I’ve been playing Killzone 3 this afternoon, so that might color my opinion of Crysis 2. Sorry, but it’s difficult to go from a very competent and finely crafted online shooter to … this.
Crysis 2‘s multiplayer demo is being slated up and down the Internet, and while I don’t think it’s quite as awful as some people have been saying, I can’t say it’s grabbed my attention. It’s not a bad multiplayer, but so far it feels like a sci-fi version of Call of Duty, but with poor level design (let’s give them a super jump and put pitfalls right by spawn points!) and loose spray n’ pray combat in which people just run around each other and hope the other falls down.
The fact that matchmaking seems to be screwed up doesn’t help. It takes a long time to get started, and my first match booted me out with a connection error. Once I got into the game, it was smooth enough, but there’s something about the combat that just feels loose. For all its flashy visuals, it feels archaic in many ways.
Obviously it looks very gorgeous, and I am still really keen to play it, especially the single player. I don’t want to judge the game based just on this demo, but that’s not an online mode I can see myself playing a whole lot. I just cannot for the life of me understand why EA would put out a multiplayer demo on consoles that isn’t Halo or Call of Duty, especially one as lukewarm as that. This certainly wasn’t a good way to get people interested in the game.
But hey, that CryEngine!
