Alien game ‘Crysis 2’ good, but not great

In "Crysis 2," the year is 2023, and aliens have bubbled up from beneath the Earth's surface to wage war on humans across the globe.

Somehow, this multitude of previously undetected aliens have militarily evolved far more than humans have. How is that possible? Beats me. I played the game from start to finish, but your guess is as good as mine.

The vicious, genius aliens have laid waste to entire cities. New York barely stands as a smoldering ghost town, a pyre of spires on fire.

Here you come, portraying a super soldier, to save the day.

You are equipped with guns and a "nano suit" whose abilities appear to be technically miraculous. When it is hit with bullets, the suit, given a few seconds' rest, fixes its own wounds. How nifty.

Your mission: Shoot different types of guns to take out aliens in a quest to evaporate their military structure.

Side note: If this game had come out in 2002, in the shadow of 9/11, the political culture would have demonized its big city destruction. Today: No problem. I'm not moralizing. I'm observing the useful passage of time.

Anyhow, the visuals are magnificently drawn, a realistic portrayal not just of the set pieces of city streets, subways and parks, but of cinematic cut scenes where you watch, say, a train landing on a giant alien creature who wishes to slay you.

Unfortunately, there's no emotional or intellectual resonance, since there's no decent character development. The storyline is all: Look at the aliens, they're going to try to kill you, and by the way, this is how you upgrade your suit and guns, good luck and thanks.

My bigger complaint has to do with our weak human guns and that nano suit. It takes too many bullets to kill aliens. And their weapons are better than mine, so the suit doesn't stop me from croaking all the time.

So compared to other shooting games, "Crysis 2's" super soldier suit and frustrating weaponry can make it seem like it's all emperor, no clothes.

It also feels to me as if the first half of "Crysis 2" is pretty easy if you just turn on the suit's saving grace, an invisibility cloak, then sprint past aliens.

Bottom line: It's a very good and playable game decorated with many moments of enjoyment and wonder, but it falls short of greatness.

There's promise in the online multiplayer, but for me, the battlefields are too small, too cluttered, and the online fire fights end too quickly.

That's a matter of taste. If you're into online multiplayers, this one is smooth and comes with 12 battle maps and 50 rank-ups, so it might be worth a spin.

Personally, I think I'm done with "Crysis 2." I wouldn't mind showing off its imagery to my artist friends. But I have escaped this particular version of New York while I await, oh say, the zombie apocalypse.

("Crysis 2" by EA retails for $60 for PS 3, Xbox 360 and PC -- Plays mostly fun. Looks top-tier. Challenging. Rated "M" for blood, partial nudity, strong language and violence. Three and one-half stars out of four.)

Contact Doug Elfman at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.