Product Description

Take on the fight as the volatile Sergeant "Psycho" Sykes in a new parallel story taking place during the events of Crysis. Psycho's secret mission will take him to the other side of the island on a ruthless pursuit of a North Korean general hell-bent on obtaining powerful technology. With the versatile powers of his Nanosuit and an arsenal of fully customizable weapons & vehicles at his disposal, Sykes will do whatever it takes to carry out his top-secret objective. Action on the other side of the island is more intense, the battles are fierce, and the mission protocol is no longer "Adapt to Survive". As Sergeant Sykes, now you must adapt to dominate the battle. Twin SMG's blazing, seizing new vehicles, or going stealth, the action and the victory is on your terms.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #770 in Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Model: 15775
• Released on: 2008-09-16
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platforms: Windows XP, Windows Vista
• Format: DVD-ROM
• Dimensions: .30 pounds

Features

• Play as Sergeant Sykes and experience a whole new side of the battle
• More explosive and dynamic minute to minute game play: new customizable weapons, new vehicles, new photorealistic locations to explore, and a fully interactive war zone to dominate
• Enhanced human and alien AI" Intelligent enemies, bigger challenges, and all-new ally squad support
• Includes Crysis Wars, an expanded new multiplayer experience with new online modes and 21 maps including seven all-new maps to battle it out against other players
• Crysis Warhead is a standalone release and does not require ownership of Crysis to play

Amazon.com
Take on the fight as the volatile Sergeant "Psycho" Sykes in a new parallel story taking place during the events of the original smash hit, Crysis. Psycho's secret mission will take him to the other side of the island on a ruthless pursuit of a North Korean general hell-bent on obtaining powerful technology. With the versatile powers of his Nanosuit and an arsenal of fully customizable weapons & vehicles at his disposal, Sykes will do whatever it takes to carry out his top-secret objective. Are you ready?

	Crysis Features Pulse-racing new installment from 2007's PC Game of the Year*: Play as Sergeant Sykes and experience a whole new side of the battle. A standard combat mission behind enemy lines becomes critical when you discover your enemies have captured something of vital importance to the ensuing war. It’s down to you to retrieve the cargo, at any cost. More explosive and dynamic minute to minute game play: new customizable weapons, new vehicles, new photorealistic locations to explore, and a fully interactive war zone to dominate. Enhanced human and alien AI: Intelligent enemies, bigger challenges, and all-new ally squad support. Includes Crysis Wars®, an expanded new multiplayer experience with new online modes and 21 maps .including seven all-new maps to battle it out against other players. Crysis Warhead is a standalone release and does not require ownership of Crysis to play. Adapt to Survive Action on the other side of the island is more intense, the battles are fierce, and the mission protocol is no longer "Adapt to Survive". As Sergeant Sykes, now you must adapt to dominate the battle. Twin SMG's blazing, seizing new vehicles, or going stealth, the action and the victory is on your terms. Minimum System Requirements PC Minimum - Windows XP/Vista CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (3.2 GHz for Vista), Intel Core 2.0 GHz (2.2 GHz for Vista), AMD Athlon 2800+ (3200+ for Vista) or better RAM: 1GB (1.5GB on Windows Vista) Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Radeon X800 Pro for Vista) or better VRAM: 256MB of Graphics Memory Storage: 15GB Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c Compatible ODD: DVD-ROM OS: Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Microsoft Vista DirectX: DX9.0c or DX10

Customer Reviews

DRM Punishes legit users. Shame EA.
A decent game, but not worth paying full price to rent from EA. Read up carefully on DRM before you purchase. You're better off pirating a cracked copy and sending EA a check.

Warhead Xpac
Though technically Warhead is a standalone game, it is more or less just another Crysis campaign. This one runs parallel to part of the original Crysis story, and the difficulty is clearly aimed at experienced players. If you played and enjoyed the original, you'll likely enjoy this. One must bear in mind, however, that this really is essentially an expansion pack- don't expect a full length game out of Warhead, or you'll be let down.

Warhead places you in the nanosuit of Sgt 'Psycho' Sykes, who you might remember from the original Crysis. You might also remember that he is with you at the start and again at the end, so obviously this campaign runs the time between. And no, that wasn't all that long, was it? This is perhaps the biggest disappointment in Warhead- the campaign is VERY short. I finished it in less than 5 hours of play time, and at when the credits rolled I found myself staring at the screen slack-jawed asking 'where's the other half?' It doesn't help that the manual describes VTOL controls, and you see so many of the things flying around that you naturally expect to get another shot flying one before the campaign terminates. Not so.

