Crysis Trilogy Switch - "Can it run Crysis"?

(Nintendo Switch code provided by Sandbox Strategies PR/Crytek) 

By Sam Coles:  

“Can it run Crysis” was a popular meme during the mid-2000s when the original Crysis came out in 2007, for good reason too as the game was far beyond than the existing technology. The game has and honestly still looks amazing visually, and now for me to play not only the first but the entire trilogy on my Nintendo Switch which is crazy to think about let alone play. So, I got a chance to play through the entire trilogy of Crysis games on Nintendo Switch, and I have to say I am impressed especially the first game, so is it worth it? In short yes.  

The Crysis series sees you play as different protagonists in each game, in the first you play as Nomad, the second Alcatraz, and in the third Prophet. In each game you are a soldier in a Nano Suit, which increases the wearer’s abilities, from super strength, stealth capabilities as well as tactical awareness in the battlefield. However, these suits are made from alien technology, where the suits themselves become a part of the wearer’s body which ends up infecting them with a virus. So much so, that the virus spreads to New York, and the US military have to also stop an invading force from the alien entities known as the Ceph. It is an interesting plot throughout the trilogy, it is a fun and twisting military/science fiction conspiracy thriller.  

Gameplay wise it seems like another run of the mill first person shooter, but these games give you a variety of ways to tackle a combat scenario especially the first game. The levels are fairly flexible with how you want to approach a situation, so if you want to go in and kick the doors in with alarms blaring you can. However, you can slap on a suppressor, activate your cloak on your suit and go in like the Predator and watch as everyone panics. Anyway, the way you want to approach a combat scenario is completely up to you, you can activate your armour, go in with a light machine and gun anything down that moves or you can equip a bow (in Crysis 3), cloak and take them down like a futuristic Robin Hood.  

I do favour a louder approach in these games as it is more fun, but sometimes especially in the first game I feel as if the game penalises you for going loud and almost wants you to always do a stealth approach. In the first game, it is generally more favaourable to follow a quieter route in combat, as you die very quickly in confrontation even with armour activated. However, as the games go on, they do let you take a more action focused approach, as they do get progressively easier, especially Crysis 3.  

Visually each game looks incredible and runs really well, yes, they run at 30 frames per second, but they stay locked at 30 fps. The game that I thought would have the most trouble running was the first game, as there hasn’t really been a good console port of it if you look back at the not so good 360 port. No, on Switch it looks great, and runs smoothly throughout in both portable and docked mode. Crysis 2 was the next one I had a bit of trepidation about, as that game ran abysmally on the Xbox 360, we are talking sub 20 fps. However, on Nintendo Switch it runs at a locked 30 fps, and I found myself engaging in combat instead of avoiding it like I did on the 360 back in the day as it is now stably running.  

Overall, I had a lot of fun revisiting these titles on Nintendo Switch, if you are looking for a good set of first person shooters to play on the platform you can’t go wrong with Crysis. To answer the question of “Can it run Crysis”? The answer is yes it can!