Crysis 2

[Destructor]

Agreed. Screw you EA. Guess I don't need any of your titles if you pull this kind of shit. Ah, Origin...you used to mean a lot to me as a kid. You used to create worlds. Now...

Origin: Download Our Shit Our Way.

[Chaz]

I don't love this either, but is it really much different than Valve games being exclusive to Steam or Stardock games being exclusive to Impulse? The only difference here is that EA used to offer their games on multiple services and is now pulling back to exclusivity, while Valve and Stardock locked theirs into their respective services from the get-go.

[heloder]

When Valve does it: It's The Wave Of The Future And If You're Not On Board Then Go Directly To Hell.

When EA does it: It's Not Fair And I'm Never Buying Another EA Product Again!

Hilarious.

[EngineNo9]

Well, to be fair, Valve also did it several years ago before the other services existed.  Now that there are many different online services, most of which EA had been already using, to now take games off those services is kind of dickish.  Also, Valve releases maybe one game of their own a year, EA has publishing control over a shitload more than that.

And if you recall, plenty of people (including myself) were very critical of Valve and Steam when it first launched.

[TiLT]

The difference between Valve and EA in this matter is that Steam is an "open" platform where anyone can release games. EA's platform isn't, which means that unless players for some bizarre reason only play EA games, they'll be forced to use multiple download services. Thanks, but no thanks.

[leo8877]

Odd, EA says Valve was the one who expelled Crysis 2

http://kotaku.com/5812264/ea-says-it-was-valve-who-expelled-crysis-2-from-steam

"Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service – many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis II from Steam. "

[CeeKay]

Looks like they changed their store page, because last night it said Origin Exclusive, which seemed odd since it was still on D2D and Gamersgate.

[EngineNo9]

Odd, EA says Valve was the one who expelled Crysis 2

http://kotaku.com/5812264/ea-says-it-was-valve-who-expelled-crysis-2-from-steam

"Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service – many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis II from Steam. "

I love how they say "an agreement with another download service" as if it isn't just EA's own service.  Clearly there wasn't a problem with the Steam agreement and other download services until the Origin.com thing came into play, so I still lay the blame at least partially on EA. 

[kronovan]

I also lay some of the blame at EA and I'll add that I remember a year not too long ago when Left 4 Dead was the only other big sellar for EA. I'm sure they only got a smaller portion of $ since they were just the retail channel publisher, but I still say SCREW YOU EA for being such a greedy company. It's no secret they wanted to snap up Valve at one point, and the fact they failed means they'll run some interference on them until the game industry collapses. On the other hand if this was entirely Valves doing, I say good for you for pulling out a few of the 800 lb EA gorilla's pubes.  

[Destructor]

The difference between Valve and EA in this matter is that Steam is an "open" platform where anyone can release games. EA's platform isn't, which means that unless players for some bizarre reason only play EA games, they'll be forced to use multiple download services. Thanks, but no thanks.

Exactly. Steam has tons of games you can buy from tons of publishers, as well as a horde of indie games, and many other things. The only thing it pretty much doesn't cover are really old things, which is what GoG is for.

Odd, EA says Valve was the one who expelled Crysis 2

http://kotaku.com/5812264/ea-says-it-was-valve-who-expelled-crysis-2-from-steam

"Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service – many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis II from Steam. "

I love how they say "an agreement with another download service" as if it isn't just EA's own service.  Clearly there wasn't a problem with the Steam agreement and other download services until the Origin.com thing came into play, so I still lay the blame at least partially on EA. 

Exactly. I don't trust EA in the slightest with this. And yes, for a short time it said that it was 'exclusive' to Origin, which we all know wasn't true with D2D and Impulse.

[Caine]

so it's a good thing i didn't have the pc to play this on and went with the 360 version then.

and ea vs steam.  nice. why does EA try to wipe out the good buzz they have going ala activision vs IW?  i fully intend to get bf3 and me3 but forcing a system like this on pc means i will just stick to the console versions.

