Crysis
Looks like Jack O'Niell in the cap there. Possible player character?


Of franchises using the "Star _____" title format, there's one that has long stood beside the titans of Trek and Wars in my mind: Stargate. For the last four years, a team that shares my reverence for the franchise has been modding the world of evil Egyptian space snakes and interstellar military adventure into the original Crysis, along with nods to other sci-fi franchises like the aforementioned Star Wars and Battlestar. StarCry, the end result, is now finally available for download to all of us Tau'ri.

The trailer above shows off a variety of environments, zat guns, staff weapons, and the titular Stargates themselves. But that's far from all. The mod's release notes boast "More than 1000 new objects, 2000 textures, 20 weapons and 1000 lines of dialog were added to the base game to offer a brand new adventure." Check out the screenshots below, then grab the mod and see it for yourself.







Crysis

Fresh from the Eurogamer Expo comes this new demo of Crysis 3's "Hunter Mode," which pits two nanosuit-enhanced players against a team of lowly soldiers with no stealth abilities or super-armor. Or chance.


It doesn't exactly look balanced, but it does look like a lot of fun.


(via VG24/7)


Crysis 2 - Maximum Edition - Valve
Act now and save 75% on the Crysis Franchise during the Weekend Deal!

Aliens are decimating New York City, only you have the technology to survive. Adapt in real time using the unique Nanosuit 2 Stealth, Armor and Power abilities, then tackle the alien menace in ways a regular soldier could only dream of. Crysis 2 redefines the visual benchmark for console and PC platforms in the urban jungle of NYC. Be The Weapon.

Crysis

Cancelled Crytek Game Looked More Alan Wake Than CrysisFrench artist Eric Cochonneau, formerly of Killzone developers Guerilla and Electronic Arts, has also worked at Crytek, where around 2008 he helped out on a game called Redemption which was ultimately never released. Or even seen publicly.


Until today.


NeoGAF user miladesn was digging around Cochonneau's portfolio when they discovered the artwork, intended for an Xbox 360/PS3 game that was being developed by Crytek's main German studio.


As you can see, it's no Crysis. The blue skies and green jungles of the company's trademark title (at the time) are nowhere to be seen. Instead, Redemption looks more like Alan Wake, with a moody rural setting and people who look like people, not soldiers/aliens/mutant corpses.


It's impossible to tell what the game would have been like with so little to go on, but at the very least it would have been a pleasant departure for the team, who instead went on to make Crysis 2, and are now working on...Crysis 3.


You can see more of Eric's great art at his personal site (via NeoGAF).


To see the larger pics in all their glory (or so you can save them as wallpaper), right-click on them below and select "open in new tab".


Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!

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Crysis

No, Your Scissors Probably Can't Run Crysis 3 EitherJulius Perdana has built a replica model of a Crysis nanosuit that manages to look better than a professional, factory-made action figure.


Which is remarkable, given Perdana's is made out of paper.


Yes, believe it or not, this is papercraft. Originally designed to coincide with the release of Crysis 2, he's now produced an updated model based on Crysis 3, one that copies the pose from the game's box art.


In case you think he's making this all up - or, for the especially crazy, if you want to try making one yourself - you can find step-by-step instructions on how to make one below.


Nanosuit 2.0 Standing Pose - Crysis Paper Model [Paper Replika, via technabob]



No, Your Scissors Probably Can't Run Crysis 3 Either
Crysis

Well, not the best way possible. I don't see any Jesse Ventura skins in this trailer. But it shows the second-best thing about the original Predator: the tension and excitement that results from a team of dudes trying to escape a jungle while an invisible killer stalks and murders them.


This is Crysis 3's "Hunter" multiplayer mode, which sets a team of regular soldier types against opponents in nanosuits, and asks them to get to the other side of a map in one piece. Sounds easy, but when one side can pull of invisible face punches and the other can't, it might get tricky.


Crysis 3 is out on PC, PS3 and 360 next February.


Crysis

The Greatest Sharks In Video Games, Just In Time For Shark WeekDid you feel slightly on edge when you got out of bed this morning? Like your world was just a little bit more dangerous? As you went about your day, did you have the sense that you were… hunted?


