It has been the talk of the gaming community, best PC game of the 2006 E3 and runner up in 2007, and most highly anticipated tech demo in recent history. Crysis has transcended being merely another release – it has come to symbolise the advances in PC gaming technology. Being the first of the true Direct X10 titles, well it might. The development stable has sired Far Cry, itself a measure of AI and graphical goodness, and now with the backing of EA the expectation has finally reached fruition in the form of the first playable demo to be released to the public. The expectation has only grown with the controversy surrounding the split between Ubisoft (who kept the Far Cry IP) and Crytek, adding fuel to an already blazing fire. What effect will all of this back story have on the game itself? Will Crytek be able to produce something that the fans have hoped for, or that the critics will tear apart with customary relish? The animals!

For all of the technical merit, the storyline does little to push any boundaries. In fact, it is a collage of just about every popular plot device in gaming. A frightening discovery is made on a South China Sea island by a team of US scientists. The team goes missing and the Delta Force is sent in to discover the secret behind this event, which turns out to be aliens. The equipment is near and distant future, the action is a mix of squad based and individual stealth, with a few vehicles thrown in for good measure. What did bring me a lot of joy was the realisation that the narrative style beared a remarkable similarity to the old Arnie cinema classic Predator. There are many moments even in this demo that pay homage, from the Delta Team leader, to the circumstances in which you find your colleague Aztec… which I won’t spoil for you.

With the background in place, it was time to get to grips with the demo. It is quite a download, as you would expect. I grabbed a beer. Before I could put on the second episode of Boston Legal there it was. Crysis. Well, the demo at least. The timing was perfect; I’d just finished upgrading my home system. It was time to see where gaming was going to be for the next few years. I booted the demo on a PC that filled the room with new computer fragrance, the hot smell of virgin solder and circuits. The Quad cores and 640MB 8800GTS video card. As I mused over how the experience would play out I wondered why I was thinking in the style of a 1930’s detective. I resolved to stop. I finished my beer, stubbed out my cigarette and sent the broads home. It was time to get to work.

The install process was simplicity itself, with no options to get in the way.

The EA website boasts of a “living, dynamic world where earthquakes, breaking ice, landslides, and tornados pose an ever-present threat”, and from the opening moments you get a glimpse of what they are talking about. Anyone who may have doubted the difference DirectX 10 will make to our games now has conclusive evidence to support the affirmative. Even the opening credits ooze style, a Fight Club style close up journey over the body armour that is the cornerstone of Crysis. The scene then breaks out to an incredible action sequence that demonstrates the best of what is awaiting you in game. It really sets the scene.

Once in the game, the level of details is astonishing. Swimming in to shore, the water parting in gentle ripples behind you, you step onto the beach. You quickly notice the water effect as the sea actually moves in a tidal fashion, creeping up to the shore and then retreating back. A spray mists the air as the waves break against scattered rocks. The sand itself is textured and dimensional – later in the level a flare casts its red glow across the front of the small dunes, throwing shadows across the back side, giving the world a deeper realism then we have seen before. Gone are those flat pixellated worlds of yesterdays gaming.

What really hits you though is the plant life. The first level is covered in palm trees, each branch moving independently. Each leaf of each branch, moving independently. Each trunk, branch and leaf casting a unique shadow. Grass is thick and lush, and if you crawl through it you will have each blade appears to obscure your vision. Ferns will bend as you brush past them –did I mention that this is a seriously detailed game? I have to admit I sat at the start of the demo, not 30 seconds in, and stared. I then proceeded to pump half a clip into a crab that scuttled by. You see, not only is the terrain completely destructible, but so if the wildlife. Shoot a tree enough and it will fall, sometimes onto your enemies, injuring or killing them. See a small school of fish or a few crabs and they too can feel your wrath. And all the time the entire world feels as though it is moving independently. The only criticism I have is that if you look closely and long enough, it appears as though plants and trees are made of jelly. Lime, i’m presuming. Everything sort of ‘wobbles’ more than sways. From a distance, or at a run though, it is a phenomenal effect, especially combined with the motion blurring that is also the current trend.

The most impressive part of this was that the game powered on extremely smoothly, with very little noticeable dropping of the frame rate. And this was not on an uber-rig. For about $1500 you will get a machine that can handle Crysis in a way that will truly show you a generational leap from today’s games.

