The studio behind the AAA Crysis series and award winning game development software CryEngine, is to launch a social media business with their new site GFACE.

Users of the site will be able to play and share games on the cloud for free, crytek says that GFACE will be browser based and will enable gamers to stream games in a similar fashion to cloud gaming service OnLive. Crytek is also working on launching there first free-to-play game called Warface, which is a FPS set in the near future and is shaping up very nicely already. I would imagine the two will be linked in one form or another.

The site is already accepting applications for it’s closed beta at the GFACE website, although no release date has been confirmed yet. I’ve put my name down already for the beta, if I am accepted and terms and conditions allow it, you can expect a full review of the service here on eteknix.com

Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli: ”GFACE enables its users to discover and experience entertainment together in real time, ‘Play. Together. Live’ encompasses our mission to re-imagine the way we play, the way we interact with each other – live in an entirely new way. We want everybody to play everywhere for free.”

I’m a big fan, but not a big user of the OnLive service, it’s an interesting alternative, but not a perfect one, although it will be interesting to see what Crytek can do with similar technology.

What are your thoughts on cloud gaming?

Source: GFACE

Crytek’s Crysis game has long been renouned as one of the hardest games to run. The CryEngine2 which it used wasn’t the most console friendly and even high end computers struggled too. Now they have decided to re-release Crysis on console using the latest CryEngine 3 which Crysis 2 uses. The results is that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will both now be able to run the game with improved visual details and performance. It features the new lighting, effects and nano-suit controls as well as Stereoscopic 3D support.

Crytek was pushed towards accommodating the console market after rampant piracy was eating into the profits of the PC branch of Crysis but even so it has worked well for the PC market too since Crysis 2 is much more hardware friendly. The CEO had this to say about the new release:

“We are extremely proud of what we were able to accomplish with Crysis, We set out to create a next generation FPS and delivered a PC experience that became a benchmark for quality — and still is for many gamers even four years later. By bringing the single player campaign to console, we believe we are again setting a new standard for quality in downloadable gaming.”

Crytek’s remastered Crysis game will arrive on October 21 for 1600 Microsoft Points on XBLA, or $20 on PSN.

Source

When Crytek announced Crysis 2 back in June 2009 at E3, it’s needless to say there was quite a large reaction, whether it was a good reaction, or one of a sceptic – it was pretty large.

It had quite a challenge to live up to, as Crysis was regarded as one of the best PC games to ever be released, and still is regarded as one of the best looking games to buy for the PC. Not to mention it’s benchmark appeal, even to this day people ask “How well does it run Crysis” when reviewing or buying new hardware.

Well, Crysis 2 I have to admit is one graphically stunning and frame eating monster when running around the highly detailed city of New York. The CryEngine 3 really did a good job whether it was on the PC, 360 or PS3. While the Direct X 9/10 graphics were superb, two patches were later released to the public enabling you to use Direct X 11, and a High Res Texture package. Once installed these packages make everything sharper, even more stunning and that much more frame hungry.

It was only recently that I actually tried these additional packages and what a difference they make, if you’re one for masses of eye candy and have a capable machine to utilise them to their full potential, it would be a good idea to install the packages before starting the game for the first time, these can be downloaded via a link in the options menu.

One final thing to note in the graphics options is that Crysis 2 has a 3D feature available, which surprisingly doesn’t need a massively impressive machine to use. However, you do of course need the ability to run 3D and have a 3D Ready Monitor. Without these two pieces of hardware it’s not even worth looking at unless you’re planning an upgrade anyway.

While the 3D Primarily focuses on the look of your weapons and HUD (Heads up Display), there is a subtle difference in the background renderings giving you that extra bit of eye candy to marvel at.

A rather bold statement was made by Crytek Boss Cevat Yerli when he stated that Crysis 2 had the most sophisticated AI in video game history. Whether true or not, the AI is staggeringly good at predictions and tracking you down when on the move. It’s certainly one of the better AI’s to play against in any game to date, and certainly pushes you to your limits when playing in the higher difficulties.

Upon it’s release, Crysis 2 was available in three different forms. The standard “Just give me the game!” edition, The Limited edition – which was basically the same as the standard edition, but an added few multiplayer perks, weapon skins and platinum plated dog tags for the same price as the standard edition. The ‘Nano’ edition which was only available through pre-order included some fancy tidbits. Including an 11″ Figure of Alcatraz posed upon a NYC Taxi, an art book, a Nanosuit styled back pack capable of holding a 17″ Laptop and finally the game itself came in a Steelbook casing.

Since it’s initial release, Crysis 2 is no longer available for purchase via the Steam online store. Instead, one has to head over to EA’s own ‘Origin’ store to buy and download it. Or you could quite simply walk down to your local gaming store and grab a copy off the shelf.

The DirectX 11 upgrade patch allows users to run the game in DX 11 mode as well as adding in some graphical improvements and performance optimizations for both DX11 and DX9 graphics cards.

Great news for Crysis 2 players using DX9 graphics cards is that they also receive a performance boost and graphics improvement.

When using the new “Ultra” spec, DX9 platforms will benefit from real-time local reflections and contact shadows.

Users with DX11 cards will be able to enjoy multiple graphics improvements as well as support for hardware tessellation.

The owners of DX11 platforms, in addition, will be able to enjoy hardware tessellation (requires the installation of the “DX11 Ultra Upgrade”), parallax occlusion mapping and several improvements for shadows, water, particles, depth of field and motion blur.

Well done EA for releasing this much anticipated patch (albeit much later than expected).

The updates don’t just stop at the DirectX 11 upgrade though. Crysis 2 gamers will also be able to take advantage of a new high resolution texture pack which will greatly improve the general aesthetic quality of the game from shadows to objects and much more. This patch is resource hungry though! You will need a graphics card with at least 768MB of VRAM and 64-bit Windows Vista or 7.

You can download the patches via these links (It is best to install the V1.9 patch first which will automatically install when you launch the game):

• Crysis 2 DirectX 11 Patch
• Crysis 2 High Resolution Texture Pack