52 MAXIMUMPC | MAR 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
Long development times and delayed release dates
are something gamers have grown accustomed to
with many of today’s high-profi le games. And most
of the time, an extra six months or a year of waiting
is a small price to pay to ensure that Triple-A titles
are polished and tested for bugs. With Crysis, the
problem isn’t that the game was released before it
was ready—the conundrum is that Crytek released
a game before our PCs were ready. Screenshots of
Crysis running at max settings taunt us like a photo
of Albert Pujols—both are emasculating reminders
of our inadequacy. Sure, we could enjoy Crysis’s
nerve-racking stealth gameplay without the next-gen
graphics, but that’s a disservice akin to driving a
Rolls-Royce without leather seats. We’d rather wait a
year until our systems are worthy enough to play the
game in all its glory. http://www.ea.com/crysis/, ESRB: MTHE MOST ANTICIPATED GAME OF 2009Crysis
Take away all of the port prob-
lems in this game—crazy system
requirements, unoriginal content,
lack of crossover leaderboards
between the PC and Xbox 360
versions—and what do you get? A
game that’s just not fun.
It’s the same ol’ button-mashing
rhythm game reskinned with a snaz-
zier interface. Sure, you get new
songs, but the diffi culties have been
cranked to fi nger-bleeding levels.
And it’s not even a gradual ramp up;
if you make it past the game’s crip-
pling battle modes, the fi nal chunk
of fi ve songs will rain blood on your
fun parade.
http://www.guitarhero.com, ESRB: TGuitar Hero III:
Legends of Rock
WE’D HAVE BEEN PISSED
ABOUT THE CRAP PORT
IF THE GAME DIDN’T
SUCK SO MUCHWHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?In many ways, Enemy
Territory: Quake Wars is a
drastic departure from the
deathmatch origins of the
classic id Software franchise.
But even with its startling
team- and objective-based
design, we are comforted by
the familiar earth tones that
saturate almost all the game’s
maps. The terra palette is
deeper now for sure—bronze,
sienna, and hazel now blanket
the tawny battlefi eld—but
when the dust settles, brownEnemy Territory:
Quake Wars
We’ve come to love the occasional port from the
console world—after all, Gears of War turned
out OK. But releasing Halo 2 for the PC almost
three years after the Xbox version shipped is silly. It’s bad
enough that after all that time the game was essentially the same
as the original Xbox edition, but Bungie added insult to injury by tying this
3-year-old, last-gen console port to Vista. Instead of ratcheting up the Halo
experience for an audience that may not have been previously exposed
to it, and potentially selling some more consoles and copies of Halo 3,
the publisher added a few achievements and required a wonky OS.
http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo2/, ESRB: MHalo 2 for Vista
FAILis brown. We wouldn’t have it any other
way. http://www.enemyterritory.com, ESRB: TGAMING AWARDS 2007