EU PS3 users may be a day late to the party, again, but at least now we can “suit up” and get on Crytek’s new Crysis 3 MP Beta. Really? They went with “Suit Up”? Anyway, lets get to it!

Right then, I suppose I’ll just go on quick match then. I’m sure it will tell me what the hell I’m doing in a minute. It won’t. I’m sure a lot of people are aware of what’s waiting for them especially those following Crysis 3’s progress carefully but if not you are in for a short, extremely sharp learning curve.

I played the Crysis 2 multi-player for quite some time so I am at least familiar with the concepts and type of equipment available. People who have not played Crysis before will find this Beta very difficult to understand initially.

GAME MODES

After a game or so it became apparent that Crash Site has players capturing a pod on the map and then spending as much time next to it as possible to earn points. After a while the pod will explode and a new one will fall in a different location on the map.

Somehow despite the amount of the screen taken up by the HUD it seems difficult to be constantly in touch with which team is winning and what your personal score is. In most of the games I’ve played this has essentially boiled down to the match becoming the standard Team Death Match affair, which is a shame.

The second mode available is Hunter. One team play as C.E.L.L agents with a relatively small amount of equipment and the other team play as the Hunters, who are constantly cloaked and each carry the compound bow. Once a C.E.L.L agent is killed they do not re-spawn until the next round.

This creates a last man standing experience and a desperate fight to survive. With a decent team of friends communicating well this mode would be very satisfying. As it happens it really just promotes hiding in a corner and relying on your proximity detector to protect yourself against your invisible foe. Why are you going to run around outside when there’s a team of invisible bad-asses running around trying to kill you with deadly, silent, long range, no recoil weapons when you can get in a corner and use the proximity sensor? However, Unlike Crash Site it is very easy to tell what is going on and this mode definitely has a more structured feel to it.

EQUIPMENT & CUSTOM CLASSES

At first I didn’t know what attachments my guns had or what “perks” my class was using. Custom classes are unlocked at level five and then you can actually see what’s going on but until then you are left well and truly in the dark.

I recommend getting to level five as fast as possible because the game makes a lot more sense once you can see what your working with. There are five custom classes each having a primary weapon, secondary weapon, grenade and three suit attachments. There seems to be loads of weapons, equipment and suit upgrades to unlock and then each weapon has plenty of attachments to play with too.

To unlock weapon specific attachments such as scopes, silencers, grips and under slung attachments you must level the weapon up simply by getting a number of kills with it. There is a good sense of progression to this system and some of the later upgrades look really exciting.

A lot of the equipment requires a “suit reboot” to unlock. Once you reach level 10 you will have the option to reset your level and certain items will be unlocked. You must then get back to level five to unlock custom classes and use your new stuff. In the main release I assume these levels will be much higher and should give a good incentive to do suit reboots besides the “prestige”.

MATCH MAKING & PERFORMANCE

The match making is quick and so far has only added me to one game that had already started and one right at the end (inevitably our team lost) where I picked my class and didn’t even see the HUD, just a big loss banner. But this is very impressive, especially for a Beta and definitely something to take note of.

I haven’t come into any noticeable “lag” during a match and when I’m killed, and believe me I get killed a lot on Crysis, it seems justified and reasonable both at the time and in the kill cam. My only bad experience was during a Crash Site game when I went 9 kills and no deaths with 500 objective points and the host quit. I was thrust back to the menu and lost any progress I had made during the match. This was very annoying and I hope a better solution to rage quiting will be found for the main game.

Another point to note is that getting a stealth kill on an enemy from behind with a “circle” prompt works fine, but disables your ability to aim, fire or switch weapons until you die and re-spawn but I’m sure this will be fixed in the full title.

GRAPHICS & SOUND

We all expect a lot from Crytek, the graphics and the sound effects in Crysis are very distinctive and stylized and Crysis 3 is no exception.

The music on the main menu is absolutely stunning, it is one of the best game soundtracks ever and very underrated and overlooked in my opinion. I really cannot wait to hear the music in the full game, every time I get to the menu it excites me (sad I know, but it is good).

Graphic effects are good and there is always loads of on screen action. HUD effects are nice, although intrusive, and effects like the cloak look great. But I wasn’t stunned beyond words and it’s definitely not the best looking game I’ve seen recently. I don’t like constantly comparing games to the same titles but COD Black Ops 2 is the current standard for multi-player, and it just doesn’t look as nice.

Crytek have really caused this “problem” themselves. We’ve seen what they’ve done in the past with the CryEngine and expect them to be one of the developers pushing the graphical boundaries of the XBOX 360 and PS3. I’m sure with a decent PC Crysis 3 is very impressive but on PS3 it doesn’t look as nice as other titles available.

CONCLUSION

Not an absolute jaw-dropper but a good looking, stable and mostly fun multi-player already. An intrusive HUD and at times muddled collections of on screen information that are difficult to access are a thorn in Crysis 3’s side but altogether a very impressive Beta and I look forward to seeing what Crytek can produce in the final product.

Expected release on 22/02/13 for the PC, XBOX 360 and PS3.