Crysis Warhead Review

As you may have noticed, I have pushed back the STALKER:Clear Sky review. This is because I simply couldn't wait to play Crysis Warhead. I was a very big fan of the original Crysis, and the promises that came with Warhead would address some key issues with the original. At less than 30 bucks Crysis Warhead is as cheap as an expansion, but is a stand alone game that comes with the multiplayer component known as Crysis Wars.

The promises of Crysis Warhead is that it would be faster paced and optimized to run on a $700 computer. Before I jump too far into the article, I'd like to talk about the performance of the original Crysis and the new Warhead. The $700 computer happens to have a decent Core2 CPU, and a 9800GT video card. The 9800GT is basically just an 8800GT when you compare performance and ability. I just happen to have a system that has almost exactly what the $700 system contains. I have to admit that Crysis Warhead does run on the system at 1440*900 2xAA, and a mixture of Mainstream, and Gaming (Medium and High). Enthusiast ( aka VeryHigh ) isn't really a good idea. With Windows XP and Vista 32bit Home Premium the frames are smooth, and visuals are fantastic. There is still problems when I played in Vista 64. This was also the case with the original Crysis.

This comes with one asterisk though. I played the original Crysis at about the same detail and settings with about the same results. I have to wonder what the complaints were about Crysis performance, because this 8800GT I had running did rather well. From what I've been able to discern it is that the game doesn't scale well. As you spend more and more money on huge SLi, or Crossfire rigs with amazing ability, the performance in Crysis didn't budge too much. I didn't have an SLI or crossfire rig to test on so I can't say if this is any better in Warhead.

What I can say is that performance of Warhead in Vista 64 is similar to that of the original Crysis. Terrible. I tried so many things but frames were just awful. I had the same problem in the original, so it may just be a problem with the Crytek 2 Engine. This isn't the only graphical problem in the Crysis series though. There is also a problem with graphical performance continuity. What I mean is that at some points in both Crysis and Warhead you will have fantastic frames, but as the games ( both of them ) approach the final chapters performance drops greatly. Snow levels and transfers between environments cause a lot of jumpiness.

Wandering through the jungle cloaked

This isn't to say that there is nothing changed graphically. The game itself does seem a little bit crisper and the lighting seems better as well. Crysis is still right up there alongside the best looking games, so it's not surprising that the advances for Warhead were only small.

That's enough technical talk, let's move on to the gameplay aspects. Installing the game itself is in two parts. Warhead is on one DVD. Crysis Wars, which is the new multiplayer component, is on a second DVD. Installing both takes a long time, and a lot of space, so get a a couple beers chilled and burn some of your movie collection to DVDs to clear up space if needed.

The game menu is almost totally comparable to the original with a different colour theme. Once in the game you fill the shoes of the Sykes aka Psycho. If you've played the original Crysis, then you will remember Psycho as your British squad mate when you played as Nomad. Warhead follows the same storyline, on the same island from Psycho's perspective. Since we already know what Psycho looks like the cutscenes go into the third person perspective and gives the game a more theatrical feel.

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