Last week I shared my impressions of ICE, one of the later environments within Crytek’s amazing looking shooter Crysis.  As I mentioned, ICE was one of two levels Cevat Yerli (CEO, President) showed off on that trip.  Today we talk about Core.

Calm Before the Storm

In my estimation, Core most likely occurs after ICE as Cevat mentioned you would approach this area after having passed through a mine environment; most likely an entrance to which you’ll find after making your way through the ICE forest and past the ‘Sentinel-esque’ alien creatures.

The environment itself is the core of the alien spaceship Cevat made mention of in last week’s piece.  It immediately brought to mind the early scenes of the director’s cut of Aliens when Newt’s family enters the alien ship for the first time. Not necessarily from a visual perspective – but the vibe one gets while exploring the core for the first time recalls this rather unnerving moment.  Like the calm before the storm.

 “Our goal, visually, was to find a way to ease the player into the environment.  You begin to see some alien vegetation and materials.  Slowly, as you progress, the gravity begins to change until ultimately it will become zero-g”, explains Cevat. This was amplified to great effect by the in-game dialogue the characters toss about as they experienced this shift ‘first-hand.’

On Being Different

 “We really wanted to establish a visual look, an identity for Crysis that was our own – in terms of the alien environment.” It’s difficult not to ‘borrow’ somewhat when approaching designs for ‘alien’ environments.  HR Giger's alien landscapes, Ralph McQuarrie's vision of the architecture and technology from Star Wars (which was itself borrowed from many folk-lore sources), even Kubrick’s sterile take on the future in 2001 have all been engrained on our subconscious – and this can’t help but come across in our own attempts to conceptualize something ‘new.’  That said – the Core environment in Crysis – while perhaps not entirely ‘fresh’ – is rather fetching to look at. 

There was a translucent blue membrane that seemed to cover some sort of tunnel above the player – like a thin blanket of water, recalling a scene near the end of the Abyss . Dust and larger sand-like particles floated through the air, crystal shards that had broken loose from the ground roam about and can be picked out of the air and put to use – or thrown at enemies. “Whatever you pickup you can throw – and if an alien hears it – he will try to find it” - That reminds me of a scene from Independence Day when Will Smith tells an alien to go fetch

Continuing his tactic of dropping hints as to the core story, Cevat points out that, “the ship is actually moaning - we never talk about this but the ship is awakening -  you can figure it out yourself."  We’d love to!  Now where’s our review build?

An ICEy Reception

Cevat took us just far enough in to see things go completely zero-g.  Why is it that sometimes the simple things entertain us so?  I recall the countless hours we spent playing Half-Life Deathmatch on the map called Bootcamp with a zero-g mod on the server. Somehow, this rather boring map otherwise, came to life with the zero-g mod.  It’s not difficult to alter a game engine’s gravity – but it’s difficult to create something enjoyable out of what amounts to nothing more than a developer’s parlor trick. I hope the team has put this effect to good use in supporting the storyline – but alas, Cevat was on a short schedule and jumped into ICE at this point in our meeting so we didn’t get to see much more of Core. 

We will be back next week with some hands-on reports from the Crysis multiplayer beta battlefield as we give Crytek’s take on strategic teamplay a run for its money.