PC Game Review: Crysis Warhead - Page 4

Now, that's not to say Warhead doesn't do anything better than its predecessor. New to this expansion is the ability to auto-collect ammo by simply walking over it, rather than having to spot it and manually pick it up like you did in the original. This is on by default in the first two difficulty levels, and off in the higher two. I'd have rather it just be a toggle, though, as I ended up grabbing a 30-round clip when I really only had room for a few rounds in my inventory, the rest going to waste. This also empowers players to wing it and run around like crazy, which may be a good thing for some, but I preferred the more deliberate, selective, stealthy trappings established in the beginning of the franchise. You can still play both ways, more or less. They just made it easier to be a maniac here.

New weapons have arrived, dual-wielding automatic pistols is on the menu, higher grenade capacities, new explosives (EMP grenades disable nanosuits), and vehicle handling has also been improved somewhat, though I don't recall seeing a single patrol boat in Warhead (those were some of my favorite things to take over in Crysis). You can also play it with a Xbox 360 controller, as depicted in the manual. Missing are any missions requiring piloting VTOLs or anything else in the air, for better or worse. All land, no sea or air travel this time. The damage taken when running into vehicles, walls, or even having a barrel tip over on you is still ridiculous much of the time. I was chasing down a tank to stick some C4 on its tail, and when I bumped into the back of said tank, which was driving AWAY from me, I died. Instantly.

Apparently, the visual performance was smoothed out a bit, though I had a hard time telling. Running both games on the same Nvidia Geforce 7950GT 512MB card, I ran the original with mostly medium graphics settings and high shader detail with very few lost frames or stuttering. With Warhead at the same settings, it seemed the whole thing took longer to get everything together to run smoothly. There was a lot more stuttering and freezing toward the beginning of a level or when walking into a new region, bad enough that I eventually had to turn shaders down. Still problematic are the snowy areas, which required me in both games to turn down detail settings to almost nil to get reasonable playability. Seems odd to me that countless fluttering leaves and glossy HDR effects are less taxing to the frame rate than flat, frosty terrain. Also a little weird is that they changed the settings from Low, Medium, High, and Very High to Minimum, Mainstream, Gamer, and Enthusiast. This seems mildly less intuitive, and I don't see why they changed it. If I thought about it too hard, I might feel patronized.

Article Author: Mark Buckingham

Mark Buckingham is not only BC's Sci/Tech Editor-In-Geek, but also an avid freelance writer, gamer, techhead, reader, movie watcher, pianist, and hockey player.

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