Crysis 2 Message Board

This week's PlayStation Blogcast revealed that Ico and Shadow of the Colossus will be available next Tuesday, January 17, through the PlayStation Network. Regularly priced $40 at retail as a bundle, the two games will be $20 apiece on the PSN.

Other retail games being added to the PSN next week include Crysis 2 for $40, along with Tom Clancy titles Rainbow Six Vegas and Splinter Cell: Double Agent for $20 each.

If the idea of touching discs has held you back from Ico or Shadow of the Colossus, now's the time to check out these artistic milestones.

Who pillaged the most booty in 2011? Which vessel had the most ornate mast? ... Wait, we've got it all wrong -- these aren't the pirate pirate awards for 2011, they're the most pirated games of the year. Can you guess which game took top ... um ... "honors?"

TorrentFreak estimates that Crysis 2 was downloaded 3.9 million times over BitTorrent since March, edging out Modern Warfare 3, which was downloaded an estimated 3.6 million times since November. Taking third place was Battlefield 3 with an estimated 3.5 million downloads. Rounding out the top five on the PC side were FIFA 12 and Portal 2.

There are also estimated figures for Xbox 360 and Wii games -- Gears of War 3 and Super Mario Galaxy 2 were the most pirated games with 890,000 and 1.2 million estimated downloads, respectively.

This is probably old news to you, but it’s new news to me and my ancient Egyptian ancestors told me during my hypnotherapy that the entire universe is just a figment of my imagination, therefore I can post it if I please and if you moan it’s only because I’m imagining someone moaning. Cloud gaming tech Gaikai has been offering streaming demos of various games – most notably Dead Space 2 and Mass Effect 2 – here and there for a while now, but I’ve just discovered that, over on Eurogamer, you can jump into browser-based slices of Crysis 2, Magicka, FIFA 12 and the Witcher 2.

Update: omigodomigodomigod. There are more demos on the Gaikai site. Including FARMING SIMULATOR. Yes!(more…)

#cryengine3 Even if you have zero interest in sunk ships or James Cameron movies, you need to see this video of the interior of the Titanic, built using CryEngine 3. It's as amazing as it is shiny. More »

It's not unusual to find good deals on GameFly's free shipping page, but $10 for Crysis 2 is a great deal by any stretch. GameFly is offering several other titles on the cheap as well, including the PS3 version of Portal 2 for $16.19 ($18 on Xbox), Alan Wake for $12, Duke Nukem Forever or Red Faction: Armageddon for $9. You can even snag Dead Space 2, Bulletstorm, Dragon Age 2, FEAR 3 and several other for under $20 each.

And, as the name of the "free shipping" page suggests, shipping is free.

#crysis The original 2007 Crysis has a benchmark-y quality to it. It is no longer the Best-Looking PC Game In The World, but it retains some of that "must-have" mystique nonetheless. Perhaps it's because it's one of only a few hardcore first-person shooters that has never been ported to consoles. But every time one of my console-playing friends builds a new gaming PC, first thing he or she does is go straight to Steam and download the game. More »

#homefront Is the new Homefront necessary? Pardon that imprudent question, but when a man is drowning in a sea of first-person shooters, may he question the next bucket? More »

#fineart That Darth Vader line has always creeped me out a little. This stuff, though, featuring a pair of storyboard artists working in the games industry, does nothing of the sort. More »

Rumours emerged this weekend that all isn’t happy-times at Crytek. The Crysis developer has been accused of mistreating staff, and sacking employees unlawfully, the accusations appearing on a Tumblr blog. But these are accusations Crytek’s co-founder Avni Yerli has rushed to deny, speaking to Develop. Amid suggestions that six-month crunch periods leave employees not knowing if they will still have a job, Yerli insists that Crytek respects and values staff.

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#fineart Today at Fine Art we're looking at the work of Daniel Rizea, who in the last few years has provided art for games like Crysis, Crysis 2 and Crytek's upcoming fantasy title Ryse. More »

#earthquake Earthquakes are great and terrible forces, destroying homes, claiming lives, and reminding humanity as a whole that this planet we crawl across isn't as solid as it seems. The east coast of the U.S. found that out today. For the rest of us, there are video games. More »

Above: An early, work-in-progress screenshot of Joystiq Publishing's atmospheric and haunting adventure, Fears for Spheres. We just whipped it up in the last 20 minutes with the aid of the CryEngine 3 SDK, which is now available for free from the CryDev website.

