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Παρασκευή 15 Απριλίου 2011

Crysis 2


Crysis 2 is a science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek, published by Electronic Arts and was released in North America, Australia, and Europe in March 2011 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Officially announced on June 1, 2009, the game is the second installment of the Crysis series, and is the sequel to the 2007 video game Crysis and Crysis Warhead.[2] The story was written by author Richard Morgan[3], another science fiction author, Peter Watts,[4] was also consulted and wrote a novel adaptation of the game. It is the first game to showcase the CryEngine 3 game engine.Overview
Crysis 2 is a first-person shooter. The player assumes the role of a Force Recon Marine called Alcatraz. Similar to its predecessor, it provides freedom to customize weaponry and abilities. Crytek wanted to avoid making another game set in a true jungle environment (as were Far Cry and Crysis); New York City has been dubbed an "urban jungle". The urban atmosphere offers new options with relation to progressing and planning attacks. Players are able to navigate between floors and buildings, as well as a destroyed cityscape.
[edit]Campaign
The player assumes the control of a Force Recon Marine codenamed "Alcatraz"; the successor to Jake "Nomad" Dunn – the protagonist from the first game. As Alcatraz, players gain ownership of the Nanosuit 2.0 from Army Delta Force officer Laurence "Prophet" Barnes, who returns from the original Crysis, where he was Nomad's commanding officer in Raptor Team. CryNet Systems has been hunting Prophet to retrieve the suit, inadvertently pursuing Alcatraz, believing he is Prophet. The Nanosuit 2.0 gives players more freedom in their options in tackling situations on the battlefield. The aliens seen in the original game have undergone a major redesigning, abandoning the ancient, tentacled exosuits seen in the first game for high-tech humanoid armored war machines that stalk Alcatraz through the ravaged New York City. Crytek has stated their intention to surpass the original game graphically and gameplay-wise, and have claimed that combat in the game will be "catastrophically beautiful".[5] Crytek has also claimed that Crysis 2 will have lower system requirements than the original game, but will still exceed the original graphically[6] and will also support true stereoscopic 3D.[7] More recently, with the release of the PC demo, it is clearly seen that the "minimum" requirements are what's required to run the game on "Gamer" settings at an HD resolution.[8]
Crytek has teased the redesigned Nanosuit, called the "Nanosuit 2.0", created by the fictional CryNet Systems company, the creators of the first Nanosuit.[9] The new Nanosuit supports new and upgraded features. However, suit functionality has been streamlined; multiple modes can easily be used simultaneously whenever the user wishes. This is decidedly different than the first game, in which the suit was generally limited to a single mode at a time and multiple modes cannot be used simultaneously for more than a split-second. The first suit's Strength and Speed Modes have been combined into the new Power Mode, the suit binoculars function has been upgraded with an advanced Tactical mode, the Cloaking Device has been modified to allow increased sensory input and silent melee stealth kills and has been renamed to Stealth Mode, while the Armor Mode has been left more or less as is, with the exception of slightly restricted agility and an ever-decreasing energy level. There are two trailers, with one trailer showing the suit in a wire-frame state,[10] the other showing the suit in a complete state.[11] In-fiction, the suit is to feature many improvements over its predecessor, giving soldiers freedom to upgrade their suits based on their own style of combat.[12]
PC Gamer magazine published a preview of Crysis 2, showing a park and a destroyed city street with an alien device in the center. In the article's interview Crytek hints at how the game will have "increased verticality" and will be set in a "new type of jungle".
