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The visuals in Crysis are only matched by the gameplay

In 2008, a game came onto the scene that got everybody talking. It was called, “Crysis.” The graphics and gameplay was so advanced, that most people’s computers at the time could barely run the thing.

Now in 2013, I finally have a computer that can run this amazing game, and let me tell you, it is worth every penny and every second. I’m not going to give you any spoilers, but you need to know that this is not your run of the mill First Person Shooter game. The story is intriguing and the gameplay is compelling enough to make anyone want to charge through while eating a bunch of cheeseburgers. At one point you actually get to float inside a mountain and attain “anti-gravity.” I know, it sounds too good to be true. But this game has it all.

First off, Crysis is a science-fiction story set in the near future. You play as a specially trained soldier from the USA who is equipped with ridiculously formidable armor. The suits you and your teammates wear allows you to run at tremendous speeds, jump super-high, punch and withstand radiation like a thug, and also turn invisible. Not bad for a bunch of interlocking hexagonal plates which don’t take no for an answer.

The best part of the armor suit you wear is that all the special abilities linked with it…are connected by a single rechargeable energy source. So you don’t have to run around looking for armor powerups that allow you to jump. If you take too much damage in your default, “MAXIMUM ARMOR” mode, then you simply have to crouch in a corner somewhere and power up for a few seconds and you’ll be able to jump and take damage again.

The concept of linking your abilities into a chain of action is what makes Crysis in a league of its own. There was a time when there were three NK’s after me. I knew I was outgunned, so I turned invisible via the cloak, then crouched and quietly walked over and around a large boulder. Once I was out of their line of sight I quickly switched to the “MAXIMUM POWER” mode and did a super jump onto the boulder. Then I opened fire with a superior line of sight and also better elevation. The enemy soldiers had no idea where I was firing from and they were felled easily.

Another example of good times in Crysis is when I had to take out a Surface to Air Missile Site (SAM) which was on an island. The island only had one area of entrance. The entrance was a long, well-fortified bridge which was being guarded by a sniper tower. Since I knew the sniper tower was going to be a problem I simply used a rocket to take down the tower from the other side of the lake while hanging out on another island. While the enemies were regrouping, I decided to switch my suit to super speed mode and I swam directly toward the island. Instead of walking across the bridge I jumped over what would be the humanly impassable rockface of the island. Taking out the SAM site wasn’t necessarily easy, but softening up the guards with grenades and engaging the situation was a lot easier than if I tried to painstakingly snipe my way through the fortified bridge.

As you can see, Crysis is an extremely fun game from the gameplay perspective. But when you factor in how advanced the visuals are, you have an absolute gem of a game. For example, with my current computer, I can take advantage of delightful resolutions like 1920 x 1200. This makes the experience more like a simulated science-fiction film where you’re one of the stars…rather than a normal game. These games are getting so graphically advanced, I’d say we’re heading toward virtual reality…without needing 3D or any type of special goggles. All one needs to do is dim the lights and have a decent widescreen monitor…and the scene sets itself.

Overall, I’d recommend this game to anyone who loves science fiction games. If you’re looking for a standard “realistic” FPS, this may be a little over the top. The gameplay mechanics favor innovation, improvisation and battle imagination over traditional combat techniques. For someone who’s played a bunch of games in this genre, Crysis was a breath of fresh air. And since I got it on sale from STEAM it was an awesome find. The only way I could describe this game in a single sentence would be…”It’s the Street Fighter II: Rainbow Edition of FPS games~!”

-Tyler

As a serious fan of the Alien film franchise and also the Predator film franchise, I was extremely excited to play the most recent instance of Alien vs Predator for the PC. It is actually part of a long series of AvP games. The first one that I can remember came out for the arcane system known as “Jaguar.” This system was supposed to be cool but it was short-lived.

In 2000, I tried playing the game, Alien vs Predator for the PC, but I had some sort of sound issue. There was a popping sound consistently when attempting the human missions and thinking back on it, I may have mistaken the radar blip motion detector sound as some sort of game glitch. I spent hours in my dorm room trying to figure out the sound problem and I was pretty gruff towards my neighboring dorm-mates. After giving up on getting that game to work (which actually was working perfectly) I forgot about Alien vs Predator.

Years later, I was living in Costa Mesa, and I wanted to check out Alien vs Predator 2. This game was phenomenal. It had something that I never expected…an experience of the “Complete Alien Lifecycle.” This means you got to be a facehugger and find an appropriate victim, then you popped out as one of those chest-burster aliens until you had to find a suitable snack. And finally you got to morph into an alien drone and then go about on your adventure. Not only was the Alien aspect of the game great, but the Predator as well as Marine missions had great combat and subtle story-lines. Similar to the game, “Unreal” you would find notes and computer journals which gave additional context to the story. It made the entire game have dense atmosphere and rich ambiance.

Last year, I played the game, “Alien vs Predator” which is actually just the most recent next-gen version of the gaming franchise. Although the game lacked the full life-cycle aspect of the alien missions, it was extremely fun to play. The human missions were simply awesome with the addition of the new sniper rifle system. The marines have this rifle which not only has sniper zoom but it can see through some cover and walls…and it can also highlight enemy targets which may be cloaked. Also, there are androids in the game which are very powerful and cool, if you think you can beat them with a simple headshot…think again.

