Game AI
Which brings me neatly to the AI, which I have to say, is the best I’ve seen since Half Life. Crytek should be congratulated, as these guys are brilliant. They take cover when re-loading, use tactics as a squad to either flush you out or kill you and they react to their environment and what happens around them. Stay in one spot sniping for too long and they’ll figure out where the fire is coming from and head off to sort you out. Lay into a group of them and they scatter for cover… perhaps even run for back-up or call in a chopper to deal with you. Wound them and they leg it for better cover. If you’re in a better position than them, they’ll wait for back up before going in… they even replace fallen comrades on area weapons like mounted mini-guns, which is a right pain, especially if you alerted them to your presence by sniping the original guy off the gun prior to making your run in.
The AI can be a bit dumb at the easier difficulty levels, but stick this game on medium to hard and they’ll give you plenty of challenge… Speaking of difficulty, this game is balanced just right. You don’t have any quick saves here, you can’t save manually at all. As you progress you pass save points and the job is done for you, making the game tougher. This isn’t done as an easy way to extend the playing time, but as a real incentive to play the game properly. Knowing that the 25% armour and 75% health you’ve got might have to last you a while before it can be restocked or the game saves makes you think hard about how you want to handle each obstacle. Its an old idea, but one which more game developers should use.