The mission areas, however, are very well designed. You'll see some truly awe inspiring environments and fight sequences, such as a memorable one aboard an armed Korean train. Graphics, as before, are top-notch with superb texturing and lighting, very realistic scenery and great attention to detail. Sound is also superb, with an excellent soundtrack and ambient sounds. This is a game that really makes you feel like you're in the thick of things. It also helps that some of the areas allow you a greater degree of freedom to play with than previous Crysis maps. You're rarely shoehorned into going in a set path, and are usually just presented with a green objective dot and told to get there somehow.

There are two new weapons in the campaign- the AY69 (a short-range machine pistol that can be dual-wielded) and the FGL40 (semi-auto grenade launcher). Some improvements to weapons include automatic ammo-pickup and retaining ammo when you change weapons, so if you change back you don't start with 10 rounds left in the magazine. I suppose this is less realistic, but I'm not complaining- I hated digging in bushes looking for that rifle the guy inconveniently dropped down the hill when he died. There's also a handful of new vehicles you'll see, such as a hovercraft and an APC with a minigun on it. You'll also at times actually see friendly air support, which is a welcome change. You would think you'd have seen more of that in Crysis with that carrier sitting off the coast, but I guess all those flyboys had better things to do than bail you out.

The campaign story is pretty much what you'd expect, and there's really no surprises in it if you've already played Crysis. The missions and objectives do tend to be a bit more fast-paced than the original, and you rarely end up bogged down trying to kill a whole base full of enemies. As with the previous game, you can often (but not always) choose to sneak around rather than mow them all down, but half the game's fun is blowing things up and watching the physics engine work, so unless it's your 2nd or 3rd time through you really shouldn't. As noted before, the game is definitely geared towards experienced Crysis players. Aside from not being able to make sense out of a lot of the plot, newcomers will probably be in for a rude surprise when they see armored vehicles shooting at them almost right off the bat.

The game also comes with Crysis Wars, which is a multiplayer mode game. I haven't even installed it yet, so I can't really say how much fun it is, but if you're into multiplay it is there. I mainly picked this up to play the campaign, which I think is what most people are looking at. A lot of fuss has been made over the SecuROM protection, but I can't say I've had any problems with it. I don't think the issue of limited activations is a serious problem, due to how short this game is. It has limited replay value, and after 2-3 times through it (which doesn't take long at all) I really don't see myself playing it again. Thus it's really a non-issue where I'm concerned, though clearly others disagree.

Aside from its brevity, Warhead is a great game. It's a no-brainer if you enjoyed Crysis, and the design and production values are superb. Just bear in mind that you're not buying a full length campaign, and you won't be disappointed in the least.

For me, better than the first installment....Warheads a winner
First things first. I played through this game in its entirety. I also have a hefty gaming machine that has plenty of power to run it. And I purchased it from Steam. While I hate these draconian DRM schemes as much as everyone else, they have rarely gotten in my way. So I want to share my thoughts about Crysis Warhead, instead of the DRM problem.

I struggled with the original Crysis. There was WAAAYY to much hype and noise around it. I played through it several times, hoping I would "get it" eventually. I did warm up to it, but it never grabbed me the way many other games did and do. But as a devoted FPS junkie, I do consider it a fine game, although not one of my all time favorites. There were too many things about it that were either derivative, or simply painful to play.

Now Crysis Warhead on the other hand, was simply terrific. Yes, it is Crysis, and yes you need a hefty piece of hardware to run it, but the story, the playability, the pace and the gunplay for me at least were far superior to the original. It seemed smoother to play, the battles more enjoyable, and there were less head scratching moments where I had no idea what was happening. It all made sense, and the weapons were good from the beginning. The voice acting is actually really really good, and the Psycho Sikes character, as well as Commander Emerson were really great, and made the game feel as though it was happening. This plus the pacing, made it an excellent game for me,

One thing I simply did NOT enjoy from the first Crysis was the time wasted inside the alien mountain/spaceship/hovel or whatever it was. Fortunately, there was none of that this time. Also, this game is much, much more refined than the original in almost every way.

This campaign was shorter of course, as it was an expansion pack. I played through in about 12 hours or so. I WILL play it again, as I enjoyed it immensely.

I do agree that these viral DRM approaches are not really logical, sound and is many cases probably not even legal, I wish we could all give opinions of the games and the developers effort, rather than the publishers absurd beliefs about copy protection schemes. It is a quandary for sure, one which will work itself out.

But for now, Crysis Warhead is in my opinion, a huge refined improvement over Crysis, and a great deal of fun as well.