Crysis Remastered – PS4 Review

Crysis Remastered is a cross-platform remaster of the notoriously demanding 2007 PC original from Crytek. So demanding in fact, that until fairly recently the benchmark for PC perfomance was “will it run Crysis?” As a result, the game is very much a console experience with the main concession to the current generation being HDR can be enabled. There might be more bells and whistles if you play on a PS4 Pro, but we can’t verify that.

To answer the question, will a PS4 run Crysis? The answer being yes, for the most part. Even on a standard PS4 in fact.  Crysis was originally a CryEngine 2 release, this version being implemented on CryEngine 5. This reviewer didn’t play the original PC game nor the console debut of Crysis 2, so has the advantage of coming into this with a fresh pair of eyes. Saying that, it’s clear to see how this game influenced the Call of Duty series’ bombastic approach. That said, remastered or not, Crysis is very much a game of its time.

All cutscenes are rendered in the game engine and as such are representative of what you’ll see in game. It’s all very impressive at least. Without going into the plot too much, you’re part of an elite special forces team infiltrating a North Korean occupied tropical island. Naturally things go south quickly, though if does seem like the opening chapters are purely your team mates getting picked off in turn. Thankfully things improve somewhat, but it’s safe to say you’re not here for the plot.

You’re a bit of a badass in your super-duper nanosuit that has restorative powers as well as armour mode (), cloak mode (), super jump, super punch and sprint. All of these require use of suit energy, though we primary found ourselves cheesing it and using the cloak for the most part.

One thing that struck us very early on was the fact you have night vision. Well, night vision of sorts that is generally useless. You’ll do well to differentiate an enemy soldier from dense foliage though, so it feels a bit pointless. More useful are the binoculars which let you tag enemies in the distance, though they don’t stick around on your HUD. It feels a little like a missed opportunity.

You’ll start off with the SCAR rifle, but once it runs out of ammunition you’ll find yourself resorting to the weapons you’ll pick up from your vanquished foes. The shotgun became an ever present once we discovered it, if anything a bit too powerful. The long range aka sniper rifle was fun enough, but certainly not worth keeping when an assault rifle has a sniper scope available.

As you progress you’ll encounter a very useful missile launcher that can take down armoured vehicles as well as helicopters, though bafflngly a tank takes two rounds and a Hind-D gunship took two rounds as well. We know that particular Cold War chopper was notoriously durable, but to survive two direct hits in such a manner stretches belief a bit.

Another aspect that has us wondering who runs the island is the fact that all the ‘high voltage’ warning signs are in English, as opposed to Korean. We could understand if it were based in Hong Kong or something, but when an insular paranoid regime doesn’t use its own language, something doesn’t sit right.

Vehicles in Crysis are well implemented. With the exception of a few civilian pick-ups, all have mounted turrets that you can easily dispatch most footsoldiers with. Though this is no doubt made a little easier by the fact we went with the easiest difficulty level in the interests of expediency. One mission has you driving a tank for most of it, it’s great fun. We expect on a harder difficulty it would be much harder, especially given how many RPG wielding footsoldiers you’ll face.

Eventually you’ll face the main antagonist, or at least the guy it’s suggested to be. Then the game goes full Half Life Zen with a floaty space bullshit level. It kinda comes out of nowhere and isn’t much fun to play. Never mind the oblique objectives, it simply isn’t good. Thankfully we found our way through eventually, but not before almost calling it a night.

Each level has a surfeit of secondary objectives to fulfil. It helps that they’re generally fun little diversions, though once again our easy playthrough could be a factor. If we’ve any gripe at all, it is that the ingame map proves frustratingly vague on occasion so the path to both secondary and primary objectives isn’t always that clear.

Performance wise, we noticed a few framerate drops during our playthrough, though nothing particularly gamebreaking. When the game loads from the main menu the progress meter often reaches 100%, but there’s still a fair wait until the level actually loads. Perhaps exacerbated by our pauper’s PS4, but we can only review what we see.

Ultimately, Crysis Remastered is a fairly good remaster if you’ve never played the original. But for PC gamers, you’ll likely have seen this all before. It’s an entertaining romp at any rate and well worth playing. It’s not going to set the world alight regards innovation, nor is it going to win any beauty contests, but it remains a solid FPS.