Hardware geeks fail to bump Crysis sales

The only game that I can see selling gazillions will be Starcraft 2. The funny thing is that this game will run in all it's glory with a HD3850.

Take note Epic/Crytek, we don't want "the graphix" we want good games that anyone with a decent hardware can run. (specially for Crysis, UE3 just bombed miserably)

I have played it a bit, it's hardly any fun at all.
You need to learn 1000000 key combinations by head and by the time you know them you died 50000 times....
What fun.....

That's why id Software for example is going to a different direction. Gaming is on consoles and mainstream nowadays. It's not about high ends really anymore. UT3's requirements aren't that bad though and Epic gets their money from engine sales.

It seems game developers don't get that graphics don't turn a repetitive and mind dumbing gaming into a best seller. Crysis offers nothing new that hasn't been done before, and UT3 goes beyond and removes many of the good things from it's predecessor. It also suffers from megalomaniac syndrome, where your point of view gives your the experience of a hobbit in New York city, everything is just way too big compared to you. 

I hope these game developers suffer hard from their mistakes, because they've been warned by their fans.

UT3 is a joy play! The engine is incredible. I downloaded the Crysis demo and it was a slide show on a 8800 GTS, so sorry but the bar is a little to high for that one. 



Why am I not surprised!!! No DX10 for XP no game sales from me. Ain't no way I'm putting Vista on my machine.

Too much hype for Crysis. Everyone thought the multiplayer would rock and then when we buy it, TOTAL SUCKAGE. I gave my copy away it sucked so bad. long live the Pirate bay!!! Good reason to try before you buy.

I would have upgraded my system in lieu of these two games, however, the best card on the market at 650 dollars only gets a measly 20 FPS on high settings. Hardly worth that kind of money; I suppose that is what you get when a game is quite literally ahead of its time.

I for one was very disapointed in the single player game of Crysis , the initial stages of the game, the first half, eg before the alien octopus overtake the world had all the thrills of Far Cry, I could even forgive the bugs that im sure they will iron out, and the fact that for the first 15 seconds of the cd starting it sounds like my cd player is fighting to get out of a blender, what I cant forgive is the deminishing amount of skill that is needed as the game progresses untill it just ends up shooting at any thing that moves until no ammo left.
Come on EA I expected more from you in the last 3 years since Far Cry.

Such games are in general "dog food". As in what the Engine developers eat to be able to sell the Engine. They are sort of required to make this game. It it really sells it's just a bonus.

Crysis may be a ok game. But having the same success as with Far Cry takes a lot of luck. At the time a lot of people had PC's made for Half Life 2 and a few others games. The others games was not in the market. Gamers needed something fresh and new.

Crysis must be the most visually stunning game i have ever seen. It really is so stunning it can often feel like a pr0n game. It also runs very smooth on my rig with an 8800gts and a Core2 2.13mhz CPU * Win XP ofcoz!

I didnt like the graphic style in UT, it reminds me too much of Quake.. too heavy metal. They should make it more techno & futuristic style. Swap out those GFX artists! 

Crysis truely beat Unreal at its own game lol!

No mentionning about the issues the Crysis demo had with a Crossfire setup (One card being faster than two)! I bought two HD3780 cards to make sur I could play the game retail on very high settings just to be told Crossfire didn't work at all with Crysis (not even with the latest Vista SP1 RC and Catalyst 7.11)... Well, maybe if I buy two Ultras it will work better who knows?!?

Call of duty 4 sales: http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/15303/NPD-Call-of-Duty-4-Leads-November-Sales/

roughly 2 millions units combined for both PS3 and 360.

I have not run across the PC sales figures yet, but they must be huge.

So in short, it ain't strictly about eye-candy, physics, or media hype. It comes down to the whole game package, and COD4 is it.

Do these (united states) figures include the copies bundled with 8800GT cards? Digital distribution?

Personally I think crysis is stunning, I really enjoy the gameplay over and above any other fps out there.

Well for me Crysis is a great game.

The graphics are superb; and, the AI opponents are extremely clever. No longer are they the sitting ducks of games-of-old. Sometimes, they're too bl@@dy crafty.

No game can please everbody, but if you've got a reasonable system (less than 12 months old), this game will stretch its performance to the limit.

Far Cry 2 is follow up to Far Cry and it has a lot to live up to. 

Crysis is more of a demo for the engine...