Crytek confirmed to CVG that Crysis 2 will not use EA's Online Pass system. "All we can say/confirm is that we aren't using Online Pass for Crysis 2," the studio said in a brief statement.[13]
[edit]Synopsis

[edit]Characters and setting
Crysis 2 takes place during the future, in a destroyed New York City[14] in 2023, three years after the events of the first game, which has since been evacuated due to alien infestation. The game begins with news footage of ecological disasters, a large outbreak of the "Manhattan" virus, a gruesome disease that causes complete cellular breakdown, civil unrest and panic about an alien invasion by the Ceph, the tentacled, squid-like alien race behind the incident of Crysis. Due to the breakdown in social order within New York City, Manhattan is placed under Martial Law, and under contract from the US Department of Defense, soldiers from Crynet Enforcement & Local Logistics (or simply "CELL"), a private military company run by the Crynet corporation, police the chaos.
[edit]Plot
A United States Marine Corps Force Recon unit is deployed into New York City by the USS Nautilus, a submarine, to extract former Crynet employee Doctor Nathan Gould, who may have vital information on combating the alien race. However, insertion goes awry- the Ceph destroy the sub, and Force Recon Marine "Alcatraz" is left as the only apparent survivor. Delta Force Major Laurence "Prophet" Barnes saves Alcatraz, and is distressed with the situation and left with no other choice since he himself has been infected by the Manhattan virus, Prophet gives Alcatraz his suit, the futuristic and high-tech Nanosuit 2.0. He then kills himself so that the Nanosuit will stop associating itself with him and be able to assimilate with Alcatraz. Assuming that Alcatraz is Prophet, Gould gets in contact with him and asks him to meet up with him to bring him out of the city, Prior to the incident, Prophet had been targeted by CELL Commander Dominic Lockhart as an active biohazard due to having been infected with the Manhattan virus, and also in part due to ethical disagreements regarding the side effects of wearing the Nanosuits (with Prophet describing the wearers as "Dead Men Walking"). Because of this, Alcatraz also faces combat with CELL operatives, who believe that he is Prophet because of his Nanosuit. While on his way to Gould's laboratory, Alcatraz witnesses several CELL helicopters shooting down a Ceph dropship, which crashes not far from his position. Gould asks that he head for the crash site and search for any alien tissue samples. Alcatraz is unsuccessful, and the crash site is attacked by a Ceph soldier. Alcatraz kills it and manages to gather alien tissue from its corpse, which causes strange reactions within his Nanosuit. Alcatraz meets up with Gould only to be met with initial hostility when he finds out that he is not Prophet. However, when the suit plays Prophet's last recorded message, Gould relents and informs Alcatraz that ever since the suit absorbed the alien tissue, or "Nano-Catalyst", the Nanosuit's deep layers had been undergoing a mysterious processing routine with an unknown purpose. Gould theorizes that the results of the suit's processing may contain a solution to stop the Manhattan virus and combat the Ceph. Their meeting was cut short when a CELL unit ambushes Gould's apartment. After the CELL squad was neutralized, Gould and Alcatraz commit to further scans at a Crynet base on Wall Street. There, they find out that Alcatraz was mortally wounded when Prophet rescued him, and that the Nanosuit is the only thing keeping Alcatraz alive. The scans are cut short when CELL forces led by Commander Lockhart and Lieutenant Tara Strickland, daughter of U.S. Marine Corps Major Strickland from the first game, ambush Alcatraz and Gould.
During the middle of a prisoner transfer outside the building, the Ceph attack the CELL personnel as a massive alien spire rises from underneath the Crynet building, releasing a spore-based bioweapon that kills most of the CELL troops in the immediate area. Alcatraz is left stranded and isolated for a period of time while dealing with a Nanosuit malfunction brought upon by the spore bio-weapon. The suit gets rebooted remotely by Crynet director Jacob Hargreave, a centenarian who apparently had foreknowledge of the Ceph and spent most of the previous century designing the Nanosuit from stolen Ceph technology as a defense against them. Under Hargreave's orders, Alcatraz enters another one of the alien spires to test whether the Nanosuit's systems can interface with the aliens' technology. The experiment fails, due to the Nanosuit not being powerful enough to ensure the insertion. In the meantime, the US Department of Defense rescinds the authority of CELL over Manhattan and deploys US Marines in their place under the command of Marine Colonel Sherman Barclay. They then attempt to drown the aliens out of lower Manhattan by ordering an air strike on the city's flood barrier. Washed away by the resulting wave of water, Alcatraz is later found by Marines, including his Marine comrade Chino, who survived the submarine's destruction. The Marines enlist his aid in evacuating civilians to Grand Central Terminal, the city's primary evacuation point.
