Crysis Warhead Review

The story of the game cuts into the original as you enter the role of Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes on the other side of the island from the character you played as last time. Warhead tells his story, and while it is quite short it somehow manages to cram in more than enough action for this tightly packed adventure. Straight away you are thrown into the fray and it’s not long before you start popping North Koreans left, right and centre. The action is fast paced and at times very fierce as you take on not only infantry, but at times armoured vehicles. You start the game predominantly in the familiar jungle setting as you fight enemy soldiers in the forests and on the beaches. Later on however you will hit a large chunk of the game where it is all frozen. I found that there was a good mix of environment sizes and scenery throughout the game as you are shifted between smaller areas to large open battlefields; however the single player still suffers from a few hitches.

 

First off, there are the vehicle scenes and I couldn’t help but get quite bored during these parts. Yes, you can jump out of your vehicle at any time and fight on foot but they never really give you a reason to, mainly due to the fact that walking the distances would take much longer while driving through seemed too easy. At least it gives you the option though, instead of just being stuck on a turret you are able to choose your path in these parts if you are inclined to do so. My second disappointment with the campaign was around the middle, and without spoiling too much, all I will say is that there is a pretty big underground sequence which is frustratingly linear and just doesn’t seem to suit the style of the game. It isn’t helped by the fact that this is then followed up by a lengthy vehicle sequence which once again got pretty dull in places. Thankfully however there is more than enough action to make up for it in other areas as you will find yourself fighting off both Korean soldiers and aliens with a few boss fights thrown in to add to the chaos.

 

All this action is helped by the fact that you are provided with a really strong arsenal throughout the game. There is a great range of weapons going from small SMG’s to Gauss rifles to snipers and most of them will let you add components such as scopes, silencers and tactical attachments such as grenade launchers. This allows for a good amount of customisation and you can really play with them how you want. By far the strongest feature of the game though is still the nanosuit that you wear in both single and multiplayer. The options this gives you are pretty much endless as each setting will allow for a different approach and thanks to the generally large environments it also gives you the opportunity to move around more, switching tactics on the go and making the best of both good and bad situations. You will also find yourself up against Koreans who use the nanosuit in single player and this can add an interesting challenge, though they don’t always seem to use it to its full potential. For a start, I rarely saw them using the cloak or the speed and from the looks of things, all they really used it for was the armour which just makes it much harder to take them down.

 

This brings me to my next point of the AI… or occasional lack of it. The original game got a lot of flack for its pretty poor AI and while Warhead is an improvement there are still a few areas that need ironing out. At times the Koreans just seemed to know of my presence from miles away which made scouting up on hills an impossibility for me, not only that but they still seem quite fond of drowning themselves in order to get to you in the sea. On the whole, the AI for the Koreans was good though, but the aliens still had problems. I often had aliens getting stuck in bushes or behind trees and sometimes they just seemed to come straight at me and never really use cover or try to dodge my shots. Some of the larger, flying types also had the tendency to just hover directly above me at times instead of moving around and providing me with a harder target to hit, nevertheless I still found these sections to be enjoyable for the most part and both the Koreans and aliens posed an interesting threat throughout the game while at times being a little predictable.

 

Aside from the single player campaign, Crysis Warhead also packs an extra portion called Crysis Wars. This holds the multiplayer component of the game and in my opinion it is the most redeeming features. The new multiplayer suite has three modes, deathmatch, team deathmatch and power struggle, which plays out a lot like a conquest mode from Battlefield, but with the added twist of having to destroy the enemy base once nuclear weapons become available. The reason the multiplayer is so enjoyable is again because of the nanosuit. It’s like everyone is playing with cheats on, but because everyone is, the playing field is still balanced. The difference in players tends to be in how well they can use the suit’s modes to their advantage, applying cloak, speed, armour and strength at the right times can provide you with the extra ability that you need during different situations. By far the most interesting setting is cloak though, as it can be used in so many imaginative ways. For a start, if you cloak on the turret of a jeep or tank, nobody will know you are there until you start firing so it’s often a good idea to stay up there after your driver bails so enemies will reveal themselves allowing you to open up on them. Of course, it is also incredibly useful when outnumbered and on foot as if you are sneaky enough you can use the invisibility as the advantage you need to take out one enemy at a time while remaining unseen, but you must not forget that everyone else holds the same abilities as you and this is what makes the multiplayer as great as it is.

 

One of the big selling points for Warhead is the supposed fact that we can play it on much lower end systems, and I must admit, they have kept up their end of the bargain really quite well. They have changed the settings in the game from low, medium, high and highest, to minimum, mainstream, gamer and enthusiast. It all seems a little pointless but it gives you an idea of what setting you should consider from the start. I have an 18 month old 8800GTS 320MB graphics card in my machine, and I ran the game with a mixture of settings at “gamer” and a few down to “mainstream” while I turned off things like anti-aliasing. With this setup I got a very stable experience which is much better than what I tried of the original game. The multiplayer also looks and runs great and with a bit of tweaking most PC gamers should be able to get it running smoothly. The fact that an 8800GT is going for hardly anything these days means that anyone who is serious about PC gaming can play this game easily. Of course, the better performance doesn’t mean worse graphics. If anything Warhead looks as good, if not better than Crysis in some areas so it is still a real pleasure to look at, I’ll be the first to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by how well the game ran on my system as well as how good it still looked without everything at maximum.

 

With a much lower retail price than usual, Crysis Warhead really is a great package for any PC gamer with a half decent PC, while the single player campaign is a little on the short side and has a few problems here and there, the multiplayer and technical wizardry more than makes up for it, providing an action packed shooter that a much wider audience should now be able to enjoy.

 

Final Verdict: The campaign is a little short, but the multiplayer is great and if you have a half decent graphics card you should be able to run it, so with the low asking price it's kind of a no-brainer

 

Josh Marriage/Sweedums.