Crysis - UberHighEnd Vista Only something? Or maybe not vista only, still requires 8800SEX_WITH_TWO_SLIM_MODELS to launch. Tried demo, boring and too difficult to enjoy. Slooow. I'll stick to bioshock and stalker.
UT3 - HYPED??? Where? For all I care I noticed not a single mention that the fucking game was actually to be launched - only engine demos and previews. Oh, and then I hit the amazon and see its there. Boring. Besides - fast FPSes are soo 90ties... And never really were popular - quake II and UT happened mainly because of Ati Rage/MatroxG200 (followed by Voodoo/RivaTNT) and stupid fact that those were basically the only games that had some re-playability from the offering at that time and still kicked ass on (first) budget 3dcards.

Blizzard's motto is "gameplay first". That's why their games rock. Gameplay is a chemistry and orchestra of many factors of art: programming, animation, level design, and utilization of gameplay features. All most compliment and reinforce each other. That's very hard to do.

I tried the Crysis and UT3 demo. The two didn't have a great feel to it. One got "too arty" and the other was "living in the past". Ouch!

Its not the world's fault for having a basic commercial taste. Trust me... if the Halo franchise missed their gameplay mark... even they would fall.

Were all playing TF2 and it only costs £15.00

"UT, for all its smooth splendour, has the exact same gameplay that the previous versions have had for the past half-decade"

If only that was the case, then maybe I'd buy it...

It is all about unreal engine 3.

I actually loved crysis.. Not the best game i have played. Though no doubt worth buying. As for $5000. I played it with full settings on a 3870 and a Core Duo 2.2Ghz. More like $1000 system.

I dont know what Bas is talking about.. it has less keys than most FPS. 

Speak for yourself Ryoma, I want graphics AND gameplay! :)


I don't know why UT3 is up there with the criticism against targeting high end graphics, that game was designed from the ground up for the PS3. You only have to play the game and you know it's true; everything from the graphics menu, the blurry textures/normal maps, to the stupid character unlocking codes that should have died with the creation of saves. 

The argument is valid for Crysis though; that game is way before its time and playable on high by only the minority, not good for a game sold mostly on visuals. I can't see the engine doing much better either, most developers are afraid to touch anything that won't run on a consoles dated hardware.

As for the article; I'm all for good looking graphics over ultra realistic ones, but that's not what sells. I don't see why PC is getting all the criticism though, you couldn't say the console market isn't just a graphics orientated these days. Once the technology matures, maybe we can get back to utilizing modern technology to improving game play rather than just making the same old prettier.

Compare these games to all of the Half Life 2 games, which run ever so smoothly on my single core Athlon 64 and 7900GT at 1680x1050. "Old" game engine, but incredible and immersive gameplay. I'll take a good, solid game compatible with older stuff anyday over new flashy games with no fun-factor. I've really grown tired of sinking hundreds of dollars into my computer every year for the sake of "keeping up." At least with consoles, you buy the system once and the rest of your money goes into games. More people need to learn from Valve and make good games, not just good-looking games.

Crysis didn't sell that well and you're suprised? Ahh, hello...The game doesn't even run well on the fastest graphics card out there. What did you expect. How are we supposed to buy a game we can't even play. All you really get with the fastest graphics card is about 20-30 FPS. Thats not acceptable.

All these people ripping on Crysis need to get a clue. The problem isn't the software, it's YOU. Some people are just so dense that they can't appreciate greatness when it smacks them right in the face. And the minimum requirements aren't THAT unreasonable, maybe you're just too damn stupid to figure how to turn down the settings so that it runs well.

UT3 was simply a tech demo from Epic to yet further sell their engine. If they say otherwise, then it was a really lazy game. Anyone who complains about Crysis speed needs shooting though, running on Medium it's a joy to play and still looks as good as any game out there on my 7900GT. And anyone who complains you need Vista to get the best graphics out of Crysis also needs to do a bit of research. You can get the same level DX10 graphics (99% practically) in DX9, as the option for "Very High" setting has been arbitrarily disabled for DX9 installations, and guess what, DX9 on Very High runs MUCH faster than DX10. This only serves to hurt the public image of Crysis though, but the point is, it can be enjoyed with top settings, and faster, by sticking to XP. The gameplay itself is Far Cry 2 sure, but Far Cry was an awesome game, why doesn't anybody want more of that?!

I won't debate how much fun Crysis was (though I had a blast with it), but you can easily run the game on "high" with a sub-$1500 rig, like I did. Perhaps not on "very high", but who cares? On "high" It still looks better than anything out there. 

I don't expect inq to adhere to the standards of real journalism, but can't you try a little harder?

