Gamescom Diary: Day Three – Crysis 3

UPDATE: That’s right you lucky people, Podcast Number 3 is here!

Day three and the cracks are starting to show, this should be quite evident in today’s podcast. Team #eaukgc2012 canned another three interviews that will be with you all soon but the highlight of the day was our team multiplayer time with Crysis 3.

While we took part in several game types the newly announced Hunter mode was clearly the star. Let me briefly sum it up for you: at the start of the match two players are picked as the hunters and the rest are assigned to the Cell team. Hunters are kitted out with enhanced Nano Suits, a radar showing all players and a single weapon: the Nano Bow. The suit have unlimited sprint and cloak but limited armor and leaping energy. Needless to say you are made for hunting and that is the aim of the game. For the Cell the aim is survival. Cell are equipped with the weapon of your chosen class, carry no additional ammo and a single EMP grenade. Extra ammo can be collected but it’s the one EMP. As Hunters pick off Cell they then respawn as more hunters tipping the odds as the short matches progress.

Now there's a multi-kill just waiting to happen...
You are no doubt thinking that the hunters sound overpowered but it never felt that way. In fact I faired much better as the Cell in my games. The bow takes a long time to fully draw for a kill shot and any hunter up against multiple Cell can be easily taken down with a little teamwork. The EMP grenade is the real life saver as the blast will uncloak any nearby Hunters and disable their kit allowing for a quick escape or, if you’ve feeling tough, a kill. Hunters that are killed respawn so I found myself trying to avoid them as best I could.

The key to surviving as the Cell is listening. A nearby Hunter will trigger a constant audible warning that increases in volume as the Hunter or Hunters get closer. The combination of the short round timer and this audible alert makes the whole game feel very tense. While my Cell team initially stuck together it took nothing more than a close call encounter to cause me to ditch them and head off on my own; after all,  if I keep moving perhaps the Hunters will go kill them instead! In our final round we were down to three Cell when I abandoned the pack. I’d found a nice hiding spot at the top of some stairs but before I knew it the Hunter warning was pounding in my ears. I waited it out looking for their cloaked shimmer but eventually I snapped. I couldn’t take the noise so I threw my EMP at the ground and ran down the stairs. As I ran through the blast it revealed two Hunters, one each to either side of me on the stairs as I ran between them. I kept running but noticed one of my team mates following me as I sprinted up a ramp and across the bridges that connected the central towers of the map. A quick scan around and I located the other Cell trooper on my HUD just as he was killed. Just 20 seconds were left but at this point there would have been 10 Hunters looking for me and my unwelcome companion. I pressed on with my escape and ran right into a cloaked Hunter and with unusually quick thinking jumped blindly over the side of the bridge leaving the Hunter to kill my only remaining teammate as he no doubt ran up to assist me. I felt bad for a second, maybe less, but with seven seconds to go I landed safely from my potentially suicidal jump, right behind a Hunter. It would have been an easy kill if I hit my target but with six seconds left I decided to leave him be and ran into the ruins and hid, like a child, for the longest 5 seconds of my life, taking the round and first place in the match.


As I thought back over it my experience was remarkably like that of the trailer, except with less bravado than the final Cell member, and this was the reason I wasn’t killed by having a car thrown at me!
The tragedy in this tale is that the game isn’t out till March 2013, but when that time comes you’ll know where to find me, or not as the case may be!

 


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