The Games of Christmas '08: GPU Performance Part 1

Crysis: Warhead

Yes this year seems to be the Year of the Sequel and this goes for the Crysis series as well with the addition of the Warhead game. In the original Crysis you took control of Nomad to wade through the Korean and alien forces but this time you play the role of Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes to explore the other side of the infamous island. You get the usual mix of baddies and the same lush jungle and seaside setting which is why Crytek and EA bill this as a stand-alone expansion rather than the next chapter in the Crysis trilogy. Hence why it is priced well below the usual $50 new PC games go for here in Canada.


Warhead keeps the firsty person perspective of the original Crysis while not adding much in the way of new gameplay options or scenarios we haven’t seen two dozen times before. On the other hand, it does include Crysis Wars which is an augmented multiplayer game using the Crysis backdrop that comes with its own separate disk and installer.


The CryEngine 2 makes a comeback in Crysis Warhead but we are actually graced with a modified version of it which increases performance while slightly moving image quality up another notch. This has resulted in some interesting changes in the graphics options but performance one the whole hasn’t changed enough to let budget gamers play at anything above the lowest quality settings.


It will be interesting to see what the rest of this trilogy turns out to be but it seems that graphics-wise, the original Crysis and Warhead will be known for being ahead of their time. Trust me, the performance results on the next page show this very well.