Tabula Rasa is a strong contender in this market and it's much less demanding in terms of hardware ... I call it "UT3 as a MMO" all the time. ;-)

It's understandable that a cutting edge graphics engine would have high requirements - though I do sympathise with the guy who says even an 8800GTS isn't enough.

But I have the old Far Cry as well as the new Crysis. The problem is, on my moderate 7800GS .. the old game actually looks BETTER. Not just a little, a LOT. No pop in, smooth frame rates, long view distances, it's a joy to play. Whereas Crysis is popup hell with constant pauses every few seconds while loading/generating new geometry - and that's with settings low.

Crytek, it's pointless making an engine that CAN look better if you have the best rig, but actually looks WORSE if you have the same rig. This smacks of an under-optimised or poorly designed engine. In fact, i find Far Cry more fun to play. Crysis has already been uninstalled.


Just go and play COD4 best game of the year by far..... :-) my 2 cents....

Since I have a E6850 and a 8800gt AMP, I thought I'm gonna see my CPU working it's ass off on both cores.. Far away from it. Had about 60% overall usage on all resolutions. Compared to UT3's engine which works perfect multithreaded (both cores on 100%) Crysis engine ended up a total suckage..

Crysis IS fun, if you've got an 8800GT which is now well in reach for midrange systems. I bought a whole system in Aust for about $1300 (excluding monitor) which runs it fine, so I'm not sure what everyone is whingeing about.

Agree that UT3 was incomplete, but the engine is still admirable for its reasonable system requirements.

If you've got the system and some good speakers, Crysis is a blast.

I have both of these games and while both look nice and have their moments, the game play offers nothing new. As far as UT3 is concerned the Demo Epic released was derided and shot down by long time UT fans on every forum. Reduced game modes, consolized menu's and effects (Bloom anyone). 

In the meantime COD4 (PC) has great single player and multiplayer. More importantly it has plenty of online players. 
Same goes for Team Fortress 2. 

The death of PC gaming is over rated. It's not enough to spend years hyping up technology and graphics. (Epic/Crytek) You need to focus on game play as much or more so.

To begin with, UT3 graphics were a bit let-down. Even the UT3 logo was a turn-off, with 3 red stripes. It should have been more genuine and less ostentatious.

Crysis is simply having a slow start just like Far Cry did. When we gamers found out that our top-end 8800GTX video cards could not run Crysis at 1920x1200 at 30fps in the demo, we said "nah, we'll buy Crysis at a cheaper price when we can play it in all of its DX10 glory as intended since we are so into "awesome" graphics having spent $500 on our video cards. 

I liked Crysis demo far better than Far Cry. For one thing, it was more cinematic and "super-man-ish" with lots of bionic enhancements that greatly added to the fun (invisible cloak, speed-jump, etc..). After playing the Crysis demo I went back to Far Cry to play it again for the second time and Far Cry was so dull and boring, even graphics-wise at maximum settings. Crysis also offers a whole new level of interactivity with objects, way beyond what Half Life 2 was so famous for. I was so impressed at the interactivity and yet shocked at how nobody gave Crysis any credit for profound interactivity. 

One other thing we should love Crysis for is that it gives Nvidia a good reason to not delay its next-generation GPU video cards (D9E or NV100) even when there is not any competition from ATI. The reason is that many of us refuse to buy 8800 series cards just because it cannot run Crysis at Very High DX10 settings. And Nvidia wants to continue its good business, plus we are used to Nvidia releasing newer generation GPU's each year (and it's been a little more than a year already). So, we're all waiting.. with the money, and Nvidia wants it. If it were not for Crysis, the rest of us with 7900GTX's in SLI would simply upgrade to 8800GTX's and be satisfied while Nvidia keeps on selling 8800GTS 65nm versions or 8800GTX 1GB versions at $500 for another year because they can. Crysis does not let Nvidia do that, thankfully.

I think Crysis is a very good game. The problem is that I want to play games in their full pride in DX 10, I actually have a very good gaming rig... but i hate Vista so much!!!
I think the sales would increase if DX 10 was available for XP. Banning DX 10 from XP was the woste think Microsoft did...

THank god these games didn't make it big! Game devs have forgotten that what really matters is gameplay,and they just cannot continue selling games with eyecandy, and nothing more. Please make games that do what they are meant to do.

Even if you have 3 way SLI as shown in recent benchmarks Crysis won't get you farther than 25fps on low res with medium settings.
Spending $2500 just on graphics cards and not be able to plaay it at least on 19x12 res with high settings around 40-50fps is big BS. No one should even buy this game for that reason only. Try before you buy is damn right.