Hargreave contacts Alcatraz and reveals that the Nanosuit is busy analyzing the alien tissue samples that Alcatraz had previously recovered and is currently rewriting its own code to interface with alien technology. He tells Alcatraz and his marine allies to take a detour to the Hargreave-Rasch building, the primary Manhattan research building of Crynet's parent company, Hargreave-Rasch Biotechnologies. There, Alcatraz is told to find a stabilizing agent in the bio-lab to facilitate the Nanosuit's analyzing process, but CELL operatives guarding the building under the command of Lockhart still believe that Alcatraz is Prophet, and attempt to kill him. The Hargreave-Rasch complex is attacked by a Ceph "pinger" robot and is completely flooded, washing Alcatraz out of the building and leaving him unable to enter the bio-lab. Seeing that the cause is lost, Hargreave tells Alcatraz to regroup with the marines at Grand Central to help evacuate civilians. At the terminal, Alcatraz is reunited with Gould, who had apparently "escaped" Strickland, leading to the skepticism of Colonel Barclay. Knowing that Strickland is an ex-Navy SEAL, Barclay concludes that Strickland must have purposely released Gould from captivity. Grand Central Terminal is overrun by Ceph forces, but Alcatraz manages to hold them off long enough for the evacuation trains to depart, and escapes the building's destruction.
Due to the hasty and incomplete evacuation from Grand Central, Alcatraz is then tasked with defending a secondary evacuation point at Times Square, when another alien spire rises from the ground. By this time, the Nanosuit had finished processing the alien spores, and Alcatraz manages to enter the spire, allowing his Nanosuit to interface with it and re-purpose the spores to be lethal to the Ceph. This causes a cataclysmic self-destruction of the Ceph in the area, and apparently removes all traces of the biological warfare agent. With the evacuation from Times Square complete, Hargreave instructs Alcatraz to make his way to Roosevelt Island. There, Alcatraz is told to infiltrate a Crynet complex named "The Prism", where Hargreave resides. After a failed attempt by Commander Lockhart's forces stationed on Roosevelt Island to trap and kill Alcatraz, Hargreave orders Alcatraz to kill Lockhart and end his interference once and for all. Alcatraz manages to kill Lockhart, but as he makes his way through the island, he is captured by Hargreave, who wants the Nanosuit for himself so that he can finish off the Ceph personally. Hargreave then attempts to remove the Nanosuit from Alcatraz's body. However, the Nanosuit rejects its removal from Alcatraz since it had already completely assimilated with its wearer, revealing memories of Prophet's fallout with Hargreave in the process. Alcatraz is saved by Strickland, who reveals herself to be an undercover CIA operative, and the one responsible for ordering the original deployment of Alcatraz and his Force Recon team to New York. Strickland tells Alcatraz to capture Hargreave, but upon entering Hargreave's private office, Alcatraz sees that Hargreave is nowhere to be found. Hargreave, via a large viewscreen, reveals that he has been in a vegetative state for over a century since an encounter with the Ceph at Tunguska, and that his consciousness is only able to communicate and interact through the use of an entirely computerized system. He gives Alcatraz a last Nanosuit upgrade, the "Tunguska Iteration", before the Ceph invade the island. Hargreave triggers a countdown timer for the self-destruct system of the complex, and convinces the remaining CELL forces guarding the Crynet Prism complex to aid Alcatraz's exfiltration. Alcatraz barely escapes the massive explosion, which destroys much of Roosevelt Island and the Queensboro Bridge. On the shores of Manhattan, Alcatraz reunites with Gould, Strickland and Chino.
