Crysis: Warhead Preview Trailer

 Electronic Arts and Crytek have released a new trailer for their upcoming expansion pack, in-line sequel, Crysis: Warhead, and in a nutshell, it looks like more of the same.  The graphics look good, and the action is there, but there seems to be nothing they are showing right now, that makes the game look any different from the first game.  We will probably here more about Crysis: Warhead as it nears release, but as of now, I can’t say that I am excited about this right now.

Crysis Gets A PC Expansion in Crysis:Warhead

Earlier this week, people were all up in arms at the fact that Crytek announced they were dropping work on the latest patch for Crysis, v1.3.  They made this annoucement, stating that there was a bigger annoucement on the horizon that would make up for it.  At first, every expected a closure of the studio, or a console version of the game, but it seems that all that was speculation as the true announcement is that Crysis is getting an expansion.

Crysis: Warhead will take place in parallel with the events in the original game, however, you will be in the shoes of Psycho, the boasterous Austrailian that was part of your team in the first game.  Throughout Crysis, you would hear him mentioning things and that he had seen all kinds of “crazy s*&%” on the other side of the island, and now you will get to see all of that.

The game will offer more weapons and vehicles as well as an upgraded version of the CryEngine2, that should provide even more of the amazing visuals that were in the first game.  Multiplayer modes have been added and enhanced this time around.  No date has been set, except for the words, “later this year”.

PC gaming not dead yet, but pirates are working on it.

The announcement has come from Crytek that they believe they will no longer be making games exclusively for PC. Let’s call this step one, because once they start putting their games out on consoles and nobody buys the PC one, that will be the last of their work on PC, and with good reason. Joe and I discussed copy protection for a little bit in podcast 30, as it relates to the Steam download service. What I didn’t mention at that time is I admire the Steam business model in that the games, which ping home to make sure they’re legit, are all but ensured immunity to piracy. That’s good for the developer, the publisher, and as we will soon see, good for the consumer who wants to play these games. At all.
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Crysis Review for the PC

When I was in high school, I had to read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a great horror book about the story of one person that has two distinct personalities depending on the time of the day. With Crysis, you get the same feeling, as the game starts as a design piece on how to make an open world feel real and believable, only meet its other personality, which plays out as a standard first person shooter experience. It is an enjoyable experience, but you know that with some touch up work, it could have been so much more.

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EA Says “Maximum Platinum” for Crysis

When the NPD numbers came in last month for the PC, the numbers showed a decent showing for Crysis, but far less than what most people seemed to think in regards of sales for the highly touted PC exclusive shooter. Immediately people sprung to life proclaiming PC gaming dead and that Crysis was soon to be headed to the PS3.

Well, today, EA sang a different tune at their year end fianacial meeting for shareholders. At that meeting, it was announced that Crysis recently went platinum, meaning that one million units of the game have been sold at either retail or via digital download channels. This is a marked improvement from the 88,000 that were sold in the first week, when failure was all but annoucned for the game. The strong showing for the game most likely comes from the European market where PC gaming is still the strongest platform for game sales.

via Joystiq

See Also:

Unreal Tournament III for the PC Sinks, While Crysis Aims High

Let’s Extinguish the Never-ending Funeral Pyre for PC Gaming

New Nvidia 8800GT Cards Have Power and Performance For Great Price

So I have been sitting on the fence in regards to a video card upgrade. I have been waiting for the next Nvidia cards that would come out after the 8800GTX and 8800GTS cards. As has been proven in the past, Nvidia always seems to release a couple of hastily developed cards in the first batch and then puts out a new set a few months later that are nearly as powerful, while being much more efficient and cheaper. That has finally become a reality with the 8800GT cards.

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Crysis Single Player Demo Impressions

About a month ago, Crytek and EA released a much sought after multiplayer demo for the upcoming PC exclusive game, Crysis. It was still a bit rough and had some texture loading issues on some lower end machines. Now a more polished single player demo has come out and seems to fix a lot of the problems that were present in the multiplayer version from a month ago. You also get a better explanation of the story and what is happening.

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Crytek working on 360, PS3 and Wii coming later.

Cevat Yerli of Crytek, the developer behind the Far Cry franchise and the hotly anticipated first person shooter Crysis, mentioned in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz that they are currently developing a non-FPS title for the 360, and that they are “going deeper than many people assume right now” with the PS3. They also had the following to say regarding the Nintendo Wii:

Do you have a room for Wii R&D?

We have Wii development but it’s very small, it’s more like testing ideas. We don’t have a project at this stage… Nintendo Wii is certainly on the radar. We will do something for Nintendo Wii - the question is when. I think some time maybe in three or four years, but nobody knows when.

I would take this to mean that the Wii’s strong sales, not only of hardware but of third party software, are not going unnoticed by western developers. It’s further illustration, though, of how little these developers thought of Nintendo’s chances in the market with the Wii. Among Ubisoft’s pile of shovelware at Wii’s launch was an incompetent port of the Xbox game Far Cry. It would be nice to see these developers bring some really intensive FPS titles on the system, considering the obvious advantages of having an IR pointing device integrated into the controller.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz, via Cubed3