Analysis: Things Crysis Did Wrong To Make Warhead Even Better
Mislabeling
But is it really that bad? Crysis in DX 10 mode is unplayable on my PC at the highest setting, and I get around 15 fps at medium quality. However, I’m able to run Crysis with all the bells and whistles maxed out in DX 9 mode and hardly suffer any lag. I don’t have a top-of the line PC, but it’s not midrange either. A Core 2 Duo E6850, 4 Gigs of Ram and two HD 3870 X2’s in CrossFire. However, Crytek saw this as a means of “future proofing” their game and it’s quite understandable. Shelling out 50 bucks for a game that will only be good for 6 months or so is a serious waste of money. By having the option to get a much better experience [and graphical fidelity] as hardware progresses is a wise decision, but the option should have been locked. As Yerli points out, “it would’ve been wiser to unlock the game’s highest graphics settings in a patch when better hardware became available”.
AI And Down Time
Another area where Crysis fell short is the lackluster AI, especially the aliens. While I had fun exploiting this many did not. The early stages of the games were really enjoyable due to it’s open-world sandbox nature however the game became much more linear by the end. The action was also lacking at some points, many might disagree, but there seemed to be a lot of “down time” in the first stages of the game.
Yerli said Warhead will have plenty of scripted sequences with noisy and explosive objective based action, just like Call of Duty 4. It will be more consistently exciting with fewer slow periods than Crysis. The AI is also being revamped, especially the Aliens who will now have more “human-like organization”.
Piracy
The nail in the coffin was the open nature of the PC as a gaming platform (read: PIRACY). It’s nothing new that Crysis led the charts as the most pirated PC game, and by a wide margin. The “core problem of PC gaming is piracy”, Yerli says, “there was a statistic that there were around 15-20 [pirated copies] per one copy sold; it doesn’t mean we would sell 15-20 times more, of course, but at least if piracy was lower, we would double our sales”. Will EA slap Warhead with the same activation method it put in Mass Effect? Not quite so. Harald Seeley of Crytek said in an interview with Destructoid that “[Crytek is] also concerned about the potential opposite problem [with DRM copy protection] of inconveniencing legitimate buyers”. However the decision of what sort of online protection will be put into the final build of Warhead isn’t final.
What About PC Exclusives and Wasn’t Crysis Supposed To Be A Trilogy?
Fans of Crysis will be saddened to hear that Warhead isn’t continuing the story of Crysis. It’s not Crysis 2 nor is it an expansion. Instead gamers in Warhead will take control of Sykes (aka, “Psycho”) who disappears at the middle of the Crysis storyline. Will Crysis 2 ever be made? It’s still uncertain and the success of Warhead will greatly influence the decision whether to make Crysis 2 or not.
Another concern with Warhead is that it will get dumbed down. Let’s make this clear, Warhead is still a PC exclusive. So, you don’t have to worry that the quality will be compromised because it’s being developed on simultaneous platforms – it’s not. And it wouldn’t be Crytek if they didn’t push the technology barrier with every new release, would it?
Be Sure To Read
Improved Visuals, Surround Sound and 32 Player Online Matches : Is This What Next-Generation Gaming Is All About?
The Prospect of a Piracy Free Bangladesh : Will It Ever Happen?
The Main Reason Why PC Gaming Is Exploding In Developing Nations Is, Surprisingly, Piracy
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Jul 16th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I honestly always thought of Crysis of more of an ad for a game engine then anything else. The developers would be smart to start licensing that sucker out, as it is very future proofed. This is the type of engine Duke Nukem Forever should have been made for… maybe it wouldn’t look as aged as it will after more then a decade of development.
Jul 17th, 2008 at 3:49 am
@ Yert
Yeah, maybe Crysis was just to tout the CryEngine. Before I get the flamewars started, I would like to say that I enjoyed a lot of it, but not all.
