Preview: Crysis: Multiplayer Impressions
I hate to say this about Crysis multiplayer, especially because of my high hopes for some bitchin' online play, but the Nanosuit powers prove unbalanced, and the long-winded Power Struggle gametype is convoluted beyond capacity. Overall, Crysis multiplayer is no where near as fun as the single player experience.
Issues
The Crysis hands-on event was held aboard the USS Hornet in the San Francisco bay, which was an atmospheric experience, but should in no way jade the perceptions of journalists. Crysis multiplayer is inherently flawed. Plagued by Unreal Tournament twitch speed, vehicles, such as trucks and even tanks, are rendered useless against ground troops. Spawn camping is at its worst when one team is down to a single indoor spawn point the size of a closet. And don't even get me started on the HUD and distinguishing one team from the other.
Actually, this needs to be addressed. The developers at Crytek must fix this before the game's release. There are two sides to choose from in team games: the U.S. as team blue and North Korea as team red. However, because the team color is layered over a black Nanosuit, players look nearly identical... even at close range. The only way to tell if your sights are on an enemy is to wait for the player's name to show up in red above their head. This would work just fine if there wasn't a second delay for the name to show up. Also, even though you may have chose North Korea, which is the red team, your HUD always displays your team as blue. Surely players will become accustomed to this, but WTF?
Power Trouble
Now let's talk about the Power Struggle gametype; an awesome Battlefield-type mode that will only be fun when the above issues are resolved. Here's the base objective to win Power Struggle: A power plant node in the center of the map must be controlled to collect energy from the alien crash site nodes. Once enough energy is collected, the enemy base must be nuked by a purchasable weapon to win the match. I'll get to purchasing weapons and vehicles in a minute. In addition to the power plant and alien crash site nodes, players can also capture the war factory to build vehicles and respawn point bunkers.
At the beginning of each match, players are allotted a specific amount of money. This allows players to purchase weapons, grenades, and equipment a la Counter Strike. The money pot is persistent throughout the entire match, and increases with kills.
Basically, there's potential for Crysis multiplayer, but our playtest proved unsuccessful and rather frustrating. The Deathmatch gametype was run of the mill, yet slightly more fun than the usual with the Nanosuit powers. At the moment, my eyes are fixated on Crysis single player and nothing more.
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