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Crysis 3 should be really fun. I've spent a lot of time over at the Crytek website going through all their tech demos of the new engine, all their blogs, and publications, I'm a big fan of the studio. Crysis 2 was the best looking game on console when it came out, and it was the most mechanically fun shooter I ever played. Crytek is a highly respected developer and a dream job for people who like making FPS games and engines, but it's still a company that people here don't know much about since it's headquartered in Germany. They are extremely busy over in Europe, they have expanded to a ton of studios and are experimenting with some different genres in some of them, they license Cryengine to schools and universities and get involved in the educational field, they're way bigger than people realize but the name brand isn't household yet. They just opened up a studio in Austin which is great so they have a foothold in America for the first time.

I personally think Crytek is the best FPS developer in the market, no matter how much I love Halo and Half Life. CryEngine 3 can hold it's weight against any other engine I know of and when it comes to cutting edge features and usability it should be a good competitor for Unreal 4 in the next gen. The most fun FPS games you'll play this gen will probably be Crysis 3 and Ubisoft's Far Cry 3 and they have the option of stealth in common and sandbox gameplay design in common. I played 73% of Crysis 2 with the cloak mode activated and I played it at my own slow pace stabbing people and using a silenced magnum a lot. My 2nd playthrough I played it like  Halo with an assault rifle, rockets, C4, letting everybody know I was there etc and it was better at Halo than Halo is. Not only is every level designed with both of those playstyles accounted for, but they both end up working well. The guns feel solid similar to CoD with low latency and fast cause and effect, but the overall pace of the game is up to you because at any time you can use stealth and high action on the fly as you see fit. There's a vertical element to the levels as well which Halo and CoD never had. You can run, super jump, climb up on ledges, run and slide under obstacles while shooting, and even random things you never get taught like blowing a car to pieces than grab the car door to use as a shield. Really impressive lighting, impressive simulations, Crysis has a new wind feature in which foliage will react to the outward force of grenades, helicopter wash, and any wind setting the designer put in. The difference being that most "wind" simulations in games are just smoke and mirrors with a scripted motion repeating itself. In Crysis 3 the designers have been able to place a wind entity in an area, control the direction, the speed and physical force, and things like the foliage will finally have the ability to react to the physical force. I've been waiting for a system like that since Halo 3 and it never happened, Bungie engineers talked about doing that but either couldn't or didn't. If you're a graphics snob and/or performance snob, which I know Julian likes the graphics, you'll want to see what Cryengine 3 is doing. There's a nice set of features built in, and the engine handles it well, and the games are pretty fun.

Crysis takes influence from all the other great games like Halo, CoD, and Half Life, except the gameplay is better than any of them on their own and adds new features like being able to modify your weapon as you play in real-time without pausing. It doesn't sound like a big deal but once you've done it in Crysis 2 and 3 you will wish you could do it in all other games. On console you hold the select button, your gun comes up, and at the press of any of the buttons you can add a silencer, grenade launcher, rail items, etc and have the gun modified instantly while you hide behind cover in the middle of a firefight, and be back in the action without any stoppage.

For all the people who enjoy shooters, if you're not at least trying out the Crysis games you're really missing out on a legit AAA shooter with a fun and diverse sandbox from a legit design team on a more than legit engine. I'm happy singing their praises, try the game out, don't be a jabroni. Even as beautiful as Halo 4 is and with all the nice features their engine has, they are basically just dabbling in the stuff the Crytek has been mastering with Cryengine. Halo 4 is like the junior varsity team and Crytek is varsity.

Here are some really cool demonstrations of the engine I enjoyed that you all might as well. Especially the first video, in it you can see the wind features, some lighting features, a little bit of cloth sim, water and how light is reacting with the water sims, and particle effects and how light interacts with the particle effects.

Crysis 3 Community Day with Sean Tracy

Soft Body Physics

You've convinced me to give the series a shot.  I'll admit, the third entry has had me enticed with the setting and open world elements - things that are very important in an FPS for me these days.  Is the original still worth getting into?