Jul 31st, 2008 at 11:38 am
i played crysis with my poor Geforce 6200 on low settings and it ran well.
i see many gamers want the best graphic and spend 500$ for just a graphics card
well that money will buy me 5 or 7(stretching 8-12 years atleast) low to medium end graphics cards and that would serve me 8 to 12 or years.in the meantime those 500$ card buyers will see that their 500$ premium graphics card become useless in 3 to 4 years and need to change to another 500$ card.ouch
so i think spending less to get more value for your money and still be able to play games albeit in low setting is wisest choice and gives ultra value for your money.
But yes if you have the money then you probably wouldnt bother too much spending 500$ bucks every year or two to buy a new Graphics card and play games at the best setting. 😉 😆
Jul 31st, 2008 at 3:09 pm
@shamim
Really? On a GeForce 6200? 😯 I have two ATI HD 3870 X2 in CrossFire and a dual core Intel E6850 with 4GB RAM, and even I get lag in Crysis running very high in DX 10 mode. 🙁 But in DX9, Crysis looks absolutely gorgeous at the very highest setting, and I don’t have any frame stutters. 😎
You’re right, it doesn’t make sense for us Bangladeshi people to pay so much for a high-end system. Although I know many Bangladeshis (myself included) who will pay top dollars to get the absolutely best gaming rig. heck, I just spent $800 on my graphics card alone. 😀
Sep 8th, 2008 at 8:31 am
I played Crysis on xfx 8800gt zalman on 1024×768 res and the highest setting in vista with 2 gb ram and e7200 at 3.17ghz and i got a whopping 61fps avg. how nice.no lag. hi musfique
dx9
Sep 17th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
when’s Warhead coming to Bangladesh
I’ve been waiting for ages for it 😕 😕
Oct 30th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I also have a 6200 with a pentium 4 chip on a stock 915intel/asueus board with 2500mb of ram added (no pcie slots) and it runs fine on all low settings.
Oct 30th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I know the graphics and performance are better on higher end cards but since the makers of the games have contracts with the card makers it makes since for them to say certain games can only be ran on certain cards. (even the min. specs they say are wrong. That way, the card makers make more money because people run out and buy a card to play it on the highest settings and constantly upgrade according to the specs of the games that come out. The thing that gets me is when the game maker says the game at the least can be run on say for instance a nvidia 6800 when it can be ran on a 6200. I’m not sure how it works but rest assured every card that’s sold after a demo or full game comes out, the card maker gives a kickback to the game maker. It may be more complicated or could be more simple then my explanation for why they say certain games can only be run on certain graphics cards but we need more truth in graphics and games as we need more truth in lending when it comes to homes. Also, a lot of people don’t realize the card makers just don’t make cards and the bulk of there money dosen’t come from cards so if they can get this fan base to constantlly shell out money when a game comes out, mission accomplished. Like diseases, there’s no money in the cure, just as long as you can live with the medicines you have to constantly buy year after year.
Dec 2nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
It does run better. they turned down the quality and sharpness of many fairly unnoticeable textures from crysis to make warhead run at better rates while giving better performance . not to mention the expansive maps of crysis which were basically honestly useless because ur objects were always in a sorta linear path have become mostly linear ones but still maintaining the quality of graphics… infact i think the smaller enviroments strap even better textures and lighting than the 1st game. the vast open-ness in crysis is just there for idiot gamers who have a vegetation fetish.. or want to go tourist style in crysis. Warhead is all bout running and gunning thru the game which really suits it.. and the maps arent cut down to much of a small size. they are still huuuuuge. crysis was just ridiculously huge.. i didnt even get why we need so much vegetation in places where i never set my foot it.. or wont set my foot in. :)).. warhead is just rite with its maps.. The shooting is tweaked too makin it more fun to shoot ppl. But i love both games.. Warhead lackin in epicness of crysis and gameplay hour length.. but makin up in performance whereas crysis has the tendancy to make u feel u need a FUTURISTIC PC FROM SPACE to be able to run the game at all very high .. smoothly.
Dec 2nd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
ugh. ^ some sentence arrangement errors in m above post. i apologize. i meant to say.. the objectives in crysis were all linear despite the expansive maps so u really had to traverse linearly.in that case it killed performance … but for warhead the maps were made justifiably so performance was better .