Looking forward to that, hope they stay true to the Thief gameplay.
It must have been rough for them when the Dishonored marketing started up, and then when it came out, definitely seems like they were going in a similar direction in some aspects of design etc. 

When is always online crap going to die? :\ 

i.e; never! :D 

Maybe when they realize everyone pirates the game just so they don't have to deal with the stupid DRM. 

ha. if anything, that'll just make them squeeze tighter until they've alienated everyone. 

Well, there's your awnser :P Unfortunately there will always an influx of younger customers who don't know any better. It's kind of depressing really... soon it'll all be old hags complaining about this kind of stuff while the younger generation unknowingly embraces it. Digital distribution is only accelerating the process. 

When companies realise that in this day and age, internet use is a rarity and very few people are connected to it, let alone with permanent cable/broadband/DSL. 

Yup that's "2", I'm behind the times.

Pros:
+ Graphics are good.
+ Cityscape well done, if empty.
+ Gameplay works well as usual in CryX series.
+ Fog / hazy effects particularly good, and enhance atmosphere.

Cons:
- Extremely consolised as follows:
- Linear levels boring.
- Too few options to explore around
- City setting is less interesting than island stuff, less involvment too.
- Suit voice is very annoying.
- Tactical options on HUD are silly handing-it-on-a-plate nonsense.
- Too broken up with cutscenes, intermissions, transmissions, etc.
- Lots of things to pick up and fuck all you can do with them.
- Otherwise limited and haphazard interactions i.e. can only shoot half the lights, can't shoot infected, etc etc.

Hmmm. 

in Crysis 1? 

Crysis 2 was like being trapped in a Michael Bay film. Let's never do that again! 

The suit specialization mechanic is like the worst gameplay idea ever. I don't get why they build an entire game around such a dull gimmick. 

because you could do whatever you wanted in whichever mode you preferred. 

Definitely a great gameplay mechanic. Even if it becomes a bit easy to rely on cloak.

The suit works almost as well in Crysis2. Power (Speed/Jump) is used automatically by default, Cloak and Armour are toggleable. Armour is a nice effect. Heat-vision also uses suit energy. Doesn't feel quite a slick switching between the 3 main ones but it's still good. 

Crysis 2+3 were streamlined for consoles. Easier controls (controller), combined suit powers, smaller levels (memory footprint), less AI (slower processor)

The Metacritic ratings for 2 and 3 are lower, but I think that is partly to do with franchise fatigue. Crytek are quoted as saying they think 3 is their best version. Personally I preferred the raw level design of the first game. One thing that is always consistent with Crysis is that it looks really beautiful. 

I enjoyed Crysis 2 quite a bit, a solid shooter and had some nice flow during the firefights. And the aliens weren't frustrating to fight against unlike the first Crysis. Sure it's not nearly as open ended as once was, but they still offered a number of choices in the large arenas. Until you find out the cloak makes things way too easy of course! Crysis 2 felt less like a corridor shooter than other titles and the aliens made combat refreshing, since I'm not just shooting humans 99% of the game.

Then again, I don't expect much from the FPS genre anymore these days. 

*other titles outside Crysis 

I really enjoyed 2 & 3.

If you go in expecting more Crysis 1 (Which of course is reasonable!) then it's probably disappointing. But as a stand alone game I think it is just fine.

Of course there is stuff in there I dislike (most of which Shambler covered) but the moment to moment shooter combat and the way the levels are laid out are quite excellent. There is always a different approach you can try and it's very simple to completely change up your play style in the middle of a firefight.

I personally never really understood all the remarks about the "freedom" the first game allowed you. Sure you could come at a base from any direction, but if you decided to pick a direction and start walking, you very quickly find yourself in an un-authored wilderness with absolutely nothing to do. I agree that some (if not most) areas in C2 funnel you into them from a specific direction at the start but you always have the option to cloak and essentially pick where you want to engage.

I also truly prefer the implementation of the suit in C2, it's effortless to get into the mode that you need and making strength/speed modes automatic is a great idea. While I do miss the super-speed from C1 I think everything else was handled much better. 

The Seth 'soldiers' are really cool, IMO they look smarter and scarier than the robotic enemies from Crysis (which looked like the sentinels from the Matrix). And Crysis isn't really less linear than Crysis 2. 

No offense but you need to think more before offering opinions.

Crysis is a LOT less linear than C2, that's a simple fact. C1 had more open levels with more directions you could play through them and approach targets and objectives. Whether that's a problem or not is a different matter but that's how it is.

More:

+ Aliens are pretty cool and a good challenge.

- Chopping between different locations with no sense of continuity really sucks. 

crysis "1" was a bit step down from far cry already. 

Have to agree with mega, wish they'dd just improved upon Far Cry -- which is also rather so-so at times.

Crysis universe feels really bland to me. Far Cry was outright silly but at least it was somewhat original in it's weird way... etc etc, blah ...

Maybe if you could use a suit power for more than 2 seconds it could be fun. Having to crouch behind a tree waiting for your battery to reload every 10 seconds gets boring fast. It's a bit like having to switch to the flashlight in Doom3 because you can't see shit 50% of the time.

Any more works of art to bash? :P 

Brilliant games. Rare combinations of looking damn cool and getting the gameplay to work and flow smoothly. Suit energy running low is all part of it. 

is that it kind of feels like "oh, here, we consolified the game, but you can choose what we consolify!".

Or maybe i'm just really disgusted by the way modern games often make you ridiculously powerful in a shitty, super hero way. I think that's something that's commonly misunderstood: I don't want to be the hero of the game, i want that my decisions/actions make me the hero.

Just let my gameplay actions speak for themselves. In the same way a hardcore quake player rips you apart when you join the server.

And the suit gives you super hero status, for free, for a limited time. Everything i do with it is just because of the free super power. that just feels bad, and nothing like hitting triple air rockets (in q3, because rockets are fucking slow there).

And don't do it in the story, please. I can't stand that shit. That was probably the best thing about max payne, he wasn't the hero in the story. He just did ridiculous things during the gameplay. Of course they fucked it all up because they portrayed him in such a 16-year-old "wow that's a cool guy!" way, but yeah. 

WTF are you talking about?!?! Smables?!?!!

Non-Linear:
GTA
T.E.S.
Fallout
Far Cry 2 and 3
Dead Island
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Linear:
Crysis/Warhead
Crysis 2
Crysis 3
Far Cry (1)

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but they are linear as fuck. Some of the areas are pretty big, but the game is certainly linear. You have to complete the objectives in a linear order, you cannot go back to areas you have already been to once you have left an area.

I mean Crysis is no less linear than CoD games for example. 

I mean Crysis is no less linear than CoD games for example.

Balderdash. "Linearity" is not a binary property. You have to talk about the granularity-of-the-linearity'ity, and I think everyone can agree that in terms of mission/story-progressionity, Crysis is linear in the sense that CoD is linear, but when you look at lower levels of granular titty - e.g. consider a typical combat setpiece in either of those games - it's obvious that Crysis gives you more options, more space to navigate, just more ways of slicing that particular sausage than CoD does.