The CES demo of Crytek's gorgeous first-person shooter Crysis is a brief one—too brief, considering the amazing DirectX 10 graphics and effects. You could run through the thing in about 5 minutes without really trying, but you'll want to stick around for a bit longer to take it all in. It's just a small taste of the new features and technology that the Crytek team have stuffed into their futuristic sci-fi shooter.

The demo level takes place in North Korea at a remote army base surrounded by a thick jungle. The Crytek team have made almost everything destructible, including the dense foliage that casts realistic shadows and reacts to gunfire. The first thing I did in the demo was destroy a couple of those son of a bitch trees, just to see their leaves flapping about. Then it was time to waste some unsuspecting North Korean soliders, who, unfortunately for them, didn't have god mode switched on.

While only two weapons were available, the assault rifle gives you the option to customize it on the fly. You can add a silencer, change ammo types, add a sniper scope, but the default settings work just fine. The game is rife with motion blur—simply mouselook left or right quickly, and you'll see it in action at any point.

The game also uses blur and depth of field visual effects during gunplay. Look through the assault rifle sights and you'll lose focus outside the radius of your area of fire. Very cool.

Your character is also outfitted with a full body suit that grants you different abilities, depending on what you have switched on. Switch the focus to strength and you can pick up (and throw) heavy objects. Need some cover? Pick up a barrel (don't worry, it won't explode) then launch it at your enemies. No gravity gun required. The same can be done when you go straight fisticuffs. Turn on strength, walk up to the nearest soldier, grab him by the throat, then launch him across the tarmac. Sadly, you can't pick up corpses and use them as weapons or cover, but when I suggested it, the idea seemed warmly received.

Other powers, such as camo will help you blend in with your surroundings, dynamically changing the suit's color to match things like the local flora or stucco walls. It's similar to the suit worn by Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4 if you're familiar with the TGS trailer.

After exhausting the supply of North Korean soldiers by killing them in every way imaginable, a military helicopter comes in to try to finish you off. It put up a pretty good fight, laying down heavy fire and squeezing off the occasional rocket. Your best bet is to take out the rockets on the wing with gunfire (there's a mounted machine gun on a nearby ATV) then take out the rotor and enjoy the spectacular crash. The explosions in this game are amazing, but seeing one occur about two meters from my face brought the game's frame rate into the single digits. While it wasn't a beefy demo machine, you should seriously consider some hardware upgrades before attempting to run Crysis.

The game ships sometime in the middle of 2007, so start planning your hardware purchases accordingly. This game kicks ass. Michael McWhertor

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