"This is what it must have looked like," I thought to myself as I stood in a virtual New York street. I watched a building get hit by a crashing alien craft before it crumbled to the ground. There are multiple scenes of such destruction in Crysis 2, and it's odd to see these specifically evocative images in a video game. Crysis 2 may not directly reference the terrorist attacks of September 11, but Crytek is certainly aware of the ghosts that lurk in the American consciousness.

The Xbox 360 is over five years old, and the PlayStation 3 is also getting long in the tooth. That being said, both Killzone 3 and now Crysis 2 show us how much life remains in the systems. I didn't wish for more power while playing. Instead, I was impressed at how many visually impressive things I saw. When this game wants to rock you with visual splendor, even during disturbing scenes of violence, it doesn't pull any punches. In fact, the first achievement you gain in the 360 version asks "Can it run Crysis?" The answer is yes.

Crysis 2 xbox*, ps3, pc Release Date: now

now MSRP: $59.99 Official site * = platform reviewed

Born of a broken man

New York is being softened up by a plague, and alien invaders have descended upon the city to take control of the stunned and demoralized populace. You begin the game as a soldier sent into the city to secure a single man, and soon circumstances spiral out of your control and you become something much more.

The nanosuit returns from the first game, and you'll be able to jump long distances, cloak up and sneak up on enemies, and kick cars across the street to use as cover. As the game progresses and you kill alien adversaries, you're able to loot their bodies for nano-swarms that you use as currency to upgrade your suit's capabilities to aid in combat. The game is not set up to be a superhero title, but it can feel like one in places.

Turn on your active visor and the gravelly voiced nanosuit can point out all the cool things you could be doing. On the lower difficulties, you can easily ignore these ideas and just run and gun, but if you want to play with smarter enemies, you'll need to take a step back, plan your moves, and use every advantage the suit gives you. Each battle takes place in large, sandbox-style settings with multiple ways to attack and fall back if you're overwhelmed, but by the time you realize you're in over your head, it's probably way too late. Tagging targets with your visor so you can track them in your normal view, cloaking while you move from fight to fight, and making sure you have enough energy to use your temporary armor-boost ability are all key.

You can also make things even fancier if you'd like. You can kick a car into the street to create cover, or run and slide underneath trucks to evade attacking enemies. For extra fun, slap a piece of C4 on an object you can throw, and lob it at enemies before it detonates. You can Rambo your way through the game to victory, but it's much more fun to get creative with your attacks. The game throws a number of fun, satisfying weapons at you, and as you pick them up, you'll unlock things like extended magazines and different scopes to tweak your weaponry to your personal taste.

One thing I noticed during the standard difficulty is that the armor ability is almost overpowered. It barely drains energy, and with it turned on you can soak up many bullets before your health begins to go down. Once you level up the cloaking function, it becomes great fun to skulk around the environments, sneaking around human enemies before putting a knife in them, or holding a shotgun to the head of one of your alien adversaries. If you're feeling pinned down, simply cloak and walk away.

The game has its problems

I ran into some glitches, such as a section where my gun became invisible, and a few places where characters seemed to warp around the screen while being shot. There were also a few clipping issues that were problematic. The nanosuit also has a voice, and it takes a significant amount of fun away from the game when it continually tells you what's going on. Yes, I know cloaking is activated, because I can't see my hands anymore. You don't need to croak at me whenever I do something.

The game feels scripted in places, even though the major battles take place in open spaces where you can choose how to attack, and things may play differently each time you play. The problem is that the game keeps telling you how to play it, instructing you when to turn on your nano-vision in dark areas, and hinting that there is a large battle up ahead by prompting you to turn on your armor. When the development team seems to tailor certain sections around specific powers, it takes away from the sense of freedom and joy that comes from using all the tools at your disposal. It can feel heavy-handed when the game places you in a circumstance, only to immediately tell you how to get out of it.

I get that big enemies need big weapons to take down, and there are some bad guys that are large and imposing, but I'm so tired of there always being rocket launchers just kind of scattered around the areas where these encounters take place. Yes, we get it, when we see a big gun, we can expect to see a big enemy. I wish games didn't telegraph every big scene like this. One of our forum-goers told me he wanted to create a game where players were given a powerful weapon before a stealth section, and the level could be called "Enough Rope." I think someone needs to give that man money to make a game.

The last scene seemed like it was meant to be a large, pitched battle, but the game always gives you options. Instead of fighting my way through the admittedly impressive final set piece, I simply used my cloaking ability and strolled across the battlefield, pausing in out-of-the-way places to sit and recharge my energy. I think I fired under a dozen rounds in the finale, and that's just fine by me.

Multiplayer

I'm hoping you were able to check out one of the demos available for the multiplayer portion of the game, because I wasn't able to find players to start a match with my prerelease copy of the game. We were offered the chance to play with the developers, but that isn't the best way to see how the game plays against other, "real" players.

Hopefully, after the 3DS review is finished I'll have time to go back and play the multiplayer, so consider this primarily a single-player review.

We don't get to die

The game has some surprises for you, including how you become the caretaker of the nano-suit, and what that means in the long haul. I've never seen a game take so much joy in putting its hero through so much crap. You get thrown, slammed, broken, and used by everyone you meet. I kept waiting for the protagonist to tell one of the other characters to go to hell when asked to fight. No one seems to give a damn about you as an individual, they simply pick you up, dust you off, and then throw you into the next bloodbath. Imagine being Master Chief, without downtime or any chance to get used to your armor.

Pay attention to what happens to the main character throughout the game. In many ways this isn't his fight, and as you play, you're placed in terrible circumstances by powerful men, and you have very little say in any of it. You're the perfect soldier, packaged in technology, with no voice or agency. Violence is the only means of expressing yourself. "We don't get to die," someone tells you in the course of the game, and it sounds almost mournful. The final words of the game may seem like a non-sequitur at first—and they certainly set up the inevitable sequel—but once you place them within the context of the rest of the story it's almost nihilistic.

While Crysis 2 may seem like just another big-budget shooter at first, the game plays with a number of images and themes that are surprisingly affecting. It's a haunting game, filled with the dead and the dying, and placing the action in such a much-loved American city only to destroy it in scene after scene is a bold choice. After I finished the single-player campaign I continued to think about how the game played out, and that's rare in a genre that seems to be stuck on the "isn't America tops, what with all our guns?" message.

Through the course of the game you're broken, shot, cut, and attacked from all angles. Allegiances change like the weather. What stays constant is that no matter what horrible things happen to you, you'll keep fighting as long you're able. During one scene you have to hit a button to trigger the suit's defibrillator, putting you back into harm's way. I was tempted to simply not hit the button, and allow myself to die on the battlefield. The only thing I wanted for myself was peace.

Verdict: Buy