Crysis Warhead

Crysis Warhead is one of the best FPS expansions I’ve ever played. In this review I will assume you’ve already played and beaten the original Crysis. While Warhead is stand-alone, and you could technically play it without having Crysis installed, or owned for that matter, I wouldn’t recommend playing them in proper order.

Now.. there are several major differences when comparing Warhead to Crysis.

First of all, now you are in the shoes of the British Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes after he leaves Nomad’s infiltration party from the beginning of the original Crysis. In Warhead there are many cutscenes portraying Sykes internal strife, making him al the more human as you see his morals sway. I grew alot closer to him than I ever did with Nomad, who in comparison is very one dimensional.

Another major difference is how the game iunfolds storywise. The first game was an epic adventure as you progressed through tons of exciting environments. Warhead is much more action-oriented. There is less exploring, less terrain to cover, and it’s basically all straightforward orders to secure x location by engaging and killing all enemies. I didn’t see this as a flaw, because since expansions are generally shorter than the original games (xfire clocked in around 5 hours), there isn’t enough time to build up that same level of story, and doing so isn’t expected.

The final boss fight:
My biggest peeve with the original Crysis was the final boss fight. Even after patching it was heavily bugged to the point where you’d have to save each time you knocked off a chunk of the baddie, because chances were you’d clip through the floor or the game would glitch up in some way. The final boss fight in Warhead is underwhelming in that you just have to brute force the boss with the new super weapon you picked up moments before. Not much thought put in by the devs in this one… Thankfully this boss fight is saved by a long satisfying end cutscene, and the end comes out on top of the original’s.

I scored the original Crysis 8.5 out of 10, slightly lower than this expansion. Looking back these games are both on the same level, and the original Crysis should probably have gotten a 9 or 9.5. It was that final fight that really screwed up the dynamics and flow of the game, and coming at the end, it left the worst impression to me as a player.

Cut the story short; I highly recommend picking up Crysis as well as the expansion Crysis Warhead. They are both fun games in their own ways, and you won’t be disappointing with either one. If you see this game for cheap by all means get it and play it before playing the original game. There are no spoilers in this expansion.

This entry was posted on November 9, 2009 at November 9, 2009 and is filed under Game Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.