Crysis Warhead - first look

To prove they’re not just blowing smoke up the ass of a visiting journalist, the Crytek team invites me to play some of the game’s alpha build. Even at this early stage, it seems shockingly feature-complete - although Crytek notes that the build I’m playing reuses assets from the original game that will eventually be replaced, and the new particle effects system has yet to be implemented.

I start out playing a quickie tutorial level called “Ambush” that, as in the first game, introduces you to movement, combat, and the use of your nanosuit’s abilities. But, unlike Crysis’ tutorial, you’re not alone - warfare surrounds you on all sides as the U.S. forces engage the North Koreans, who are battling over the rights to the mysterious alien spacecraft found off the coast of China. You see the icy after-effects of the aliens as you come across soldiers frozen mid-scream. Your commander barks out objectives such as investigating the source of an EMP pulse, as you maneuver through the battlefield, helping out troops along the way until you eventually hear a bit of information you can’t ignore.

In the second level, called “Cargo,” you discover that an old buddy, a jet pilot, has been shot down. Ignoring orders, you hightail it to the crash site to rescue him and grab his plane’s black box. Escorting him to the extraction site feels more like a co-op level than protection; your buddy is equally adept at combat. In fact, when we reached the site of VTOL extraction, I felt a little sad to see him go. While playing, I didn’t feel a strong urge to use my nanosuit’s special abilities, but Crytek plans to encourage their use in small ways, such as cut-scenes that show Psycho cloak to sneak up in front of an enemy, uncloak to startle him, and then punch him with super-strength. The team confirms that Psycho’s abilities will be the same as Nomad’s, but don’t deny that there could be a “surprise” later in the game.

Next, I try out a driving level in which I’m piloting an armored ASR through enemy territory as North Koreans give chase. But you don’t have to drive - as I quickly find out when I overturn my vehicle - and if you do, you’ll miss all the weapon caches hidden along the road and in enemy encampments. One of the secondary objectives is to find one such weapon cache, which contains a new weapon, the grenade launcher, an explosive piece of kit particularly effective against vehicles and groups of soldiers.

To give you as much choice as possible, tons of discarded vehicles litter the road. You can jump into another ASR, a jeep, a large truck, or anything else you find along the way, or you can creep along on foot, sniping enemies from behind trees and other cover. Finally, at a large North Korean checkpoint, I unleashed my full firepower - grenades, rifles, even a rocket launcher - at the base. And yes, there are just as many provocatively placed red explosive barrels as there were in the first Crysis. Maybe more.