Crysis 2 A Virtually-Perfect FPS

Though I’ve played a few stand-out titles, first-person shooters don’t rank highly among my most preferred games. That prejudice alone handicaps most FPS titles (admittedly, not always fairly) and amplifies every grating minor irritation like dragging a rusty nail across a chalkboard next to a microphone plugged into a Marshall stack. That acknowledged prejudice toward what I often regard as a repetitive genre that’s ever reinventing the wheel actually amplifies my respect for what a complete, enjoyable game this really is.

Crysis 2 is developed by Crytek for Electronic Arts and powered by the debuting CryEngine 3. Over-the-top bastardization of a single prefix? Perhaps. But when your game looks and plays this smoothly with nary a hitch, you’ve more than backed up the bravado. An engine producing graphics, textures and shadows this crisp, detailed and flawless comes along rarely. Only one other engine truly belongs anywhere near this one in terms of visual presentation, and it’s another engine forever bearing the name of its legendary debut appearance: Unreal.

What sets EA's latest superb shooter head-and-shoulders above nearly every other I've played? Find out right here, right now.

From GamerXChange.net: "Unremarkable coda" or "effective bridge"?

What praise could I possibly heap upon Mass Effect 2 that wouldn’t be redundant at this point?

I’ve heard even critical gamers who consider the presentation too dialogue-heavy and the story too slow-developing and even “boring” concede it’s put together unquestionably well and an exceptional game overall – just not necessarily one they particularly enjoy.

Flip the coin, and the gamers who love BioWare’s opus revere it among gaming’s greatest total-package titles that hits every possible high note a single game can hit, from captivating visuals and practically flawless gameply, to its sweeping-epic story and virtually bottomless replay value. That goes doubly so for PC gamers, who have had far longer to foster and grow their love affair than the console crowd.

But even the greatest of all great things reach an end. Shenmue fans will tell you that. So it goes now that before Mass Effect 3 emerges and likely propels Commander Shepard’s saga full-circle, BioWare resolves the last chord in Mass Effect 2’s movement in this starry symphony with the final downloadable chapter before Mass Effect 3’s late-2011 release,Arrival.

And for all BioWare’s promotional focus on Arrival as a must-have finale to Mass Effect 2, it makes an enjoyable but unremarkable and anti-climactic coda.

Mass Effect 2's developers made precious few overall mistakes . . . . but Arrival continued one of them. Click right here to find out what went wrong, and for more from GamerXChange, my Home Away From The Diner