Crysis: Remastered | PS4 Review

October 22, 2020 Chris Behrensmeyer

Back in 2007, a great plethora of games were released unto the world. Bioshock, Portal, and Uncharted are just some of the blockbusters from that year. Over the years, I have played a great deal of these games and come to love them dearly. However, there is another game from that year that has always eluded me and that is Crysis. A game that was so graphically advanced at the time that many gamers, including myself, were unable to play it due to hardware limitations. Now with Crysis: Remastered on the market, I jumped at the chance to play it and take a closer look at the beginning of a series that I have come to adore. So let’s take a deeper dive into why this could be a game for you to check out.

Diving Back into a Crisis

Crysis: Remastered is a first-person shooter from the developers at Crytek, and published by Electronic Arts. As the player you take control of the character named Nomad. He is a soldier who is decked out with a high-powered nanotech powered suit. The Nanosuit is the gem of this series. It allows you to play offensively with its armor mode, or defensively with the stealth/invisibility option. Most players will find a fun blend of the two and just go to town on the enemies. You and your team have been tasked with rescuing some scientists and civilians on an island which is controlled by the North Koreans. During your rescue attempt you also discover a large extraterrestrial presence on the island which begins to pick off members of your team. So now you must fight to survive and uncover the secrets of what’s going.

First let’s talk about the gameplay, the controls on a console don’t seem quite as crisp as they do with other modern games. Granted they were originally designed to be played with a mouse and keyboard for more precision. They do the job, but they just feel a little off and not as responsive as they should. Also, the AI in this game is a little antiquated but still better than some of the current games that are being pumped out and flaunted. Many a time the enemies would group up and trap themselves, while on other occasions they would fan out and hand you a beating that you wouldn’t forget.

A Sight to Behold

For a game that is over 10 years old, the graphics for this game really stand out and still look incredible. The water effects and the overall environment are really quite impressive for an older game, granted this is a remaster and there has been some cleaning up. What really boggles my mind is at one point in time this game was so graphically intensive a wide variety of players couldn’t really experience it. Now with the advancement of technology I was able to play this game on my phone, thanks to Xcloud. This, for me, is still insane for how far we have come in a short time with the game and computing world.

Cracks in the Plaster

Crysis: Remastered does have a few issues, which still show through in the remaster treatment. Even though it is a remaster it feels like a spit and shine polish. The graphics do look really good, but the face models in the game look poor compared to the rest of the game and stick out like a sore thumb. The game is still very graphically intensive, and talking with Zack (my fellow Editor) he actually had multiple game crashes on his PS4 Pro. There are also spots in the gameplay that are fairly difficult no matter what setting you have the game set to.

Final Thoughts

Crysis: Remastered is overall a fun experience that I believe anyone who likes first-person shooters will enjoy. The developers really came up with a good idea for how they should be done for remastered games. Give it a good polish and some minor tweaks, and then rather than sell it at full price come in at a lower price. This way people who didn’t have the chance to play it the first time around can. And fans of the game can relive some good memories from a title that gives them some fond memories. So strap on your Nanosuit and get ready to dive back into Crysis.

This review is based on a PS4 copy of Crysis: Remastered provided by Sandbox Strategies for coverage purposes. It is also available on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and the Epic Games Store.