[Sparhawk]

I also lay some of the blame at EA and I'll add that I remember a year not too long ago when Left 4 Dead was the only other big sellar for EA. I'm sure they only got a smaller portion of $ since they were just the retail channel publisher, but I still say SCREW YOU EA for being such a greedy company. It's no secret they wanted to snap up Valve at one point, and the fact they failed means they'll run some interference on them until the game industry collapses. On the other hand if this was entirely Valves doing, I say good for you for pulling out a few of the 800 lb EA gorilla's pubes.  

L4D was an EA game? Pretty sure Valve developed it.

[Chaz]

EA handles the distribution of the physical versions of Valve's games.

[Razgon]

The difference between Valve and EA in this matter is that Steam is an "open" platform where anyone can release games. EA's platform isn't, which means that unless players for some bizarre reason only play EA games, they'll be forced to use multiple download services. Thanks, but no thanks.

Not really, they have to be approved first and not everyone does so. And this is Valve doing it.

There is no reason why Origin can't be just as open, once they get up and running. They'd be silly not to, actually

[TiLT]

The difference between Valve and EA in this matter is that Steam is an "open" platform where anyone can release games. EA's platform isn't, which means that unless players for some bizarre reason only play EA games, they'll be forced to use multiple download services. Thanks, but no thanks.

Not really, they have to be approved first and not everyone does so. And this is Valve doing it.

Can you name any games that have been rejected from Steam? The only ones I've heard about were indie games that turned out to be too small for that market (or Steam would be drowned with crappy indie games).

[Victoria Raverna]

The difference between Valve and EA in this matter is that Steam is an "open" platform where anyone can release games. EA's platform isn't, which means that unless players for some bizarre reason only play EA games, they'll be forced to use multiple download services. Thanks, but no thanks.

I think most gamers here use multiple download services. We buy games mostly from Steam, but some also use Impulse and gog.com. Origin is not that bad since it is just a new version  EA Download Manager with built-in browser to EA Online Store that were renamed to Origin.

I started using EA Download Manager when I found out that IP address from Indonesia allowed me to buy from Singapore EA Store where pricing for new EA games are lower than US pricing.

I got the whole The Sims 3 plus all expansions from EA Store. At first the EA Download Manager didn't have much feature just like gog.com downloader but later EA added the ability to buy games directly and add the ability to download newer games directly to the install path almost like Steam but without the auto patching (which is probably not required since most EA games include patching from launcher).

[Razgon]

The difference between Valve and EA in this matter is that Steam is an "open" platform where anyone can release games. EA's platform isn't, which means that unless players for some bizarre reason only play EA games, they'll be forced to use multiple download services. Thanks, but no thanks.

Not really, they have to be approved first and not everyone does so. And this is Valve doing it.

Can you name any games that have been rejected from Steam? The only ones I've heard about were indie games that turned out to be too small for that market (or Steam would be drowned with crappy indie games).

That doesn't matter, but games like Steven Peelers from Soldak have been rejected, and my point was, its *not* an open platform. Its a business that has strong self determination in what it will carry. Just like Origin.

The only difference is, that Steam has been around for a long time, and now carries a lot of other games.

You might say that steam was in the same boat as WoW - They had an idea they carried out very well, and due to their starting position, they are now in a very strong market lead position. Such things never go on forever, but change due to market forces

[CeeKay]

I had to install Origin to get Alice, and one thing I like is that it has accepted all of the CD key's for EA games I've entered so far and added those games to the games library, no matter where I bought them, so now I have all my D2D purchased EA games on one list, and I can download them from EA if needed.  nothing game changing, it's just nice to be able to glance at the list and no which of their games I have that aren't on Steam.

[CeeKay]

DX11 patch and High Res textures are out along with the required 1.9 patch.  I grabbed them last night but haven't had a chance to really play with them.

[Ridah]

I bought this off Amazon during the sale this week, so far I'm enjoying the game but the shooting isn't quite as satisfying as the last few shooters I played, which is RAGE and BF3.

