Cevat Yerli, CEO and President of Crytek, flew in to San Francisco last week to give us another look at Crysis on the eve of the PC demo release, set day and date with Bungie’s Halo 3.  Though, we’re assured by EA PR that this is in no way intended to frustrate Microsoft’s sales – I mean – it is a PC game and all

Cevat brought two levels along with him – one of which we’re allowed to talk about today, called ICE – and another that we’ll be showing off later in the month – prior to the demo release.  It’s worth noting before you read on – and especially as you watch the video clip (see below) – that this rev was running on DX9 – and it looks drop-dead gorgeous.  Imagine that!  Games actually looked good on DX9!?  Yep!  Before ye ole’ M$ PR machine got into full steam on pimping DX10 – we used to all play games on DX9 and yes, Margaret, they were good looking.  The upside here is – all you gamers out there who were worried you’d be missing out – can officially stop worrying.  As the video clip proves – this game looks just mahvelous on your last-gen card.

Fire & ICE

Cevat:  What you’re seeing here is an environment that was terraformed – it was a paradise – and now – it’s an ice environment – dead. 

The clip, and the screens herein (released inJune of this year), shows off some combat with a few of the games alien creatures, reminiscent of the Sentinels in The Matrix.  The group is hive-minded and will fight like a unit – which may be difficult to comprehend in the short clips you’ll be seeing on the web. 

The combat sequence we watched takes place pretty late into the game as you near an alien-ship that, as Cevat explained, was flash-frozen and is now slowly awakening – its emergency signal growing slowly stronger as it nears some sort of pre-planned destiny.

 

“It was sleeping there for a long time and now the aliens are coming out of cryo-sleep and waking up.  If you really look at the environment you can get a bit of this ambient storytelling”, explains Cevat.  Indeed, the environments are so detailed – it’s clear there are a lot of clues to this back-story – if only you had time to stop and stare.  

As we neared the alien ship – which is out of frame and looming above – the sense of depth and scale in these levels becomes immediately apparent. Something that becomes evident, once you can slow down long enough to play tourist, is the environments are not in any way repetitive – and the texturing work goes well beyond what we’ve seen to date in terms of conveying natural environments in-game.  The landscape simply feels, organic.

The particle effects add a layer of depth to the game world which helps to bring things to life; ice forms on the visor of your helmet, snow flurries blow in the wind in the distance, smoke emerges from the husks of the alien creatures as they are downed, sending a cloud of snow into the air behind them.  Layered with visual fx like motion-blur and field of vision focusing the scene takes on an almost photo-realistic quality.

“Let’s turn up the sound, because it’s cool!”

And indeed it is, ‘cool’!  Actually, I’d prefer ‘dense’ – the audio is moving just as much as the combatants – slowing down, speeding up, muffling as the wind blows through or explosions rock your ears.  “Super-Strength”, “Cloak”, chimes the computer-controlled suit as Cevat whips between the various abilities in his dance with the creatures. Quite simply some of the best sound-design we’ve heard in quite awhile.  Though, we’re certain Marty O’Donnell will blow us away with Halo 3 Right Marty?

“The aliens cannot really see you if you’re cloaked – unless they are within one meter so try to be at least one meter away.  If they spot you they will scream to each other announcing, “He is here!” [wicked! ]  You can power up your suit and punch an alien [this looked right out of Predator – awesome!] but be careful – if you grab and hold an alien – "he will detonate”

These guys don’t mess around!

The cloak also looked much better than we’d seen in previous builds – whereas it was typically just a blur effect – it now looked as smooth as glass – and again kids, this is DX9.

Enjoy the eye candy and we’ll see you next week