Alcatraz is notified by Colonel Barclay that the US Department of Defense, in a desperate plan to wipe out the Ceph, has decided to launch a STRATCOM Tactical Nuclear Strike on Manhattan Island, with little regard to collateral damage and nuclear fallout. Gould argues that the strike is not likely to work, just as the nuclear strike on the Lingshan Islands during the events of the first Crysis did not. Barclay replies that unless Alcatraz can somehow resolve the situation within 20 minutes, the nuclear strike would be carried out anyway due to the lack of alternatives. As Alcatraz and his comrades make their way through the city toward the center of the alien infestation, a massive alien "litho-ship" rises out of the ground beneath Central Park, lifting a large section of the park into the air. With the peripheral aid of Gould, Strickland, and Barclay, Alcatraz assaults the floating section of Central Park and succeeds in making his way to the alien spire at its center, which serves as a massive dispersal point for the alien spore bio-weapon. He enters the spire, and his Nanosuit, with the Tunguska Iteration upgrade, is able to repurpose the spire's bio-weapon to turn against the Ceph, killing all Ceph in New York in the process. After several days, the city begins to recover with the help of Gould, Strickland, and the US Military. Alcatraz, while unconscious, communicates with Prophet (whose memories, experiences, and personality had been stored in the suit), who states that, while the mission in New York is a success, their work is not yet over, since the Ceph, who had been present on Earth since prehistoric times, had built constructs all over the world, and were not only limited to New York and the Lingshan Islands. The Nanosuit, before rebooting again, states that assimilation is complete, and Prophet's memories become "assimilated" into Alcatraz. Upon waking up in Central Park, Alcatraz receives a broadcast from Karl Ernst Rasch, the other founder of Hargreave-Rasch, asking for his name. Climbing out of the crater and speaking for the first time since donning the Nanosuit, Alcatraz responds with "They call me Prophet."
[edit]Development

[hide]PC Minimum System Requirements[15]
Minimum Recommended
Microsoft Windows
Operating system Windows XP Windows Vista, Windows 7
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo at 2 GHz, or AMD Athlon 64 x2 2 GHz, or better
Memory 2GB (Vista requires 3 GB)
Hard drive space 9 GB of free space
Graphics hardware DirectX 9.0c: NVidia 8800GT with 512 MB RAM, ATI 3850HD with 512 MB RAM, or better
Sound hardware DirectX 9.0c
Network Internet connection for multiplayer and one-time authorization for first run
Crysis 2 was announced at E3 2009 on June 1, 2009, and has been in development since 2007. Crysis 2 is the sequel to 2007's Crysis which was lauded for its impressive visuals. German based studio Crytek Frankfurt which developed the first game is the lead developer of the sequel along with help from Crytek UK, formerly Free Radical. It is the first game using the new engine CryEngine 3. Crytek brought their technical expertise for the first time to consoles and seeks to uphold their reputation of creating some of the most visually impressive games. The PC version of the game is currently built on DirectX 9, although it has been rumoured that Crytek will develop a DirectX 11 patch for the game. While Crytek has made a statement saying that if any claim is not included on the MyCrysis website, that it is unlikely to be true. Crytek looked to surpass the original Crysis, which is still a benchmark of PC graphical performance in 2011. [16]
Crytek has claimed that Crysis 2 contains the best graphics in the history of video games. Nathan Camarillo said that Crysis 2 has 'best graphics you've ever seen'. The studio also reckons Crysis 2 offers a "complete gaming experience like no other".[17] Crytek boss Cevat Yerli has claimed that the enemy AI in Crysis 2 is the most sophisticated in video game history.[18]
