If you're a gamer, then over Christmas it's pretty likely you'll get hold of at least one major blockbuster - whether it's Call of Duty BO2, Assassin's Creed 3, Halo 4 or FIFA 13. Maybe you'll even get extra lucky and find yourself with more than one. Lucky thing.
But once the blur of Christmas and New Year passes by and you wake up in The Future, ie next February, you might be a bit gamed-out.
Tough. Because coming next January is Crysis 3, EA's latest big-budget futuristic shooter set in an apocalyptic jungle -- which also happens to have once been New York City.
And it looks like it could be the first big gaming must-have of the year.
Crysis 3 is set in 2047, after New York has been cut off from an alien-ravaged world, inside a giant geodesic dome. Named the Liberty Dome. (Makes sense). Inside the dome, the Ceph aliens have continued to evolve into a variety of new nasties, while you play Prophet, a high-tech, bow-and-arrow-touting killing machine on a mission to take down the CELL Corporation, who built the dome, and take on the Ceph, for fun.
Crysis 3 Screenshots
The result looks set to be an awesome mix of the jungle combat from Crysis 1, and the city-based fighting arenas of Crysis 2. Action is fast and aggressive, and the fanciful setting is perfect and original - from what we've seen.
Recently we managed to get a hold of the Hunter Multiplayer mode, back at Gamescom, in which a team of marines have to hold out for as long as possible against an increasing number of alien warriors. We found it to be great fun, and felt the city of New York had a truly 'organic' feel and yet was strongly reminiscent of the real place - which is so essential, since it seems like the game's setting is pretty much its killer feature.
Until Crysis 3 is out we can't give it a full review - but check out our video previews above.
Crysis 3 is currently scheduled for release in February 2013.