Come on INQ, is this a surprise to you. It isn't to me, I have Counterstrike Source, UT3, and Crysis, I run a D945, 7900gtoc SLI, with 1 gig ddr2-1066. My games only play decently on med settings with 1024x768 rez. I WILL NOT TOUCH VISTA, and this (as well as STEAM's constantly annoying survey's) prove that the market isn't going to stand for being bullied into an OS of Crap'e just for DX10, the online servers for UT3 and Crysis are vancant for the most part, but Counterstrike is numerous, *brass tax* if Windows Xp doesn't get DX10, sales will start hurting for a lot more companies out there who fail to target their audience's instead of falling for MS marketing's Disaster of a Red-Headed Step Child (i.e. >>VISTA) Nuff' Said!

Hey, 
I thought that UT3 was a decent game. Although I admit that I haven't had a chance to play it's previous versions. I bought the PS3 version and my friend bought the PC version. I had to say though the PS3 was sadly pwned by the PC. 720P VS the higher rez of the PC is just no match. Plus the server has to flag mouse and keyboard support for PS3 is stupid.

To Ryoma-Echizen: I am sorry you couldn't afford better hardware, unlike you some of us could. 

Hey Bas! You moron, just because you sux at FPS does not mean Crysis' game play is any harder. By the nature of your comment relating to the game it seems quite amazing you learned how to use a computer.

For those of you giving a bad rep to UT and Crysis, both game are still pretty much selling. Competition from other titles such as CoD4 and a bunch of others. In my opinion that is what's keeping sales down. I have yet to remember a year when some many good games were released at once.







To Ryoma-Echizen: I am sorry you couldn't afford better hardware, unlike you some of us could. 

Hey Bas! You moron, just because you sux at FPS does not mean Crysis' game play is any harder. By the nature of your comment relating to the game it seems quite amazing you learned how to use a computer.

For those of you giving a bad rep to UT and Crysis, both game are still pretty much selling. Competition from other titles such as CoD4 and a bunch of others. In my opinion that is what's keeping sales down. I have yet to remember a year when some many good games were released at once.

I am waited on Duke Nukem to upgrade my gaming rig ;)

Crysis was a solid game. Perhaps when more people have a computer capable of playing it, it will sell more. 

If it really has poor multiplayer like an earlier poster said, then I can see why it is tanking. Kind of sad to hear that though as it really did seem like the multiplayer would be awesome.

To the person saying you needed a ton of button combos, either you are confusing it with a different game or you suffer from some sort of console-fps induced learning disability because there weren't any radical changes from standard fps game controls aside from the suit toggle.

I replaced my NVIDIA 7950GT with an ATI Radeon HD 3870. Two of them in Crossfire would be better but now it's quite playable and looks great. The new vehicles are fun. Warfare is a nice improvement from Onslaught and the hoverboards are a huge help on big maps. Get the v1.1 patch, it straightens up a lot. 

If you're running Vista, DX10 will slow games down quite a bit. UT3 doesn't use it so frame rates are about the same. I'm still running WinXP.

As long as caompanies like EA makes nVidia "only" games, I will not buy their games!

I had no idea the sales on those games were that bad. I don't know a great deal about what qualifies as success in today's videogame market, but from what I do know it seems like both of these games are unqualified disasters in terms of sales. Am I being hyperbolic here? I really don't think so, but perhaps someone knows better.

That being said, I own Crysis. I was immensly disappointed (to the point of actual anger) by the single player campaign, but I have to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed the multiplayer experience. It's slightly buggy and quite difficult- you'll get killed a ton initially. Despite this, however, I've found that it has that elusive X Factor that just makes it bloody fun. I'd give it a try.

As far as UT3 goes, I've played the demo and I simply can't bring myself to pay 50 dollars for a game identical to the one I played years ago, certainly not given the selection of games out there currently. Whoever chose to release UT3 at this particular time must really hate his job.

Near christmas isn't exactly the best time for gamers to buy things for themselves... That being said I was/am a top of the TAM ladder caliber player in UT2K4. After playing the demo I found I'm simply not happy with the changes made in UT3. It's a beautiful engine and runs well for me, but I was always more interested in online competition... Crysis looks and the demo is good but one of my sticks of RAM failed, so I won't be getting it till I order my new sticks. Give it time, I'm sure sales will increase.