Crytek’s Nathan Camarillo has declared that developers need to start churning out titles capable of scoring in the 90s if they ever want to be recognised in today’s competitive market conditions. Camarillo commented, "We're going to put out the best game that we can make and that's probably over a 90 rated so it's a fair statement to make." Camarillo went on to say that the need for review scores of 90% or more did not just apply to Crysis 2 and its FPS competition though: "I think you have to be 90 plus to make an impact in any genre now. The quality bar is so high and publishers and developers have put so much effort against high quality games. If you want to be recognised at all, regardless of genre, like anything you need to create the highest quality product possible and anything else is not going to get noticed."[19] He has also said that today's FPS games need 'awesome multiplayer'. "I don't think it has to have multiplayer to have longevity and I think there's plenty of titles that don't have multiplayer that do quite well, but that's more of a genre specific decision. For an FPS game yeah you really have to have it unless you're a very unique kind of FPS depending on what you're [sic] delivery platform is and what market you're going into." he said. Camarillo still believes that Crysis 2's multiplayer is completely unique, "It's different from other FPS games in that you are this ultimate super soldier that has the ability to cloak at any point in time, so it's different than modern military shooters, it's different to Halo. You have the manoeuvrability, you're in an urban environment, you can jump, you can slide, you can climb. There's so much you can do in that first-person experience that the other multiplayer games don't offer."[20]
In May 2010, Epic's Mike Capps said he was surprised people could take Crytek seriously as a cross-platform engine company given it had yet to release a console game. In January 2011, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli, responded with saying that no other engine could have delivered Crysis 2 and that CryEngine 3 could handle "pretty much any other game", but claimed that its rivals Epic Games’s Unreal Engine could not handle Crysis 2.[21]
Crytek has told that it fully intends to make Crysis 3, and that it already has a plan for how the series' story will progress. However, the studio admits that the chances of a third game in the FPS series making it to market depends on the success of Crysis 2.[22]
[edit]Marketing

[edit]Retail versions
On August 17, 2010 EA announced that there would be two special editions of the game.[23]
The Limited Edition of Crysis 2 is available at the same price as the regular game, but in limited quantities. It comes with bonus experience points to "immediately boost the player up to Rank 5, giving access to all the preset class loadouts",[24] a digital camo weapon skin for the SCAR, the "Hologram Decoy" attachment for the SCAR, and unique in-game platinum dog tags. The Indian Version, on pre-order, also includes the Threat Detector Suit Module (Early Access), and, on buying from the EA store, a gold dog tag and desert camo for SCAR.[25]
The Nano Edition of Crysis 2, which was only available through pre-order, includes the Limited Edition copy of the game in a Steelbook case, an 11" statue of Alcatraz posed on top of a New York City taxi, an art book, and a Nanosuit backpack "modeled after the in-game super suit." The Nanosuit backpack is large enough to accommodate a 17" laptop.[26] As of September 26, 2010, the Nano Edition was made available for pre-order on the EA website for a $149.95 price tag but was sold out before March 2011. After the game's launch, those who preordered the Nano Edition had their shipment delayed. EA gave the affected customers a 75% off coupon and later a free digital copy of Crysis 2 Limited Edition as compensation.
[edit]Multiplayer Demo
EA and Crytek launched a multiplayer demo of Crysis 2 on January 25, 2011. Crytek announced that the demo would only be available until February 4, 2011. The demo was exclusively on the Xbox 360, for Gold members to download, although on January 27, Crytek confirmed that there would be a multiplayer demo for the PC.[27] The demo featured the maps Skyline and Pier 17, as well as two multiplayer game modes to play: Team Instant Action and Crash Site. Team Instant Action pits two teams against one another in a team deathmatch style, while Crash Site has players defending alien drop pods like control points.[28] Within hours of its release, thousands of complaints were reported after numbers of players were met with disconnects from games, crashing during loading and, oddly, a temperamental incompatibility with the Xbox Wireless WiFi adaptor. Crytek issued a statement telling players it was aware of "technical issues" with the Xbox multiplayer demo of Crysis 2, and managed to fix most of the issues in time for the PC demo.[29] Some bugs still exist as of the current trial build but are mostly if not entirely visual and do not noticeably affect game play.