I applied the high-res and DX11 patches, the game looks gorgeous but ultimately I turned DX11 off because it was slowing the game down too much - from averaging 60fps to around 40fps.

[CeeKay]

I applied the high-res and DX11 patches, the game looks gorgeous but ultimately I turned DX11 off because it was slowing the game down too much - from averaging 60fps to around 40fps.

finally got back to this and I've been finding it smooth with all the bells & whistles turned up.  my only complaint is that it feels like I'm wasting too much ammunition on the aliens;  they're frontal weak spots are kind of finicky.

[CeeKay]

finished up tonight.  not a bad ride all the way through although I was kind of at a loss for what to do during the last encounter before you enter the orb at the end.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I was trying to be sneaky and didn't realize there wasn't a switch or anything, I just had to kill a few of the cloaked guys and then run like hell.

[Teggy]

Late the party on this one - the game looks amazing, and I think it runs better on my machine than Crysis 1 (although still has that annoying problem of severe FPS drop every time it saves a checkpoint).

Quick question - is it explained at all what the heck happened to Prophet between the end of Crysis and the start of Crysis 2 or do I need to read a comic or some other silliness?

[CeeKay]

Quick question - is it explained at all what the heck happened to Prophet between the end of Crysis and the start of Crysis 2 or do I need to read a comic or some other silliness?

IIRC it is kind of explained.

[metallicorphan]

I have Crysis 1 as a Digital Download(XBLA),i am gonna have to pick up Crysis 2 again(maybe as a DD so i don't get tempted to sell these damn games i want to play again) because i can't remember anything about it,i just remember Prophet looking like shit at the beginning

Spoiler for Hiden:

and maybe he died..or was we falsely lead to believe that?,i can't remember

I will have to pick it up before February because i have Crysis 3 pre-ordered


Also FWIW-i remember a lot of people didn't like it because it was not as open as Crysis 1,at the time i had not played Crysis 1,so i loved it

(MP was kinda pants though)

[Turtle]

What I know of Crysis 2's ending and story:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Prophet basically got too hooked into the suit, then got shot the hell up and infected/absorbed by the suit's structure. He had to pass off the suit onto a nearby dying marine, which is the intro to Crysis 2.

Unfortunately for that marine, his body was just too messed up to function all that well, so the nanosuit basically did to him what it was going to do to Prophet, merge and turn him into something else.

Thankfully, it ended up turning the marine, Alcatraz, into Prophet via prophet's imprinted personality on the nanosuit. It's assumed that Alcatraz is effectively dead, succumbing to his wounds and be subsumed by Prophet.

This is why Prophet is the main character of 3. Essentially they're all just meat soup hardwired directly into their suits now. It's also why Sykes no longer wears his nansuit in 3.

Overall, it's a lot of really bad storytelling and making characters that no one was attached to into main characters.

[Teggy]

Finally got around to finishing this.  It was...not really a very good game. First of all it was nothing at all like Crysis, just a pretty much linear shooter with relatively narrow passageways. Second of all there weren't any really interesting levels until about 75% in. Third of all, once I got the top tier stealth I could pretty much just walk through the levels without being bothered. Fourth of all the story was just silly.

Not sure why they made such a drastic turn to the formula. I have heard the third one is better?

[metallicorphan]

Finally got around to finishing this.  It was...not really a very good game. First of all it was nothing at all like Crysis, just a pretty much linear shooter with relatively narrow passageways. Second of all there weren't any really interesting levels until about 75% in. Third of all, once I got the top tier stealth I could pretty much just walk through the levels without being bothered. Fourth of all the story was just silly.

Not sure why they made such a drastic turn to the formula. I have heard the third one is better?

I quite enjoyed Crysis 2,however i played the second one before the first one(as the first one appeared on XBL a few month later),i enjoyed the first one as well

Online with number 2 was not very good,IMO

been meaning to play them both again before finally picking up the third one,which all i have heard is that it is very short(5-6hrs short)