"Come on EA I expected more from you in the last 3 years since Far Cry"
That's a bit silly since the game wasn't developed by EA in any form, they just bought distribution rights after it was finished.
As for slowness: so you don't put it on absolute max and play it, it still looks great, then in a year or to from now when you upgraded your rig anyway you recall that you can now do high and can test your new system.
And as for difficulty, you can set that to high/dynamic can't you?
I think it's a lot of confusion (spread by the inq too) about crysis needing a supercomputer, if you set it to medium you can play it on older computers even and it looks as good as other current games on high, but all these bogus stories ruin sales.
And the 5000 keys remark must be talking about some other game.

"You need to learn 1000000 key combinations by head and by the time you know them you died 50000 times.... "

I have no idea which game you're thinking about but it sure as hell isn't crysis you idiot.

Now to get back on topic, for all the rest of you idiots... one side says the game is too laggy cause of gfx, the other side says they don't care about gfx, it's called a 'future proof' game numbnuts, this means that if you TURN the GFX down, you'll both be happy, how hypocrytical are you poor bastards? Go back to china and finish my reeboks!

With the 8800GTX & E6600(no OC) in Windows XP, I can run this game at highest settings without AA at an respectable 35fps. 

I would imagine, lowering the settings proportionately to less powerful cards would yield a similar imagine quality to other games running on the same card.

What is wrong with this? Should developers be confined to making games that CAN NOT take full advantage of the highest end cards? Or are people just complaining because they can't get the "best" graphics with a mediocre graphics card budget? I am quite tried of games where I have to set AA and AF to 16x (things I find quite USELESS at 1080p resolution) just to bring the FPS to 50. Scene and texture complexity is the future.

As for game play, while I have only finished Relic, I find it moderately challenging at Delta difficulty. This is the right amount, where the player actually feels like effort must be made but not too much where the game becomes boring. Enemies are smart enough to cooperate and surround from the back. They will replace their dead comrades on turrets. They make human mistakes (extremely important for game realism) And to top it off, there's even a bunch of movie like cut scenes rendered real time to take advantage of the video card. 

This level of cutting edge quality isn't for everyone. Those on a budget should consider the Wii; great value!

Its funny, how i havnt installed ut3 after playing the beta,i will, but it hasn't got me excited at all.

I have an insanespec system, even by overclocked standards and crysis runs like mud.

I have found some amazing games this year. Supremmecommander, and forged alliance are such a breath of fresh air, Call of Duty 4! wow,what a game,showing the BF series how it should be done, MOHA, again, excellent and adding small but significant extra's to these games.

I think there is far too much buildup to these hyped games, and very few live up to it. Games like COD4 were a massive suprise, and had it spot on.

The new starcraft still looks like a clickfest and adding nothing new, and with this massive buildup starting for this game its already getting concerning, however there is every chance this could be another suprise.

Yet another First person shooter. The consoles excel at this genre. Video card manufacturers are not helping by always pushing the next video card every 6 months. 
They must give gamers enough time between upgrade cycles or do like most do and simply not upgrade as frequently and simply wait it out. They will be able to play Crysis at a cheaper price down the road in max setting but not now. Also, I have a console, great for FPS and racing. The reason I use PC for gaming in for RTS. We need more RTS please…

The video game with a coarse motion of a character is useless.

@UT3

The Crysis demo works for me on my 2.8GHz Black Editon X2 System in combination with a MSI 8800GTS 640MB on medium details well (resolution of 1680x1050).

But it is right, that games are far to graphics centric these days. The developers should concentrate on innovations and storyline not on graphic requirements which are hard to satisfy with an average system.

IMHO I hate the fact, that the game development goes console. Console games are far to linear to be taken seriously. Where are the glorious ages of Gothic 2 and Monkey Island?

Kind Greetings

These sails figures were from US only.
In a country where 6-10 million kids eat Ritalin and middle class parents worry about mortgage payments, and providing proper health care and college education for their kids, it isn't hard to sell brainless poopshooters like CoD4 for cheap consoles developed for short attention span ppl.

PC gaming still regins in Europe and Crysis has topped charts in Germany e.g.

@Bas; if you feel Crysis has too many buttons to learn, I suggest you drop gaming alltogether and take up some more soothing hobby such as crocheting.
Alternatively you could switch platforms and take up the Wii Fishing Game for starters... shees :D

I don't understand what's not to like about crysis?
Its a good story (its not great) but its good, and its going to be a trilogy so the story might turn out great!

The graphics are stunning even with lower settings.

The gameplay is incredibly fun. You can just roam around and do things any number of different ways. They've given you a world to play in, if you haven't got any imagination then you're not going to get anything out of it.