Speaking at an EA event to PlayStation Universe, Crysis 2 producer Nathan Camarillo said PlayStation 3 gamers "can probably hope for one". "We want as many people to play Crysis 2 as possible," he added. "I can't say anything too specific ... we haven't announced [the demo] yet." Camarillo went on to say there'd be no difference in quality between the PS3 version of Crysis 2 and the Xbox 360 one, which had seen a pre-release demo.[30] Crytek released the first footage of Crysis 2 running on PlayStation 3 on February 24, 2011. The end of the video confirmed that a multiplayer beta is on the way for the system, but no date for the PS3 beta was announced.[31][32]
The second Crysis 2 multiplayer demo was released on March 1, 2011 on both the PC and the Xbox 360, with a PS3 demo launching "soon".[33] Among bug fixes from the first beta, the map 'Pier 17' was added to the Xbox version and extended to the PC version. PC gamers have commented on Xbox 360 remnants in the PC demo version, such as the prompt to "press start to begin"[34] or to "adjust your TV settings" when configuring the game brightness. It has also been reported that the PC version would not be released with support for DirectX 11, which will instead be implemented with a patch "later on".[35] On April 8 Crytek announced − still without marking delivery date − that a DirectX 11 patch was being worked on.[36]
On March 15, 2011, a multiplayer demo was released on the Playstation Network, featuring both of the maps featured on the Xbox 360 version of the demo, being 'Pier 17' and 'Skyline'. On March 18, it was removed from the Store and the servers were shutdown due to server connection delays. Crytek stated they have "identified the root cause and have decided to close the PS3 demo ... to ensure all issues are resolved when the game launches next week", as their priority is to "ensure that the final product is flawless at launch."[37]
[edit]Leaked Beta
A beta version of the game dated from January was leaked on multiple torrent sites on February 11, 2011.[38][39] Online reports indicate that the leaked beta is a partially functioning developer's build compiled on January 13, 2011[40] that includes the entire single-player campaign and multiplayer component, but contains numerous bugs, is plagued by frequent crashes, is only partially completed with many placeholders and textures missing and has graphical options that are limited to DirectX 9 high, rather than the very high settings and DirectX 11 which are expected in the retail game.[41] [even after the retail launch, the game still only supports DirectX 9 and there are still only 3 graphical presets, though these have changed their names from the beta and the PC multiplayer demo, from Gamer/Advanced/Hardcore to High/Very High/Extreme] Crytek released a statement saying they were "deeply disappointed" in piracy, which "continues to damage the PC packaged goods market."[42] Some reviewers remarked that Crytek's statement was strange, considering that no PC demo of the game had been released yet, and moreover, the source of the leaked beta was almost certainly an internal employee (rather than pirates).[43] On February 14, 2011, Crytek released a statement by Cevat Yerli that stated that despite their disappointment caused by the leak incident, Crytek is overwhelmed with the support they have received and they can assure the community that PC gaming is very important to them now and in the future.[44][45]
Crytek producer Nathan Camarillo calls the Crysis 2 game leak a "really ugly version" that the studio did not want people to see.
“ "Piracy is a real concern. The PS3 has been cracked now as well and people are downloading PS3 games and 360 games are being downloaded so that's a threat to just the industry in general. For us specifically, it was a very traumatic experience because we're really excited about the game and the quality that we were able to get into it and what we were able to accomplish... We're at the end and we're really excited about where we're at and your game gets leaked. And it's not even that the final version of the game gets leaked, you know? People are like 'It's 40/45 days before launch, Crysis is leaked' but that build was already from the middle of January. With 250 people working on a project, thousands of bugs get fixed in a heartbeat. So that version is like a really ugly version that we don't want anyone to see... All this stuff starts going up in pieces and even if someone downloads it and plays it themselves they might make a bad decision based on the fact that there are so many bugs in it. 'Oh, there are so many bugs in the game I wanted to play. It's so buggy.

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