could hear it trying to hit me through a wall. I'm sure its bugged AI.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: hobo2 on November 07, 2008, 03:38:40 am
Oh, you're talking about single player. Yeah, it's messy up there. I haven't noticed tanks doing this but I have noticed the helicopters knowing where I am and following me even though I'm cloaked but wouldn't fire until I uncloaked.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: hobo2 on November 20, 2008, 03:19:03 am
Well it didn't take long because now there is a patch 1.2. This one includes far more significant fixes.

Here is what's new with this patch:

Here are more details and links to the patch: http://www.mycrysis.com/newsdetails.php?news=39296
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: Sarevok on November 20, 2008, 07:04:06 am
Thanks for the press release necropost.
Title: Crysis Warhead
Post by: hobo2 on November 20, 2008, 08:32:21 am
Yeah, if no one's interested I'll stop bumping.