Destructable buildings/foliage/vehicles. Need I say more?

yeah the alien bit wasn't great but its all part of the story. The section inside the "cave" was still fantastic. Zero G has never been done so well.

I can run the game at a steady 31fps at 1680 x 1050 on high settings with an E6600 @ 3.6ghz and a SINGLE 8800 GTX @ stock. 

The game will improve with patches, and as for the guy above saying the multiplayer was rubbish, well, its like playing a Battlefield game with much better graphics and more reakistric desctruction, whats not to like? The fact that there is no team death match? boo hoo.

Crytek have produced what is a work of art. It takes the FPS genre to new heights, oh and as for the first poster comparing crysis to StarCraft 2, how wrong are you? StarCraft is an RTS crysis is an FPS? Two game styles suiting different audiences. I personally love StarCraft and can't wait for the sequel, but You can't compare Crysis and Starcraft, there two completely different games, regardless of how graphically intensive they are.

Any game that pushes the boundaries is good in my book. All to often we get the same drivel released over and over again.

There is a reason it was reviewed so highly.

Oh and unreal tournament is great! Its still good fun and Epic's track record of community support is second to none so we'll see more content released on this in the new year.

Chris

If a game is not fun why bother? It looked good but that is not enough by itself if I want great scenery I will buy a magazine. 

The only time I really had fun is when I used the hack on the demo and got to play around with the nuke and such the real game was never that fun. 

They threw out all the things that really made far cry great. 

Funny how a small time team manage to make a fantastic game with Bioshock and the same Unreal Engine when the big guns failed.

Buy a console and leave pc for games...

Here is my 2c.
Graphics is one thing

But really sells games is gameplay. I have to admit that if a game looks ugly it's a turn off for me but if the gameplay rocks, then I will still play it. Crysis just doesn't run great on my machine, or any for that matter. UT3 is fun, but that type of gameplay has been around forever and frankly is getting old. I still enjoy it especially standard DM. But why isn't it selling?

Case in point. Call of duty 4, and I am talking about the game (for any platform). Yes the single player is short. But for all of us who can't spend more then an hour a day playing games (I have a life). It's awesome. Its 8 hours or so of none stop action, or suspense in some cases. Once you are done the multiplayer will keep you busy.

Now here is my point, is Call of duty 4 better looking then UT3 or Crysis.. Not really. It is still damn gorgeous though. I have no Complaints. So why is it selling like mad? GAMEPLAY. IMMERSION... plain old good fun.

I stopped playing UT3 and Crysis and have gone through COD4 3 times and am trying to finish it on the hardest level, and trying to increase my rank in MP. Now this game has it flaws (like every game) but the total experience with this game is ranked so much higher then UT3 and Crysis. That for me it's a no brainer.

And by the looks of the overall sales figures, many people would aggree.

btw. I am not flaming any other game, nor am I a COD fanboy. I used to OWN in UT and play hardcore Battlefield 2142 and CS. Until COD4 that is...

thats it... my 2c

games developers are theyre own undoing by making games that look pretty but have no depth. a game can sell on the strength of still pictures coupled with some hype but relying on this alone will make gamers avoid future products like the plague.

if they make unplayable tat then they deserve to be vilified!!

some of the best online games are old and have loads of servers - look at battlefield 2 and call of duty 2: epics for simplicity and effectiveness.

p.s. dx10 is micro$ofts way of imposing their vista will on gamers. it will be a cold day in hell before i install vista-bloat on my rig. if i want 386 sx16 performance then i will buy one for a quid at a car boot!

I have a 5 year old P4 3.0Ghz, radeon 9800 (very old) and Crysis works fine on low detail! as does UT3.

Crysis prob did'nt sell well becasue its really short! (finished it in like 4 evenings) it was also not close enough to far cry, they should not have put stupid aliens in it or the tank driving or the plane bits! i hope in the next 2 parts of the game there will be more sniper usage and less rubbish boring Aliens.

Anyway, my point is a £100 pc from ebay will play Crysis so stop wining. If anyone can't play it then your computer must be really rubbish!! i.e. 10 years old

The fact of the matter is that to have a computer that will run this game in all it's amazing graphical glory.... you have to drop about $5000 USD (or more) on a gaming machine. 

Now, I've been a PC Gamer all my life, I love PCs, and ergo gaming on them. But 3 years ago I could build a top-of-the-line gaming PC for say 2500 USD. Like most people I talk to, they simply don't have the money to put into a new PC simply to get eye candy from a game.