I should mention at this point the interface. It’s sleek in the way the Ghost Recon interface is, very clean and very military. There is an auto-detect feature for the game settings as with most these days. Blood was defaulted to ‘off’ as were the subtitles – I would suggest turning both on. There can be a lot of noise in the game that can hide the decent voice acting throughout. VOIP is included for multiplayer, and strangely a menagerie of crosshairs to choose from!

The difficulty settings are interesting in the way they work. There are three to choose from, each unique in what they provide to the experience of playing the game. On Easy/Normal, you have driver controlled guns, simple binoculars and the enemies all curse you and call their friends in English.

Go to Hard and the training wheels are off. Bump it up to Delta and you get no crosshairs to aim with, or a warning that an enemy grenade is incoming. The binoculars are more realistic and your foes now speak their native Korean! Things have sure come a long way from easy, normal and hard, where the difference used to be the raising of the I.Q of the enemy.

To deal with your enemies you have unique, real-time, customisable weapons. Each weapon has option trees, which allows you to select from a range of enhancements. You could have a silencer or not on one tree (with empty slots presumably to be filled with later discovered pieces), then a flashlight or laser sight on another. This should make multiplayer a different game also, as the combinations for each weapon are huge. There is also the option of dual wielding pistols, or if you are more into meeting people, you can walk straight up and squeeze the life out of them bare-handed. I also have to mention the grenades. These win the “Best Explosion caused by a Detonated Device” category hands down. Each one sends a small shock wave though the air, takes down buildings and plants, and more importantly enemies in a way that is completely believable. They have to be seen to be appreciated.

The nano suit, the shiny metallic suit you see on the game cover and teaser shots everywhere, is equipped with various booster abilities, such as increased strength (which is useful for jumping higher, longer and faster), and faster healing. Using these abilities draws power from the suit, which means less between your precious hide and the bullets.

And you may need the help. The enemies are everything you would expect from the Far Cry team. These are the Koreans that must play computer games until they are forcefully removed from World of Warcraft and Starcraft to serve against intruding American gamers. They talk to each other, flank, retreat and regroup. More than once I lost one of them in the foliage, only to cop fire from the side as he emerged gun blazing. And believe me, the environment plays its part brilliantly. With the sun glinting off objects, everything, repeat EVERYTHING moving, the occasional chicken scaring the hell out of you as it runs past, this is an amazing real world simulation that adds a new dimension to the fire fight. When you do take a hit, the screen smears with blood. There is also a health bar for your suit and body, but the blood helps you keep your eyes on the action.

There did seem to be a bit of tweaking required though. A short distance between a screaming soldier and his comrade seemed to be too far for them to hear the commotion and join in. Also, the rate in which you and your suit heal is incredibly fast. Combined with your futuristic nano-suit, I found combat became a process of cloak, walk up to enemy, shoot him in the face, decloak behind cover until you recharge, then repeat. These points may sound minor, but really did stand out against the otherwise very realistic feel to the rest of the game.

I also saw a soldier trip over the body of another, after which, like an European soccer player, he screamed and fell to the pitch and didn’t move again. I looked for a magic sponge in my equipment but couldn’t find one.

As far as demos go, this one is a landmark in the gaming landscape. The promise for the full release is staggering. The tiny amount that you get to see is already overwhelming, both in the technical achievement and sheer beauty of the environment. Combined with a much loved and familiar feel to the story that comes from some heavy borrowing from Predator, this sample leaves you wanting to see the rest that Crysis have to offer immediately. DirectX 10, for all its promise and critics, will give you an experience like never before, and this is just the first title to really try to take advantage of it. It is fair to say that the days of real world representation is over, and that we are seeing the first real world simulation.

There is still a little to do, and I hope that the few things raised in this review are addressed, as I have not felt so immersed in a game since perhaps the original Call of Duty, S.T.A.L.K.E.R or Morrowind. Just try to think of those games with environments as true to life as Crysis, and it will leave you as giddy as a game playing school girl.

Give yourself a treat, call in a favour, rob a liquor store – do whatever it takes to get yourself a PC that can run Crysis the way it is meant to be run, and see for yourself what the hype is about. And believe.