Prophet is back, and he’s packed his bow.
The Crysis series has always known its formula, which for many, is fine because it works. You play as a super soldier garbed in some pretty super armor that allows you to prioritize speed, toughness, or stealth. Any can be toggled at any time, but as different situations and environments bring new challenges, it becomes difficult to stay solely with your favorite of the bunch. Crysis 3 is no different, adhering to this recipe with perhaps an even further ardor as Prophet stalks the Manhattan jungle in search of well-armed agents and bizarre aliens.
EA brought us backstage for a special twenty-minute presentation of the game and, at least so far, things are looking good. The graphics are sharp–something unsurprising for the Crysis bloodline–and gunplay looks solid. This time around, Prophet is packing a bow and arrow, complete with an array of different tips. Like your armor, different arrowheads work best in different situations. There’s an electro-tip for when your hapless foes are loitering in puddles, and an explosive tip for when, well, people aren’t currently in tiny, manageable bits. At the time of our demo, there were a total of four tips to choose from, but Crytek claims it’s looking into the possibility of adding more before release.
The level displayed was an exterior jungle. Somewhat like Crysis 2, the environment worked vertically as well as horizontally, allowing enemies a variety a positions, a vital concept for maintaining the need for suit-mode strategies. As our presenter plowed his way through a veritable army of mercs, Prophet used an array of weaponry, from the aforementioned bow to a submachine gun capable of unleashing 500 rounds per second.
Only one stage was shown, but while Crysis succeeded on most levels one would expect, not much new was on display. The suit and its corresponding abilities remained fundamentally unchanged, while the forgettable weapons of the previous installments were replaced with mildly less forgettable ones. We have been told, however, that a good dose of usable alien tech is on its way, as well as a handful of other surprises, so who knows what we can expect in February of next year when the game comes out in full. Until then, suffice to say that Prophet does a great job at killing things, and looks great doing it.