And frankly why the hell should we pay that much? Why pay 5000 USD for a new gaming rig, when I can go down to chain store X and pickup a console? Wii - 250 USD ; XBox 360 - 349 USD ; PS3 - 499 USD. Why pay 1000% more and get less? I can use my P4 rig just fine for surfing, and managing my digital content. Oh, and fuck upgrading to Vista.

I find this article funny because it just proves that it's alright creating and bragging about 1 game or 2 in this case.

And then thinking it'll sell no matter what only to be proving that is really hasn't. Hardware is expensive especially in the UK no one in there right mind would build a £3000-5000 PC just for 2 games.

But I agree with the person who mentions StarCraft 2 (pre-ordered about 6 months ago). Blizzard have said they'll even make it work so a ATi 9800 Pro will play it now thats deadication to your fans.

..it just wasn't as good as FarCry. Shame really. Runs fine on my E6850 with an ATi HD 2600 XT though. Personally I'm moving away from PC gaming and getting into the Wii - the PC side of the deal has all got a bit boring a staid.

the animation of the soldiers in crysis is terrible,the scenery looks nice.if you have a high end gfx card,but the enemys look like xbox 1 fodder,i give it 5 out of 10

No one has ever played Crysis here, the game is wonderful in graphics and very fun and inovative. Play the game first before crying ou flaming over here.

My question: what "system" did the developers of Crysis test that game on?

I think it would have sold more copies if anyone, outside of the people with quad core - 8800 ultra sli rigs, could play the game.

Gaming companies obsess over graphics when it's FUN people are after.

Does anyone remeber Serious Sam? or Freelancer, 2 games i can remeber off the top off my head that had good graphics but they didn't require a super duper PC at all, but the best part was they was actualy good games regardless...

With the 8800GTX & E6600(no OC) in Windows XP, I can run this game at highest settings without AA at an respectable 35fps. 

I would imagine, lowering the settings proportionately to less powerful cards would yield a similar imagine quality to other games running on the same card.

What is wrong with this? Should developers be confined to making games that CAN NOT take full advantage of the highest end cards? Or are people just complaining because they can't get the "best" graphics with a mediocre graphics card budget? I am quite tried of games where I have to set AA and AF to 16x (things I find quite USELESS at 1080p resolution) just to bring the FPS to 50. Scene and texture complexity is the future.

As for game play, while I have only finished Relic, I find it moderately challenging at Delta difficulty. This is the right amount, where the player actually feels like effort must be made but not too much where the game becomes boring. Enemies are smart enough to cooperate and surround from the back. They will replace their dead comrades on turrets. They make human mistakes (extremely important for game realism) And to top it off, there's even a bunch of movie like cut scenes rendered real time to take advantage of the video card. 

This level of cutting edge quality isn't for everyone. Those on a budget should consider the Wii; great value!

I purchased Crysis, it ran really well on my system with only a 8800GTS on Med settings.
No performance problems and the graphics and game engine is amazing. The game does not have any more buttons than any other fps (cod4, doom3, farcry) did. The story seemed a little short and the lockon glitch at the end was the only hitch I encountered. It is a good followup to farcry and will appeal to the same crowd. (not the mainstream cod2/4, css, players). I didn't buy it for the multiplayer and that is not it's strength.

Makes me wonder how many copies of Halo 2 Vista were sold. Ouch. 



I really don't see the hating on Crysis...I have a good computer so graphics on it are a plus, but the game is fun and challenging, and because it is so hard it actually takes more than 10 minutes to beat such as a best selling game such as Call of Duty 4

Bas...Crysis requires no more key learning than any other game. 1 key controls all of the different suit modes...plus sprint, crouch, prone, etc...basics

I dont have a 5K machine to run crysis in its full glory! Infact, i dont remember running a game in its full glory atleast untill it was two years old, ever! So its no big dea for me!

What IS a big deal, is the gameplay! Did any of you actually play it? Its increadibly fun to play, with the toughest difficulty actually enjoyable. I love the game. Its the kinda game thatll spoil you, so keep it for after youre done with other shooters lying around, coz once uve played crysis, u wont like any other.

And UT3? THAT i can play maxed out, and its gr8! Its a UT so i didnt expect much from single player, but multiplayer is a BOMB! Its real fast-n-furious action, just the way UT has always been! I do miss a few modes, and yes the singleplayer isnt much, but its a huge improvement over the last few!

