Crysis 2

+ The storyline feels powerful and epic. You can even forgive its formulaic structure.
+ Hans Zimmer lifts this game to an entirely new level.
+ Really fun and engaging gameplay with gradually changing enemy types.
+ Very nicely built New York, and nice stages.

Completed!

i played it on Veteran difficulty (second hardest) but it was still really fucking easy. literally 90% of the game i just turned on Cloak (invisibility) and walked past EVERYTHING to the next checkpoint. kind of a disappointment. i barely shot any guns, whats the point when you can just walk past everyone and speedrun the damn game? anyway it was still kind of fun, a bit tedious sometimes but glad I played it. oh and the ending / last level is a HUGE letdown. basically the "last boss" is just 3 invisible aliens that are piss easy, then you crawl to a cutscene. k.

6/10

It's so nice that if you get tired of the combat later in the game you can just get the final cloak upgrade and mostly play this as a walking simulator with a rather conspicuous gun viewmodel. And they say that the first game had more player agency.

A much better game than its reputation. Its not like the first Crysis was perfect as well, it just feels that the direction the series went in wasnt the one fans hoped for.

Yea the story is really lame, and has no purpose at all here. It also has way too many moments where it takes the action away from you. This is less a game about being a lone wolf in a predator suit, and you have to sit through expository dialogue every so often.

That said the gameplay is solid. It doesnt really allow for the amount of freedom the original Crysis offered, but this time around fighting the aliens is actually fun to do. The weapons feel good and there is a whole variety of them. The level design often uses infinite waves of enemies, but much like CoD you can just rin through them towards the next objective when you are tired of shooting up stuff. This also means that stealthing your way through levels is much less rewarding, but i never felt that was the correct way to play crysis. There is also a cover system, but its completly ignorable.

It does feel like a tech demo, but then again all Crytek games do from my experience. I still had my fun time with it.

Pros
+One of the best looking games ever and better optimization of hardware than the original.
+Human enemies aren't quite the bullet sponges they once were (though they still take a beating). The aliens still are to an extent, but it feels like they are supposed to be and can still be killed with a single headshot.
+Frequent ammo caches lets you reload the weapons you like instead of having to drop them, but still makes changing weapons viable throughout the entire game.
+Vehicle handling is noticeably improved (though they have little use in this environment) and they no longer explode when bumping into something.
+The suit powers have been tweaked slightly and still let you approach situations however you decide. In addition to this there is a customization option for your abilities as well.

Cons
-Having to actually walk up to the body of each alien to collect the nano-technology gets tedious after a while and really punishes anyone who chooses to snipe.
-Though the first game was mostly linear, its outdoor environments lent itself to much more freedom of approach. Here, there is some choice, flanking and ledges, but you are still being herded through a fairly narrow pathway.
-The powerkick is rarely useful and almost never works as intended. Unless your opponent is literally right against it, the object (usually a car) will likely get hung up on something like a street sign.
-The AI can be extremely stupid. If they are fired upon from too far away, they will often stand in place and not even attempt to find cover.

In Summary
While the game might not open up nearly as much as the early levels of the first game, it feels more deliberate for it. The pacing is well done and the game mixes things up as much as it can. A few bugs and the AI could have been fixed, but aren't game breaking. The game is a fairly refreshing change from the standard military shooters of today.

The original Crysis was so far ahead of its time, few computers could run the game upon its release in 2007. For the lucky few with state-of-the-art gaming PCs at the time, the game’s expansive environments and the player’s special abilities provided a nonlinear experience unlike any other game in the first-person shooter genre. Crysis 2 improves on the original with refined controls, fantastic presentation and some of the best visuals of its generation. The best part is that you don’t need a ludicrously expensive PC to play it.

Crysis 2 begins three years after the previous game and introduces Alcatraz, a Marine sent to bring order to a disease-ridden New York City on the eve of an alien invasion. After an explosion wipes out his squad, the solider is mistaken for Prophet, the protagonist of the original Crysis. While unconscious, Prophet puts the one-of-a-kind cybernetic, skin-tight Nanosuit on Alcatraz. Alcatraz must run from his own military outfit that mistakes him for Prophet.

In a genre that has recently been constrained to corridors and linear paths, the massive scale of New York City is a welcome change of scenery. The cityscape is more than a backdrop in Crysis 2 — it’s a playground for the wearer of the Nanosuit to explore. With the ability to cloak, leap to great heights, fall 20 stories with minimal damage and double running speed, the Nanosuit allows the wearer freedom to explore the huge battlegrounds. The first game’s world was open to a fault. When things worked out, it was amazing. Most of the time, the nonlinear design led to frustration and confusion stemming from the lack of direction. Crysis 2 addresses these issues by containing the environment to areas slightly larger than those found in Halo: Reach, with the additional verticality of skyscrapers, hillsides and rubble. At every new expanse, the player is presented with two to four options on how to handle a situation. Thankfully, you won’t have to pick just one option most of the time, because the finely tuned controls let the player smoothly transition from one to the other.

From spinning helicopter blades to towering, alien behemoths, the visuals of Crysis 2 are breathtaking. The game’s story is cliched, but there are moments when the visuals and storytelling combine to provide a powerful moment, such as a scene where a family runs to board the squad’s jeep, only to be crushed in the debris of a skyscraper falling and crushing them. Occasionally buggy AI issues with dialogue clipping out and repetitive enemy and level design prevent Crysis 2 from realizing its full potential. The game controls well on both console and PC, but console players will have to put up with inferior lighting effects and a lower frame rate. This is problematic in the multiplayer mode, where the difference between spotting a camouflaged player and death is a matter of seconds.

By merging innovative technology with sophisticated design, developer Crytek has created a flawed gem that suggests first-person shooters don’t have to be limited in scope and complexity in order to attain crossover appeal.