Reviews written by Corey Krull

A unique three-act structure forces the player to use real-time armor and weapons customization to adapt constantly to an ever-changing world.
Encounter a frightening and very original alien species—they use their senses intelligently and work together to present the most challenging enemy yet in an FPS.
Control of a variety of land, sea, and air vehicles while battling the alien menace, including trucks, tanks, boats, and helicopters. Explore a living, dynamic world where earthquakes, breaking ice, landslides, and tornados pose an ever-present threat.

Enjoy 32-player multiplayer with real-time armor and weapons customization, plus an all-new multiplayer mode that combines player modification and tactical objectives.
Emergent gameplay means that in-game actions affect future outcomes and give each player a unique experience. Highly robust and easy-to-use mod toolset allows players to create their own expansive levels for both multiplayer and single-player modes.
The Cry ENGINE 2 engine delivers the most realistic environments, spectacular special effects, physics game engine, lighting system, and enemy Al.

The game

When taking first glance at Crysis you may think to yourself that it is just another average shooter. It is by far one of the best shooters that has been released since the highly acclaimed Halo and Half-Life series of games. Don’t just take my word for it; let the game speak for itself. As soon as you start watching the opening cut scene and begin, playing you will soon realize how special this game truly is.

Taking full use of Crytek’s very own second-generation game engine aptly named, CryEngine2, the game prides itself on amazing graphics and enhanced game world dynamics. This game engine gives all types of environments a real world look and feel, everything from plant life to water reacts to weather effects, gunfire, explosions and from any kind of movement. All buildings, vehicles and objects react to everything except most weather effects.

In addition, using the CryEngine2 on character and body animations makes them seem entirely lifelike and can even give distinct features to the face. As you can see, Crytek went all out on this aspect of the game but it is not the only aspect that they took their time on.

Adding to the game engine, Crytek went for fun and smart gameplay. This is isn’t your all out, guns a’ blazing type of shooter. You are rewarded for smart and at times quick thinking. The best way to play the game is to be as stealthy as you can. Before you decide on how to tackle a certain area, it is best to scope out for enemies. You can do this by using your trusty binoculars that will surround them with a white border, so whenever you decide to use your binoculars again all enemies will always be marked.

Weapons

All weapons feel as if you are handling the real thing. Each weapon type reacts with its own type of recoil, which makes shooting more of a challenge. When you fire a sniper rifle and you miss a headshot or do not take them down with your first shot then it may take a second to get them back in your scope. Even firing an automatic weapon can make you miss if you have a heavy trigger finger, for this, you must tap the trigger then the gun stays under control. As you can see, in Crysis, each weapon type reacts differently and depending on how you use them, will give you a different result.

There are eight weapon types, Assault, Submachine, Shotgun, Sniper, Heavy, Ordinance, Grenade and, of course a weapon of mass destruction. One cool thing about the weapons is that they can be modified on the fly, modifying allows you to add attachments like silencers, different scopes and grenade launchers.

The Nanosuit allows you to perform five different, let’s call them super abilities. These abilities include strength, speed, armor, cloak and adaptations. Strength allows you to destroy some buildings, pick-up and throw objects long distances, jump onto rooftops and up cliffs, attack people with trees and other objects and finally you can grab enemies and toss them into objects or as far as you can. Speed allows you to run at great speeds to get somewhere fast or run up on enemies and attack without warning. Armor allows for some protection against bullets and some explosives. Cloak allows you to become invisible making it easier to get by enemies, hide from enemies or perform whatever act you want. Lastly is Adaptations, the suit will intelligently adapt to any situation that you are forced into, these aren’t actions performed by the user but are automatic. The Nanosuit can perform many abilities making you almost super-human but not invincible.

Accessible gaming

Let’s begin with the controls, they are completely remappable as with all FPS games on the PC. There is a bright side to the controls, there aren’t an abundance of keyboard commands that need to be used or remembered.

On the down side, if you are unable to drive or fly with the keyboard you must use a controller or remap the keys or the mouse to make possible to drive or fly. Being able to control vehicles in the game is important because there is one mission where you must drive a Tank. There is a second mission where you need to fly, flying is done by mouse and keyboard but the mouse can be used for some of the flying. Both are fun missions but must be completed. The rest of the game driving is optional.

There is Closed Captioning but it is only limited to cut scenes and some mission details. The rest of the game you must rely on enemy chatter and sounds of enemies moving around. The game could be played by the deaf but if you are, you will really need to pay attention to your surroundings.

For those that are color blind, there are really only a couple minor issues. One is when obtaining an enemy in your reticule it will turn red but you will not have a hard time distinguishing enemies from allies. Second is using the binoculars, when looking through them most of the color turns green like night vision. Although, there is some black around targets and other objects. To be honest, the game can be played without the binoculars.

Despite some of the accessibility flaws in Crysis, it is still one of the greatest games of all time. This is an FPS on steroids, keeping you on your toes with some surprising twists and turns in both the plot and gameplay. Adding to all the fun is the game engine, it alone adds many key elements to the game making the scenery and dense jungle areas beautiful and realistic. This also includes the feel to the weapons and overall physics.

