If you're thinking about playing Crysis -- and if you play games on your PC, you absolutely should be -- know that most of what makes its sights worth seeing hinges on how much weight your PC's able to bench. Running Crysis on the lower detail settings with enervated physics or environmental FX isn't worth it, in my opinion, for the same reasons a videophile would balk at watching serious TV or film courtesy a low-res video aggregator like YouTube.
While you're contemplating whether to upgrade, how about some Crysis factoids? The following list comprises a brief slightly spoiler-ific (warning!) collection of ideas developer Crytek originally planned to include, but pulled somewhere along the way, presumably for design or programmatic reasons.
Piloting helicopters. You can control tanks, trucks, and boats, but helicopters were apparently traded out for VTOL aircraft. No complaints, of course, though the VTOL sequences turn out to be some of the least necessary (and most frustrating) in the game.
An asteroid crashes to earth. In the original, a "colossal asteroid crashed down to Earth" in 2019. In the final, the asteroid (or ship) appears to have already existed on the island for untold millennia.
The U.S. and North Koreans eventually work together. At one point the U.S. and North Koreans were supposed to unite to "save mankind," suggesting you'd be fighting alongside (and not just against) these guys. Not in the final, which simply dismisses the North Koreans altogether about three-quarters of the way through.
Freeze ray gameplay. Remember Duke Nukem 3D? Of course you do. Crytek did too, planning a freeze ray, i.e. "molecular arrestor" that would let you ice over anything, then shatter it with sufficient force. The final version? A glorified laser gun. Let's hope the sequel turns up something like the original idea, because...how cool would that be?
A singularity cannon? Really? Yes really, a cannon that would shoot miniature black holes. "You?ll actually see people getting sucked in toward the black hole a little bit," said Jack Mamais when describing this. "It?s very small and it only hangs around briefly, but this is the aliens? massively big weapon."
Capturing aliens, modifying their weapons. What a lovely mini-game this could've been. Instead of killing, how about capturing aliens then applying technology or research points toward reverse engineering their weaponry? As Mamais put it, "There's definitely an X-Com aspect." Alas, if only.
Energy upgrades to your combat suit. Originally you were supposed to be able to increase energy available to your armor, but since it doesn't dovetail with the fiction believably (and frankly sounds a little too Doom-ish) I'm glad they dropped it in favor of a full-functioning nano suit from the get-go.
Enemy A.I. that follows your back trail. Imagine bad guys that notice moving or broken foliage as you're creeping along, that investigate, and that follow your back trail (if you leave one). Apparently too complex for Crysis, which shelved this feature originally touted in early 2006.
Physics changing with weather. "Rain and thunder may just kick in and make surfaces more wet, and depending on the wetness, the properties of physics will change accordingly," said Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli in early 2006. Not so in the final game, though you have to assume the CPU cycle costs to do it realistically and comprehensively would have been enormous.
