Oct 5, 2007

There's no denying it. Crysis look amazing. Everything we've seen at conventions, demonstrations, and press events oozes awesomeness. Just look through the screenshots in the Images tab above and tell us Crysis hasn't got the best looking everything you've ever seen. Go on. We dare you.

Because of its unmatched realism, it's no wonder that Crysis is one of the most highly anticipated games scheduled to release this year on the PC. But whenever we've seen Crysis, it's always been in an extremely controlled environment running on the most badass hardware with the best monitors and speakers money can buy.

But most of us don't have the latest quad core processor with a DX10 video card and a ton of RAM, which begs the question, "How will Crysis look on the average Joe's rig?" Seeing as how the game's graphics have been the biggest attention grabber for all the hype over Crytek's latest shooter, we think it's a fair question.

But our attempts to capture video of the game with some of the detail levels and effects turned down were met with concerned brows at a recent media event. "No. That won't be possible," said a public relations representative for publisher, EA. After all, their job is to make sure we're seeing (and by extension that you're seeing) the game looking as good as it can be.

Luckily, after pressing further, we were able to get some indication of what Crysis might look like if you're planning to play it on anything less than the latest and greatest hardware. We talked to Crytek's Sten Hübler, the main man in charge of Crysis' single player mode, and got some surprisingly candid answers.

According to Hübler, Crytek's goal was to have Crysis on its lowest settings look as good as Far Cry with everything maxed out. This is an approximation and we have to stress that this is just a general estimate of how they'd like to see the game look on a less-than-stellar gaming rig.

Optimization to make games run as fast as possible on the widest range of hardware is often one of the last things developers work on, so there's no official information about minimum and recommended system requirements for the final retail version of the game. But for now, this is the best indication we have of what Crysis will look like on the average Joe's rig. Check out our videos below and decide for yourself.

Below: See Crysis in its full glory. This is what you can expect if you've got a rig that's beefy enough to meet the recommended requirements

Below: See Far Cry with all the video settings turned up. It's a rough estimate of how Crysis might look on an average rig that meets the game's minimum requirements

Sten Hübler was also kind enough to share his thoughts on - not only Crysis - but other first-person shooters he's excited about. Read on to find out what Hübler thinks about all the great FPS' releasing this year, and what it means for developers and players.