There is a possible work around on some of the accessibility, making it playable to most disabilities. Like they say, “If there is a will, there is a way” and as always, we recommend trying the demo before buying.

If you have played any Batman games in the past then you know that these games have a long history of disappointing fans. It looks as though the disappointment has finally ended with Batman: Arkham Asylum from Rocksteady Studios. I suggest that you throw out any bad notions that you may have about superhero games where the Dark Knight is concerned.

At first glance you can see that this game was a labor of love and time was spent to get it as close to perfection as possible in just about every aspect.

The writing is superb; the game opens with Batman racing towards Gotham’s Arkham Asylum, home for the criminally insane, with his prisoner, The Joker. The super villain called “Joker” broke out of prison a few weeks before the story begins but Batman was able to apprehend him as usual.

After getting the Joker back into Arkham, it seems as though he has set a trap. He is able to break free with the help of Harley Quinn, his twisted love interest. The evil two-some take control of the prison and set all of the inmates free.

Ok, that does sound like your typical Batman story but the game has a more adult theme. The story takes you on a fun and interesting ride with some dark and morbid twists and turns. Adding to the great storyline is excellent voiceover work done by some of the same people from Batman: The Animated Series, including Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman. By using the voice actors from the hit cartoon series, the game manages to hold certain continuity for those fans that are religious followers of the Batman saga.
Gameplay
As for the gameplay, all I can say is that it is downright entertaining.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a third-person action game where the player assumes the role of the Dark Knight himself. You will feel a connection while playing as Batman and the action is so intense that sometimes you feel like you are actually are the superhero.

Being able to use all of his gadgets from the long-running series is definitely a one of the top reasons to play this game. Items such as the “Batarang,” grappling hook, explosive gel, zip-line and other memorable Batman gadgets, add to the immersion of the game in a delightful way. Throughout the game, you gain XP during combat, which can be used to purchase power-ups for your suit and gadgets that make them even cooler. In addition, you will be able to get special moves that make the screen when unique combat better and better.

Hand to hand combat is one of the best parts of the game and you may find it the easiest. All you have to do is point Batman towards an enemy with the mouse or joypad then press a button to attack. You are then able to do counter attacks to help block bad guys from hitting you. If you are surrounded by enemies, you can attack more than one at once. You are able to punch, kick, grab, dropkick and more.
Putting these moves together to create combos grants increased XP that enables you to perform special attacks, which are the some of the eye candy in the game. Another enjoyable move is the silent attacks; when you are crouching and sneaking up behind an enemy Batman chokes them out for a takedown. The other is where you can drop down from a gargoyle, grab an enemy, pull them up, loop a rope around their neck, let them go and watch them hang, all of which is done with one move.

Although, I wouldn’t hang around there for too long because once you do this other enemies are alerted to the area by collars that go off when they are dying, so just swing away to another gargoyle to avoid detection and then go after another victim.

Another fun attack is a gliding kick, where you fly down and end with a kick, which is great for making an enemy with a gun, drop their weapon. There are so many attack types to choose from and so many ways to plan your attacks, it really adds to the replayability of the game.

Accessibility

This is the part of the review that I really do not want to write but… it must be done. It is such a great game with so much potential but the accessibility issues in this game may keep many disabled gamers locked in the Asylum.

The main issue is with the controls, on the PC side there are too many keyboard commands, which makes it difficult to do almost anything for most disabled gamers with motor impairments and one-handed gamers.

It personally took me at least thirty minutes to remap the controls to where I felt comfortable; this was odd for me because the majority of the time it only takes approximately five minutes for the first time setup. I suggest that you try out the demo before you decide to buy the game just to see what you can and cannot do. One promising thing to remember is that I play with a mouth-controlled mouse, I type with two fingers using Morse code and I found a way to play.

On the console side, the controls can be somewhat clumsy and of course, they cannot be remapped. There are quite a few buttons combinations and both analog sticks must be used. Meaning once again, one-handed gamers in particular are going to have extreme difficulty.

For our deaf gamer friends, the closed captioning is good as hardly any dialogue is without close captioning or text input. In addition, for those that are color-blind I really found one major problem. When you are in detective mode and there is an enemy with a weapon he will be red, which makes it difficult to distinguish from those that do not have weapons. You may be able to find a workaround if you can slightly distinguish red tones. However, this is not a game stopping issue but it will make the game more difficult for you.

Batman leaves out most accessibility

Batman: Arkham Asylum will most likely be a contender for game of the year but not for the AbleGamers game of the year. The game has it all and surprisingly has a great deal of replay value; you can approach missions any way you please with no limitations.

Just as the movies have improved rapidly so has the Batman videogame franchise. Although, it does fall short in the most important area for our readers and that is accessibility. It would be great to give the game very high marks in all categories but that would only be hurting you. I say give it a try but if you don’t think that you can even play it because of the poor accessibility option then ultimately I suggest staying away from this title.