This game is old, and only available when combined with Warhead so it doesn't matter that much, and there has already been a release of a completely cash grab remaster.
I did buy this game when it came out (and somehow I still have it on the DVD release), but when it came out I didn't like it. I may not have had a very good mouse. What I remember is there are too many options and at the time this was actually not normal. Now-days there are a lot of games with a lot options, and you use a controller for TPS games and it just feels right. But when this game came out it still didn't make sense to me to have so many options in a FPS. But playing this now the control mechanics make complete sense, and I was able to map all the things I needed to (especially the suit powers) to my mouse so it made sense to my dumb brain. So playing it now this was not even a concern, and while I remember that time still, it feels distant and I no longer understand why I skipped this game. It must be because of the mouse I had at the time- I really don't know why I would. But I really didn't like the way this game played at the time. It didn't make sense to me.
First I suppose you would want to know "Does this game still hold up in 2024?"
That depends on what you mean by that. I do not care, after a certain point (1080p, 4k, whatever to me) about resolution. I assume the cash grab remaster has native 4k plus resolutions and people who care can pay more to have that with native resolution sized text or whatever. To me, at 1080p, this original release of the game still looks phenomenal. Obviously the animations are not as smooth as something that gets made now, but graphically the textures look incredible for a game that came out almost 20 years ago. There are multiple incredible looking panoramas in this game (including shots of distant mountains crumbling while you are playing) that still look incredible to see while you play.
So, yes, graphically, to me, despite dated animations the graphics still look fantastic.
Game play. Well, if you play games made by Bungie you mayu not tell the difference. If you play better FPS (like what? Doom Eternal maybe, which isn't a great game mechanically, 2016 is ok but thats almost 10 years old and the better FPS now are all indie games) than mechanically this game is uneven. At the beginning of the game, when you are fighting the North Koreans, the game play is fun. Because you have options on how to deal with scenarios given the power of your suit and it makes the game play varied and exciting.
However, the last several hours the game takes a complete u-turn (which the game sets up intending to do from the beginning) and becomes an Alien invasion story. This is fine, but once it does this, mechanically, the game you were playing is no longer fun. You no longer have options and a majority of it is forced emplacement encounters (like a fixed mounted gun position, a tank, a plane, etc) which completely removes all your suit powers, and you fight aliens of which for the most part you have little to no options to fight beyond moving quickly and killing them as quickly as possible before they one hit kill you because they shoot right through your advanced armor making your suit powers pointless at the end of the game. Mostly (they give you some broken doors too punch open).
I also think it is notable that every single boss fight in this game, of which there are more than there should be, are all terrible (there's a human boss that apparently can take shots to the face a few thousand times- completely nonsensically- as you run around in a circle around some boxes).
So, for the first several hours the game is a ton of fun. Because it follows logic, gives you powers, and lets you experiment with them. The back half of the game takes all they gave you away, and says what if none of that was fun to use anymore and really was no longer helpful? You want that? You find that challenging?
It's ultimately really similar to Farcry (the original game, not the Ubisoft version the game is now). This game has a lot of great ideas, but it becomes disappointed in itself for making you too powerful so it decides you cant enjoy the game the same way anymore and starts forcing scenarios on you until the game is over.
So, yes the game is still fun (I'd bet the problems I have with it in late game were the same when the game came out, too) and it looks great. When you can find these on sale I do recommend buying it from the Crysis Maximum Edition bundle (especially since food now costs so much whats the point of paying for over priced remasters of video games that aren't necessary when the original game still looks phenomenal and plays exactly the same as it did almost 20 years ago). But be aware, if you're not already, Crytek never was very good at developing a solid experience all the way through any of their games because they always focused on looks before experience so the difficulty curve is absurd and makes all the mechanics they created pointless later in the game. Still, an experience I'm glad I finally had. There really is some incredible visuals in this game even still.
