Crysis: Warhead – Going Psycho

More tropical island fun in Crysis: Warhead can’t be a bad thing, right? Well, probably not, but it can be somewhat of a disappointing experience if the fundamentals of the game change too much. See, Crysis: Warhead is more of the same, but they dropped the more simulated and highly immersive feel of Crysis, for a more “high-octane” action adventure with guns. The problem with this is that there are just too many scripted moments and an overload of on-rails vehicle chases. Hope you like turret segments! They also ditched the immersive aspect of keeping you in first-person all the time, even for the cutscenes. Now, the game constantly jumps in and out of your body and displays the scenes in very awkward third-person acting.

Psycho is not that psycho
In the Crysis: Warhead expansion, you get to control Psycho, a member of the Raptor Team you only interact with sparingly as Nomad in the main game. So, what was Psycho up to between these few meetings? Well, it turns out he was on the other side of the island, blowing up both North Koreans and aliens by the boatload. Nomad, you are nothing compared to Psycho’s kill count! With the game being much more focused on combat, you will kill enemies faster than you can say war crime.

What is interesting about this expansion is the added characterization of Psycho. For having that nickname, he is surprisingly compassionate towards unarmed North Koreans. Except in that one instance. He might kill armed North Koreans with a real passion, but as it turns out, he has a “humanitarian” code he follows. His sense of teamwork and loyalty towards his squad mates also comes through several times. He even has a minor breakdown when one of his pals dies. Another aspect of this expansion that I found curious is that there are apparently many more soldiers in power armor, on both sides of the skirmish. You get to work with a couple of friendly guys from Alpha team that also run around with nanomesh armor. And you will kill a bunch of dudes in this armor too. Not sure how I feel about this, seeing as this expansion makes this high-tech technology way more common, considering what we end up with in the sequel – namely: one. Where did the tech go?

The story of Crysis: Warhead is the telling of how Psycho ended up with that thing at the end of Crysis. It isn’t much, as it doesn’t add many new things to the narrative, except expanding a little on Psycho, which is fine. So, that leaves the gameplay…

Same, but different
Much of the gameplay remains the same. You will be sneaking, jumping, and blasting things for 6-8 hours straight. What sets Crysis: Warhead apart, for both good or bad (depending on how you see it), is the much bigger focus on direct action and extravagant set pieces. There are small segments of sneaking and ambushing that go back to the original, but most fights will be of the bombastic kind, with a lot of “cool things” happening all around you. To me, this is a major disappointment, as this change makes the game play like the typical generic action title from the Xbox 360 age. It’s not all bad, of course, since there are areas that are cool when the game actually lets go of your hand – letting you find your own way to massacre humans and aliens alike.

My favorite part of Crysis: Warhead was the mine and the connected underground train station. I enjoyed the combat here, even if it ditched the lush jungle for brown cave walls and the utilitarian hallways of a subterranean military base. It allowed for stealth, and the AI had a chance at fighting back since the range let them see what was slinging bullets their way. The most annoying segments were the forced vehicle driving and the manning of endless turrets. Not to forget the somewhat laggy defense missions. Many things with the gameplay just feel off, sadly, especially when large parts of it don’t play into the classic Crysis style of infiltrating.

It’s not a terrible game by any stretch, but the 180 in gameplay design sure surprised me. On some good news, the addition of the semi-automatic grenade launcher is great. You get plenty of ammo for it, too. Nuking everything around you with this bad boy never gets old. It even beats out the shotgun, believe it or not.

One last change that annoyed me is that ammo pick-up now is automated. You just have to get close or walk over weapons you already have collected to pick up the ammunition. I assume it was changed to speed up the gameplay, but I liked picking up stuff by myself. It felt way more immersive than just being a walking human vacuum cleaner. Often you don’t even notice that you pick up something. Suddenly, you find that your gun that was empty now has ammo. I find this to be part of a grander issue in game design by making gameplay automatic, something that happens in the background without player input. It makes the game feel less immersive in the way of having fewer interactions within the game world. It’s a bit like auto third-person sticky cover, or removing animations of drinking health potions. To me, this is not an improvement, it just makes it feel like you have much less of a presence in the world.

The Crysis look
Crysis: Warhead looks and feels like Crysis since it’s based on the same engine that was used in the first game. There might be a few improvements here and there, but overall, it’s the same excellent stuff you have come to expect. The same goes for sound, voice, and music. The only major difference is in the presentation. This change makes the game feel like a different beast completely when it comes to the style of the narrative. It loses that military-simulated aspect that almost makes it an Arma 3 game experience to an extent, instead opting for typical action game FPS with cheesy cutscenes. There is nothing wrong with that per se, but when you expect more of how it was in the original, it comes at you fast in the form of a hard, disheartening gut punch.

Conclusion
Crysis: Warhead is not a bad game, but for being a game smack down in the middle of a large franchise, I have to sadly say that this title feels unnecessary. You do get more action, and the lore gets expanded a bit, but if you decide to skip it, you won’t miss much at all. If you go for a full game series playthrough (like what I am doing), and want to replace the green jungle with the gray concrete kind, go ahead. It’s totally forgettable. But make sure to at least read the comic before jumping in.

Thanks for reading.

/Thomas