Well, that might be because IT'S MOTHER EFFIN SHARK WEEK, YO.


Shark Week is the Discovery Channel's greatest (and certainly most well-known) indulgence, a glorious annual tradition perhaps best captured by New York Magazine TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz: "Has there ever been a more effective merger of science and sensationalism than Shark Week? I doubt it."


Tracy Jordan lives every week like it's Shark Week. But the rest of us only get to experience it once a year. In honor of that week, I polled our editors and writers to come up with the best sharks in video games.


I should note up top that there are few things that scare me like the idea of a monster coming at me from beneath the depths while I float on the surface. Swimming in a boat yard, with big ships looming out of the fog above me, while some horrible slimy thing slips about beneath the surface… yup, it's one of my deepest fears. Maybe it goes back to when I was a kid, and we'd go to the beach and sometimes we'd step on crabs and they'd bite our toes? I don't know. It's good to know that I'm not alone; Luke's with me on this one, at least.


Before we get going, props to this very funny top-7 list at GamesRadar, which notified me of a couple that we'd left off. And before you point it out: I couldn't find a good video of the sharks from Wind Waker, so they didn't make the list. But consider them an honorary inclusion.


Release the sharks!




Armed & Dangerous Land Shark Gun

One of the most famous sharks in gaming, the Land Shark Gun from Armed and Dangerous set a precedent for over-the-top weaponry that would be unmatched by most every video game. Except...




Saints Row The Third: Also A Land Shark Gun

…well, actually Saints Row The Third also had a downloadable Land Shark Gun, which makes sense, given the game in question. This video is pretty great all across the board, actually.




Sewer Shark

A questionable inclusion, since Sewer Shark doesn't actually have a shark. But what the hell, this is a list of the best sharks in gaming, and if only for being a landmark achievement in cheesy full-motion video games, Sewer Shark gets the nod.




The Okami Shark

One of my big gaming blind-spots is that I've never played Okami. But of course the game has a shark, of course it does! This shark seems more into belly-flopping than actually biting, at least when it's in the air. I'll see this guy soon in the HD version, I'm sure.




Resident Evil: Shark Tank

Did I mention that I hate water-scares in games? I do. This one in Resident Evil is one of the earliest, and scariest, but there are plenty of moments in later games that are equally freaky. Something about seeing it coming for you, about waiting for it to grab you from under the water… yeesh. (This one won't embed, so you'll have to click through to watch it.)




Ecco The Dolphin: Open Water

Of course, friendly Ecco had to go up against more than a few sharks—a whole ton of them in this level, called "Open Ocean." "The open ocean is very cold and dangerous."




Arkham City Shark-Punch

After making his way through one of the most tedious sections of Arkham City, Batman finally takes that stupid shark head-on and punches the shit out of him. In what almost has to be a reference to this incredible sequence from the original show, it made me laugh and laugh as I mashed the punch button. (James O'Connor informs me Bats also fought a shark in the comics, naturally.) Holy sardine, indeed.




Whale Shark in World of Warcraft

Our resident WoW expert Mike Fahey clued me in to this one, a massive Whale Shark that requires a ton of people to take it down.




"Depth" Is A Game With... Sharks

This clip is from Depth, a game that's not out yet, so maybe it's cheating? But all the same, it felt worth including because the shark attack here is terrifying.




Snacker The Shark From Banjo Kazooie

Okay, okay! You win! By popular demand, here is a video from Banjo Kazooie in which Banjo gets attacked by the deadly Snacker The Shark. It was the one colossal, unforgivable oversight in our roundup, and now it has been rectified. Let the record show that Snacker The Shark is indeed one of gaming's great sharks. May he shark forever more in our memories.




Lara Croft Feeds a Shark A Grenade

I'm one of the people who actually liked Tomb Raider: Underworld, though I didn't much care for the underwater sections. That's partly because they have sharks, and partly because they were kind of a mess to navigate. In this clip, a player nails a perfect grenade-lob into a dumb shark's mouth. Take that, shark!