With access to the engine that powered Crysis 2, as well as the CryEngine 3 Sandbox level editor, we've been able to breathe perfectly lit life into our artistic (and non-commercial) endeavor. If we were trying to impart some educational information in a classroom, developer Crytek wouldn't charge us a cent either. (A very competitive stance, considering the Unreal Development Kit is free as well.)

Though this SDK has helped us to quickly arrange terrain, AI and textures, the central "narrative" -- as they say -- of Fears for Spheres has been years in the making.

Embark on the tragic journey of Borb, the reflective amnesiac sphere, cursed to wander/wonder through a fantasy realm in search of his true purpose. "Who am I?" he asks a traveler in passing. "I know not," comes the reply, "but you have shown me much of myself today. Such is your thankless existence."

#speakuponkotaku In today's laser-targeted edition of Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Petey 2 Kold has an issue with Crysis 2 on the PlayStation 3, and would like to make developer Crytek aware of it. Have at them, Petey 2. More »

We never got a proper answer about what it was the caused a few EA games – most noisily Crysis 2 – to vanish from Steam last month. Valve have kept entirely mum about their side of the story, but EA claim it was Valve wot did it, due to a mystery transgression of terms and conditions. Of course, all this rather neatly coincided with the launch of Origin, EA’s latest attempt at a PC game download service (now with extra social stuff).

Everyone was to blame, no-one was to blame, we all picked our villains and passive-aggressivley shook our e-fists at them, and then it went quiet again. Now, EA has broken cover to offer a little more – while the full explanation isn’t there, we’ve got some pretty strong hints as to just why a bunch of their big games were booted off Steam.(more…)

Crytek recently patching in DirectX 11 support into Crysis 2, causing many a dedicated PC gamer to load the game up and see how much has changed. Is there really that much of a difference between Crysis 2 as it was and Crysis 2 as it is now? We put together a video comparing Crysis 2 pre-patch and Crysis 2 with DX11 on, high resolution textures enabled, and all settings bumped to Ultra...

#thankthemaker Crytek are the developers behind the original Far Cry, Crysis, Crysis 2 and the Cryengine. They could also, but for the grace of God, have been bought out by Microsoft. More »

#identitycrysis Today, the South Korea GRB (Game Rating Board) apparently approved Crysis for the Xbox 360. Crysis has not been released on the Xbox 360. It's a Windows-only title. More »

Attention modders! Hot on the heals of the recent DX11 patch, the Crysis 2 Editor is now available (with a bunch of other tools) to download at crymod.com and mycrysis.com, which was named after a fairly strong-handed self-help book expounding advanced military weaponry over sit-ins with your therapist. The Crysis mod scene came up with some properly fantastic stuff, and armed with all the tech and tools of the bleeding now, the CryEngine looks like it’s got it’s work cut out for it as all those artist types take full advantage of the “Make It More Shiny, My Portfolio Isn’t As Bright As The Sun Yet” buttons.

The official documentation is hiding under cloak over here. He’s shy and wonders what to do with his hands alot, but he’s gradually overcoming his public speaking issues.

#gallery Don't know your parallax occlusion mapping from your custom shape based bokeh depth of field effects? Don't worry about it! Crytek, maker of Crysis 2, illustrates what new tessellation and displacement mapping technology, part of the game's new "Ultra Upgrade" pack, means for you, PC gamer. More »

See Crysis 2's PC version now fueled by DirectX11!

After establishing a reputation for cutting edge graphics with the original Crysis, many PC gamers were disappointed with the fact that Crysis 2 did not support DirectX 11. It left their high-performance rigs feeling underutilized. Well, that underutilization comes to an end today, since Crytek officially released two free upgrade packages that will push video cards to the limit and cause you to overdose on eye candy.

After upgrading the game to v1.9 via automatic update, you can download and install the DX11 Ultra Upgrade, which adds features like tessellation and displacement mapping, realistic shadows and more. To amp things up even further, grab the Hi Res Texture Pack, which includes impressive graphical improvements whether you're using DX11 or DX9 (64-bit OS and at least 768 MB of video card memory required). Check out the trailer after the jump to see what's in store.

Download the Crysis 2 DirectX 11 Ultra Upgrade (545 MB)
Download the Crysis 2 Hi Res Texture Pack (1.65 GB)

Developer Crytek today released the Crysis 2 Ultra Upgrade patch for PC, giving gamers DirectX 11 support...