I dont know wot u guys are whinin bout! These are gr8 games, with nothing too outrageous in termshardware demands! Has everyone forgotten Oblivion or GRAW? They were equally hard hitting on the hardware, and werent as good gameplay wise either (atleast GRAW wasnt)!

The news though, does surprise me. I thot these wouldave ben the best sellers. Ofcource COD4 popped outta nowhere to take that crown :)

For those complaining about performance issues with Crysis, I had the same until I updated my 8800GTS driver - now the demo runs smooth as silk.
Unfortunately, I played Far Cry, and Crysis, beautiful though it is, simply does not have enough new for me to justify once again slogging through days and days of island mayhem.
I played the demo a while, but actually got bored. I won't play the full game, sorry Crytek.
The UT3 demo, on the other hand, is a blast. I like the levels, I like the gameplay. I regret that they took out Assault, but the new Warfare mode seems interesting enough. No, what's holding me back is not the game itself, it's the fact that I heard that the developer company tanked.
I'm waiting to see how the pieces will be picked up before buying that game. I'm entitled to support for the money - if the dev shop is gone, who will provide it ?

If Crysis had remained on the theme of splattering Koreans across your screen, rather than aliens, I would have rated that game so damn high. I found the game quite easy and (regardless of what you say Bas) any cack-handed can master the nano-suit or how to modify weapons. All I wanted to do was run around the jungle and shoot Koreans, and that part of the game was nothing short of amazing.
You don't need all the graphics on uber high to enjoy the game. I've got a little 4600 (939), 2gig of ram and an 8800gts (640mb variant) and it runs alright on medium settings with the odd setting on high here and there. Nuts to pouring more money into my PC to play a game. Being a student, I can't afford to live on Weetabix and noodles for the next 3 months.
Unreal 3 was more of a disappointment for me as I've never missed out on an Unreal game (on the PC anyway) and playing this was like going back 8 years to the original Unreal Tournament, which I have subsequently played to death over my previous college network. After playing it for an hour or two, I knew the game would not sell well. Mind you, UT3 did run far smoother than I expected. I was just left saying to myself, wtf is new?!
I have to agree, more games these days are targeted towards the enthusiast market which rules out anything you'll buy from PC World. Although they may look better than anything you'll play on a console and will have nerds getting it up over benchmark scores, I prefer to spend my time having sex with girls than mastering a game.

@Kenton... DX10 for XP has nothing to do with this. UT3 isn't optimized for any special DX10 and runs fine on XP. Crysis also runs on DX9 so chalk your comment up to uninformed.

As for the slideshow on Crysis, I can run it on an 8800GTS/2GB RAM/C2D6600 at medium settings (@1920x1200) without any issues and medium doesn't really hurt the game.

Personally I like the completely destroyable environment. It's a shooter, of course it's been done before. It's the direction they take the game and so far it's not a terrible story but I'm not very far along. I like a lot of the elements of the game. To each their own on the experience part. 

Unfortunately it does require something along the lines of an 8800GT or the upcoming 2950GT (which may be saving grace but still $260 cards).

I've had fun with UT3 but it's dying down for me already. I still haven't been able to replace the original UT. Also, one of the pieces, which will take a while but has started, is the massive gamer support for maps/mods. I think another problem is that they dumbed it down to a console game on the PC side, ironically, the same mistake they made with 2003 (AKA Championship) which was short lived even after the updates. As az said, Epic is cashing in on the engine sales which is going quite well for them right now.

The market has been inundated the past few months with shooters. Personally I'm not much on CoD4 so far, while it's moved to a modern front, it's not much of a stretch from the others.

Sure, you probably won't be able to play it with everything maxed out, but whatever your settings are, the game looks much better than anything you have ever played. I wish I knew if Crytek got more money from Microsoft than what they lost in sales for locking the very high settings on XP, it is just plain stupid...Although, it can not be unlocked, not many people want to be bothered with system file tweaking.

The supply of 8800GT cards made it hard for people to buy Crysis over the holidays. Plus I think people are far less willing to pay 100 bucks for a piece of software they will use for 20 hours. If they charged 40 bucks for it on steam, I'd say it would have gone much better. Especially with the Orange pack as competition. I'm guessing Crysis will be a sleeper classic, that starts selling big time in about a year, when hardware catches up!

Personally I love the game, and have finished it twice. I was happy to shell out the 100 bucks for it. I was pissed off by the DVD rom destroying tick for half an hour copyprotection. I just ripped it and used a no-dvd crack though. 

I just hope this doesn't prevent more people making brilliant games like this. It will be a sad day when only console shovelware, like COD4, exists.