The Greatest Sharks In Video Games, Just In Time For Shark Week


Gameshark

Hey, if Sewer Shark gets on the list, so does GameShark. Better known as "The other, better Game Genie," GameShark improved on the now-famous Game Genie in a number of ways, most notably allowing users to save codes in memory. The company has since been bought by Mad Catz and still exists today, though built-in cheats have relegated Game Genie like devices obsolete.




Crysis Shark Will Eat Your Nanosuit

There may be no better way to let someone know that the area they're heading into is "out of bounds" than having them get eaten by a shark. In Crysis, you spend a lot of your time on land feeling like an unstoppable predator (well, a bit less unstoppable than in the sequel), but at this moment, you're a scared little kid desperately trying to escape a killer. (This video is great, too.)




Shark Attack Was Terrifying Despite Its Jank Graphics

Hey, it was on Atari 2600, but Shark Attack was still a mighty unnerving game. Watch out for that shark! It's like Pac-Man, except the ghosts don't respect the walls of the level, and also the ghosts are a KILLER SHARK.




Scarface Wilhelm Scream Shark Attack

In the same vein as Crysis comes this bit from Scarface: The World is Yours, which is as cheesy and disjointed as possible… and yet still kinda creepy. And do I detect a Wilhelm Scream there? Hard to tell with the blaring music.




Endless Ocean's Whale Shark

This is not a fearsome shark, it's more of an impressive, majestic shark. And unlike the one in World of Warcraft, the whale shark in Endless Ocean does not require you to team up with a bunch of players and exterminate it.




Jaws Unleashed Was Messed up

Another obligatory addition, this is one of the better gameplay videos from Jaws Unleashed, though it takes a while to get where it was going. Sometimes it's nice to play as the shark, you know?




The Horrifying Half-Life Shark Monster

Let's close it out with my favorite of all, which is another way of saying it's the one of these that scared me the most. It's barely a shark… really, it's more of a catfish monster thing, or maybe an Ichthyosaur… whatever it is, it scared the bejesus out of me when I first played Half-Life. Here I was, content to fight against monsters and zombies and aliens, but not to go into the water, in a shark cage, to fight a terrifying/goofy fangmonster. Who did they think I was?? I wasn't cut out for that crap!


And okay, I know I just said that was the last one, but here's one more. It's not from a video game. It's from Deep Blue Sea (and technically it's a spoiler. And if you've seen that movie, then you know that we really have no choice but to go out on this one:



"I'm Sick And Tired Of All These Mother F***ing Sharks On This MotherF***ing [CHOMP]"


Have good shark weeking, everybody.


Crysis
CryEngine 3 tech demo toad


Toads don't tessellate. Trust me, I've tried. So how to Crytek pull it off? It's top secret, sadly, but you can watch one tessellated toad jump off a log in the latest CryEngine 3 tech on Gamespot, which also shows some lovely lighting tech and some grand Crysis 3 environments, some of which starred in the recent Crysis 3 combat/stealth trailer. It's pretty impressive, but is it better than the Unreal Engine 4 tech demo that Epic released a couple of months back?

Crysis

This clip, which is masquerading as a Crysis 3 trailer but is really a showreel for the game's engine, is beautiful. It claims to be running in real-time, and to have been captured from Crysis 3 the game, not Crysis 3 the tech demo.


Unless it's a clip full of lies, this would have to be be the PC version of the game. Making me feel slightly uneasy about the state of my current rig.


Whether the top secret toad tech makes it to the console versions of Crysis 3, we'll just have to wait and see.


Crysis
Crysis 3


This footage of Crysis 3 shows an extended version of the E3 demo in which Prophet assaults and explodes a huge dam. This time you get to choose at the start of the demo whether the player will take the cloaked, quiet approach or the noisy I AM GUN MAN YOU DIE NOW approach. The sneaky style sends Prophet to some high ledges where he skewers passing guards with arrows before infiltrating the dam through some ducts. The high-octane playthrough rips mounted cannons off their hinges and charges through every alarm in the building. Tragically for the dam, the outcome is the same.

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