One of the most highly-acclaimed first person shooters of 2011 is getting a facelift. Today, EA and Crytek will be releasing the Crysis 2 Ultra Upgrade, giving PC gamers full DirectX 11 support. Enhancing the Crysis 2 gaming experience on PC, the Crysis 2 Ultra Upgrade delivers higher quality visual...

#pc As predicted, Crysis 2's Ultra Upgrade hit today, giving PC gamers full DirectC support for the shooter. More »

Woo, fancy! It’s here.

When using the new “Ultra” spec, DX9 platforms will benefit from real-time local reflections and contact shadows. The owners of DX11 platforms, in addition, will be able to enjoy hardware tessellation (requires the installation of the “DX11 Ultra Upgrade”), parallax occlusion mapping and several improvements for shadows, water, particles, depth of field and motion blur.

Phwoar, eh readers? (You probably want to download the hi-res textures patch on the same page, too.)

Speaking with Gamasutra, Crytek bossman Cervat Yerli had this to say about the Crysis games: “Crysis 1′s intention was, if I were to play it three years later, it looks great. And it does, actually, it fulfilled that. But it made it difficult for entry-level players. So with Crysis 2, we took a different direction, and it backfired a little bit.” Yerli explained that the forthcoming high-end 1.9 patch for Crysis 2, which will introduce clevers such as tessellation, realistic shadows with variable penumbra, parallax occlusion mapping, and “Sprite Based Bokeh Depth of Field”, is a “gift” to the PC high-end community. “It lifts up Crysis 2 and gives a sneak peak of how PC gaming will evolve in the future,” says Yerli, “If you support a high-end preference.” I totally support a high-end preference. That sounds like some kind of innuendo, right? Eh? Guys? Mm.

The high-end patch is out next Monday, June 27th.

#sorry The first Crysis was tailored directly towards the glorious PC master race. So the fact the sequel pared back the hardware demands in favour of something that would run on a console did not go down well. More »

#masterrace If you can handle it, that is. More »

Crysis 2 was removed from Steam last week over a DLC agreement--and it's still not back.

I've been just as frustrated as you about the lack of clarity from Electronic Arts and Valve over Crysis 2's removal from Steam. Then, when EA said it "appreciates Steam's decision" to allow Alice: Madness Returns on Steam, things became more confusing.

I have some answers.

Alice: Madness Returns was not pulled down from Steam--it wasn't there to start. As others pointed out to me, EA has a habit of placing its games on Steam at the last second. Alice: Madness Returns was the latest, but there was a similar situation with Dragon Age II.

As for why Crysis 2 is no longer on Steam, an EA spokesperson explained to me that Crytek had brokered a deal for another digital distributor to host the game's downloadable content. Because Steam could not distribute the content, Steam took the game down. It's still not available.

"EA had nothing to do with Steam's decision to drop Crysis 2," said the company in a statement.

EA did not make that point completely clear in its previous statement about Crysis 2's removal.

"Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service," it said last week, "many of which are not imposed by other online game services."

The reasons for suspicion over EA's relationship with Steam come from the launch of Origin, EA's new distribution platform revealed at E3. Origin will be the exclusive home to the digital version of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The question that lingers: what about Battlefield 3?

"No new information on BF3 or what Steam will decide to do with other EA titles," said the company. "We are glad they chose to post Alice on Steam."

Steam does list some upcoming releases, but not many. While Battlefield 3 is not listed, Rage, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, and Dead Island are, and can be added to a Steam wishlist.

Earlier this week, Videogamer reported a rumor that the next generation of Microsoft hardware would be unveiled at E3 2012 and that Crytek already had its mitts on it, supposedly developing TimeSplitters 4 -- which would also be shown off at next year's annual trade show. However, according to the latest Crytek newsletter, it's all baloney.
"Relating to the recent rumours, Crytek do not have any next generation hardware from Microsoft, nor do we know when Microsoft may announce future hardware or what that hardware will entail. Crytek are working at pushing the boundaries of what current technology can bring, including our focus on DX11 which will be released shortly as an update for Crysis 2, and we believe this work, added to our estimations of what the new hardware will provide, set up CryENGINE as a next generation engine for all consoles." Besides, it wouldn't make much sense for Microsoft to announce a new console when it's all gung-ho on Kinect right now -- unless the new console uses Kinect. You guys, we think we just figured it out!