Same here. FarCry 3 was the most fun I've had in a single player FPS in years, so if its anything like that, I know I'll enjoy it. Thanks for the great infromation as always Mike!

@ Jesse and Mike

The original is worth getting into I'd think, as is the second game. They are both quite different though. The first game was pretty much open world and was set on a tropical island. I think the first game had the most problems when it came to AI issues, but it's probably the one that's most similar to Far Cry. The second game improved on a lot of things but some people didn't like it because it wasn't an open world game.

Crysis 2 is a game designed into levels so it won't have the open world, but the levels themselves are designed well and the encounter spaces are sandboxes that you can sneak around and observe, assess threats, explore to find ammo, and plan how you want to deal with people. It's also in New York so it's an urban feel. At the beginning of the game the cloak mode won't last as long so you have to use your stealth cammo wisely and once it's depleted it'll take a few second to recharge, but as you progress through the game and gather XP from dead aliens you will be able to upgrade all of your suits abilities including the effectiveness of cloak. Some of the upgrades are game changers and the cloak based ones really let me play the game the way I wanted.

Now Crysis 3 seems to be trying to take ideas from the designs of both the first two games. It seems to have some big sandboxes like Crysis 2 and they are trying to give you the options to observe, assess, and both sneak around assassinating and go all Halo at your direction. They are trying to meld the organic and tropical feel of the first game but still in the New York setting so it's more of an urban jungle. They said they're trying to build 7 distinct areas of the city. I can't tell you the extent of any open world elements it may have, but I don't think it'll be quite like Far Cry 3 or Crysis 1. I bet it will be level based but the levels will probably be quite large and they'll try to play to the strengths of the two main playstyles when designing the areas. The first Crysis was more open world, but a lot of people complained that a lot of the areas weren't relevant and felt like fat that needed to be trimmed. They'll try to go for somewhere inbetween.

Having a somewhat linear path is not a problem for me, what I really liked about FarCry 3 was the flexibility of the game’s systems. It seems most of the time that flexibility is attributed (wrongfully) to sandbox games, but that’s not the case (as you’ve just pointed out).

The way you describe the Crysis series makes it seem as though it offers that kind of flexibility with its combat system. That’s what I’m really looking for in a single player First Person Shooter, something that will allow you to engage situations from different angles and employ different strategies, instead of a game that simply tests your spatial awareness and reaction time.

While we are on the subject of shooters, I know you’re not a huge fan on multiplayer games, but have you ever played class-based shooters (TF2 or Monday Night Combat). That’s what I truly long for, another great class based FPS, unfortunately nothing like that has come out since the original MNC on Xbox 360. 

Crysis 2 was designed so that the exploration was more linear but when you go to encounters things always opened up and you could decide what pace and tactics you wanted to use. Imagine the design like sets of bubbles connected with strings. On the AI side enemies go about on patrols and do their own thing, so it's not like CoD where everybody spawns once you walk past an invisible trigger and then they are all looking at you by default and 15 people are trying to shoot at your from behind cover the second you show up.

I don't play multiplayer often at all, but when I have TF2 was always my favorite. I haven't played in a long time but I really really loved it. It makes me wonder how much has changed in the game since I last played. A great new class based FPS is something I'd love to see. I prefer class based team games over the somewhat lone wolf chaos like Halo and CoD tends to be or tends to end up as. When I played TF2 I always felt like I was contributing in some way and the classes were all useful to me. I could defend the base during CTF by putting up turrets. When the team was having trouble getting into the enemy base I could be a spy and disguise my way in there. I could use the sniper to be a camping jerk for a little while which was still fun, and I especially thought it was fun being part of a medic/heavy team where the heavy would run around destroying everything and I could heal him constantly and we could use the temporary invincibility power or whatever that was. TF2 is a lot of fun.