PC Game Review: Crysis Warhead - Page 5

Little things stand out a bit more, like sometimes overbearing glowy sky effects, and some colors are a little more vibrant than before, but overall you're still confronted mostly with lush greenery in the jungle and framerate killing snow once the ice dome makes its debut. This comes at the expense of slightly longer pre-mission load times in Warhead (in my experience).

Another change is that cutscenes are now shown in third-person, not first-person as they were in Crysis. It's somewhat up to the individual, but I preferred the old method, since never leaving the eyes of Nomad made reveals of new enemies, territories, and story elements that much more immersive, as it is in the Half-Life series of games. I felt like I WAS Nomad, and getting to know myself a bit more every step of the way. In Warhead, I found the transition to third-person took me out of the action, made me feel I was merely watching the story unfold rather than being a key part of it. This isn't helped by the fact that not only are the in-engine cutscenes sometimes painfully choppy (depending on your specs, I suppose), some of the coolest moments in the game happen in these non-interactive cutscenes, leaving you to do nothing but sit and watch rather than participate and be the badass you so badly want to be. Another potentially missed opportunity is those moments where someone else's life is entirely in your hands, and you could have been made able to choose to save them or let them perish.

This brings up another couple of issues with the story There are two places in particular where simply using the suit could have changed things drastically (potential spoilers incoming). One is where Psycho is hanging off the bridge by one hand and holding up the marine from plummeting into the river below. Rather than dropping him and trying to grab the detonator, why not activate strength mode, toss the marine back up onto the bridge, then go toe-to-toe with the nanosuited Koreans and the chopper? The other is when Psycho goes…well, psycho on General Lee (not from Hazzard County) and steals his (don't tase me bro!) taser. He drops it out the back of the VTOL where the General picks it right back up again, perfectly functional. As this was one of the few things that really put a vice grip on the safety of someone in a nanosuit, why not again use strength mode to crush the damn thing and drop the bits n pieces, scattering the remnants around the General? Missed opportunities, and could have been good moments for sort of "choose your own adventure" style choices to play out.

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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