The alien missions are interesting because the Alien Queen has a psychic link with you and her drones. You get mission objectives from her and it makes the game feel like you’re part of a larger unit. In the last game I was talking about, you feel more like a mystery drone which is going about things like a rogue. But in this game you have a history with the human scientists and there is a little revenge/larger mission scope to experience.

As for the Predator missions…simply wow. The architecture and amazing artwork makes these missions feel like you’re going on some sort of expedition in Peru but there’s more danger of course. They added to this game an intuitive super-jump system which is activated by using your secondary visor/sight ability. It gives the game a more rail-type experience at first, but later in the game you will see that the leap system is not meant to limit your movement but rather to assist in showing you which leaps are possible so that you don’t waste time with a jumping test every-time there’s a ledge which you are curious about. I think this actually adds to the realism of the game because you rarely see in the movies a Predator miss a jump and then fall on his hind-quarters. He always seems to know if he can make a jump.

To make the Predator missions even more exciting and intriguing, there are holographic representations of Ancient Predator historical events within the temple. It is as if you get to witness an important event within their culture with front row seats.

Overall AvP is a great game for the PC and it is an innovative FPS with fast-paced action!

-Tyler

JoyToKey allows you to use your game-pad for games which may not necessarily have joystick input configurations possible.

Have you ever wanted to use a gamepad or joystick for a game which only had keyboard input?

Well the innovative developers at JoyToKey have successfully created a small program which solves this problem called, “JoyToKey” and it works great!

I first needed the program because for some reason the game, “Hydorah” wouldn’t recognize my gamepad on my primary computer…even though it would work on my laptop. Both my primary computer and my laptop use Windows 7 Home Premium and I was using the exact same controller but for some reason, my desktop doesn’t recognize the gamepad.

Well, I downloaded JoyToKey after hearing about it in a forum, and the program is very small. It only took a few seconds to get the version which I have. Although I have an old version, there is a much newer shareware version 4.+ for download. It is supposed to have almost full functionality but they ask for a $7 payment in order to activate a license. I actually read the changelog notes on the newer version and it is simply amazing to see the progress that they’ve done. They’ve added several new button configuration support such as cycling through multiple buttons by repeatedly pressing the same button. (I know I was confused at first when I read that also) I’m not exactly sure what someone would use that for, maybe it is for games which require rapid alternate pressing of buttons in order to get a character to run faster. The whole idea reminded me of the old-school Nintendo PowerPad back in the day. Remember when you had the run on the pad or else press A and then B in rapid succession in order to get your character to run? That must have been the inspiration for much of these new physical games like Dance Dance Revolution and the like.

But as for JoyToKey’s functionality, it is a simply phenomenal program with an easy-to-use system. You just double click on the program where you installed it to on your HD, then configure a gamepad and make sure to save your configuration profile.

After that, here’s the trick: MINIMIZE JoyToKey, that will actually drop it to your tray icon area and then you will be able to run games at the same time without JoyToKey blocking your view!

-Tyler

There is a simple fix for the spinning error in Darksiders part one

The other day, I was very excited to experience Darksiders for the PC. Since I gave my XBOX 360 to my brother and since my computer is pretty good, I thought Darksiders would be a fun game to check out. A friend of mine had a Steam product key for sale and since he didn’t play computer games he gave it to me for a pittance. I read the comic book that came with the game first. The comic was very interesting, there were a lot of powerful characters and archetypes speaking strong ideologies and rhetoric toward each other. The story seemed compelling so I attempted to play the game.

To my dismay, when I was trying to fight the first battle with this gigantic demon all that was happening was that my screen kept spinning around in a circle. I had no idea what was going on. I could press the escape button to go to the options menu, but when I attempted to configure my keyboard controls…all I could do was look at some xbox controller thing which was weird because this is the PC version.

I tried looking around on forums and no one had an answer. So I loaded the game up again and then looked at the controller mapping section. I thought to myself, “Does this game need to be patched for the PC or something? Didn’t this game come out years ago…weird.”

Then I closed the game and tried checking my email. But then my email wasn’t working because the internet was lagging like a chinchilla trying to do the 100 meter dash through a waterfall made out of molasses.

The next thing I did was stare at my desktop for about 30 minutes while thinking about how many times I’ve been wronged in my life. Then it hit me! “I bet since this game was originally intended for consoles like XBOX 360 and PS3 etc…it is probably thinking that I want to use my controllers as the input for the game!”

So then I turned my computer back on and then unplugged my gamepads from my computer. Then next time I loaded up Darksiders, instead of showing a controller mapping section, it brought up the keyboard binding configuration within the options menu.

I’ve only played the game for a little while so far, but overall I love it. It reminds me of God of War for PS2 and other intense action games. Very good voice-acting as well. I think one of the latest achievements of games lately is the insistence on quality voice-acting. It’s as if you get to be in the middle of a movie with awesome people.

-Tyler