Crysis was by far one of the most popular and talked about PC games of last year. Crytek is treating its fans to a second helping, not in the form of a sequel but a standalone add-on with proper multiplayer and a new campaign.

Following Psycho, a surviving soldier on Raptor team originally sent to investigate the events of Crysis, the campaign is a mediocre dessert with excellent toppings. The story itself is petty at best, introducing all-too-useful character Sean O’Neil, a failed Raptor-team operative who assists Psycho on every occasion required. Warhead follows the events of Crysis loosely. Instead of actually showing simultaneous actions between games (such as the same fights from a different perspective), players are treated to a completely separate recollection of events.

 

 

While not wrong, the lack of connection between Warhead and the original in terms of story is mildly disappointing. Improvements over the original are easy to spot, such as smoother graphics, better audio, and excelled gameplay. Crysis tended to require far too much horsepower than most PC’s could muster, and indeed they cannot handle Warhead similarly, even a year later. The difference is that with today’s mid-range videocards, Warhead will both run and look great without sacrificing much at all.

Running on a 2.4GHz Quad Core Q6600, 2GB of RAM and a 9600GT @512MB on Vista, I was able to run Warhead at High settings and it looks great, like the original on High settings. Why the nomenclature for graphical settings has changed to such call signs as “Enthusiast” and “Gamer” for Warhead and “Best Visuals” and “Good Performance” for Wars is beyond this reviewer.

 

 

Indeed, Warhead and Wars both run exceptionally well due to their graphics engine optimization, which runs great on both NVIDIA and ATI cards. It’s been optimized specifically for the 9800GT, NVIDIA’s current flagship and the powerhouse in the Crysis PC, but the 4870x2 can and will run it just as adequately, if not better. 

Yet even on a mid-range machine like our test bed (minus 2GB of RAM, due to burnout) it looked and played wonderfully. Graphics are only part of the improvement; Crytek went through every single complaint that players and journalists had with the original and worked on it. No more Koreans who can’t swim, better AI, more ‘alien’ Alien reactions and more. The only thing that hasn’t improved is the story and dialog.