Spanner Reviews - Crysis Warhead

Different gamers will react differently to Crysis Warhead. Sounds obvious, but I’m not really talking about the differing opinions hardcore FPS fans will have to strategists, for instance. No, FPS players will each have to make up their own minds as to whether this off-shoot is superior to the original, or simply a remix that’s hard to justify.

One way or another, Warhead definitely isn’t a sequel. Not that it’s been promoted that way by Crytek, of course, but there’s not a great deal in here that’s any different to the first game in the series. What the developer has done, instead of creating a new episode in the chapter, is to revisit the original and address the issues gamers raised the first time around. And while this might initially sound more like an update that ought to be provided for free, playing through it is convincing enough to warrant paying a second time for the same game.

Crysis owners already know the premise, since it’s essentially the same in Warhead, but just in case you’re lucky enough to be visiting the franchise for the first time with this game, we’ll have a quick run through the game mechanics that caused such a fuss a year or so ago. Donning your Nano Suit, you descend into the rich jungles of North Korea to investigate a crashed alien spacecraft. This time around you’re playing the role of Michael “Psycho” Sykes – one of the original NPC members of Delta Force – as you fight your way past the North Korean Army (NKA) toward the crash site.