Crysis demo impressions

After a long run of announcements and disappointments, finally Crysis demo was released today. As soon as I got the news, I started downloading, anticipating decent enough performance and some great visuals and gameplay.
And I must say, Crysis didn't disappoint.





The demo, comprising of whole first level, was huge when compared to some recently released demos (Jericho taking the crown of shortest demo ever).
It looks like Crytek has taken those complaints about Far Cry, of bad voice acting and second grade plot, seriously. Although the story isnt stellar, it has been told in believable manner. The voice acting is pretty good in Crysis. Gameplay is quite varying, but I am quite sure some users will find it a bit empty. Why? I dont know. It is just that I found so. But wait, play it a bit more, just like I did and you will start liking it. Yes I know all of you know about the Nano suit, about the modes and all. Dont worry, I am not going to rant about those. The AI is really something worth mentioning. They seem pretty alive. not like other dumb heads of other games. The best part in my opinion is that they try to bring you out. If you are hiding, they will throw grenades towards you. Since almost everything in Crysis is destructible, even if you are in a room, you will have to come out or the room will be shattered! They are pretty accurate and spot you from a distance. So I think going commando isnt very good option while playing Crysis. Use nano suit as much as you can and try to be as much stealthy as much you can.
And the famous soldier grabbing part. Yes its pretty funny to grab a soldier from neck and then throw him, but that actually can be done only when there are very few enemies around. If there are many, you wont get the chance to go near and grab one of them.



But the heart of Crysis are its graphics, no doubt. And thats where the performance phenomenon comes in. As far as my system was concerned, it ran pretty smooth with about 35FPS average and no slowdowns (8800GTS 640MB, C2D E6600, 2GB 667MHz) at 1280*1024. It looked great and played well. But I am seriously doubtful that users with med-high or medium range machines will be able to play it in its glory. It still looks good at medium settings too, as far as I can see in screenshots. To argue whether Crysis is optimized properly or not will be waste of time. There are so many things going on in this game, so many high end techniques used that it will really be job of a game programmer to tell how well its optimized. I am happy that it runs great on my system.
For users who cant play it on very high settings, I would say one thing. True that graphics are adding depth in this game, but after a while I wasnt looking at them. What I was doing was playing. The core gameplay is still there and Crysis is no slouch in that department. Try the demo and play it for a while. Its not just about the graphics, although it is about the graphics. The gameplay is good and worth giving a try.