이 생각은 어제 모바일 팟캐스트에서 Myriam Joire가 처음으로 가지고 나왔던 것인데, 이 간단하면서도 정확함은 나를 계속 홀리게 만들었다. 구글이 안드로이드를 잠글 것이냐 말 것이냐에 대한 말들이 계속 오가는 가운데, 이들 대부분은 과연 구글이 정말로 안드로이드를 잠궈야 하는지, 그리고 만약 잠궈야 한다면, 그에 상응한 이유가 무엇인지에 대해서는 답하지 못했다. 나는 여기에 오직 하나의 이유를 말할까 한다. 이 하나의 이유가 오픈 소스의 이상이나 지키지 못한 약속에 대한 이의가 있다 하더라도, 이를 중요하지 않게 만들 것 같다.
일단, 안드로이드의 목표가 뭔지부터 다시 생각해볼 필요가 있다. 구글의 전술의 목표가 뭔지 모른다면, 우리는 그 전술에 대해 분석할 수도 없는 법이다. 그 첫 시작부터, 안드로이드는 구글의 검색의 범위를 확장시키기 위한 것이었다. 좋은 모바일 운영체제가 되기 위해서라던지, 구글라이트(구글의 사원, 혹은 구글빠들을 의미하는듯. – 역주)들이 원하고, 자랑스럽게 쓸 수 있는 그런 보도자료성 발언들은 모두 집어치우자 — 물론 그 주장들의 정당성을 의심할 필요는 없지만, 이를 모두 둘러싸고 있는 사업적 결정으로 인해 생기는 부수적인 효과들일 뿐인 것이다. 구글은 광고를 팔아서 돈을 번다. 이를 위해 구글을 광고들을 사용자들이 피할수 없게끔 전면배치를 시켜야 하고, 이를 해낼 수 방법이 바로 검색인 것이다. 모바일 인터넷 사용량이 급증하는 게 감지될 때 — 구글은 다가올 스마트폰 열풍을 잘 감지했고 이에 대해 빠르게 반응한 것은 인정할 만한 것이다 — 구글은 자사의 제품들을 재빠르게 모바일 세계에 대비시키던지, 아니면 조금씩 면목없는 소외되는 문제에 부닥쳐야 했다. 따라서, 구글이 안드로이드에서 원한 것은 편재성(도처에 널린 것을 뜻함 – 역주)이다. 통신사와 계속되는 협상의 댄스를 추거나 — 마이크로소프트는 버라이즌과 빙 검색에 대한 협약을 맺기 위해 이 댄스를 추고 있다 — 제조사들의 조건을 계속 따져야 하는 상황 대신, 구글은 자신만의 OS를 만들기로 했고, 이 OS가 최대한 빠르고 넓게 퍼지도록 만들어놓은 것이다.
그 목표가 그냥 달성되었다 하는 것은 결과를 과소평가하는 것이다. 안드로이드는 벌써 모든 심비안 성을 침략했고, 모든 webOS 마을을 약탈했으며, 모르도르의 iOS 타워를 위협하면서, 윈도우 폰 7의 거센 도전도 막아냈다. 이 성공과 전세계적 수용의 이유는 크게 두 가지로 나뉜다. 구글은 리눅스의 파생물을 모바일 환경에 구축되게 하기 위해 많은 자원을 투자했고, 다른 면에서는, 이 결과물을 제조사들이 어떠한 방해나 요구 없이 자유롭게 사용할 수 있도록 해놓은 것이다 — 오픈되어 있고 유연하기 때문에 어떤 방법으로든 쓸 수 있었고, 물론 처음에 보기에는 아름답지는 않았지만, 기반으로 해서 자라기에 상당히 단단한 플랫폼이었다.
많은 이들이 엄청나게 다양한 안드로이드 스킨과 기기들 때문에 OS의 생태계에 파편화를 초래한다고 규정했었다. 맞는 사실일 지도 모르나, 그것 자체로는 큰 문제가 되지 않는다. HTC 기기에 올라간 안드로이드와 소니 에릭슨 폰에 올라간 안드로이드에 질적인 차이가 없다 하더라도 소비자는 큰 상관을 하지 않는다. 소비자는 그것을 선택이라 부를 것이다.
문제가 생겨나는 곳은 모든 안드로이드가 평등하게 태어나지 않았다는 것이다. 안드로이드 사용자 경험의 질은 기기에 따라 엄청난 크기의 파동이 일어나고, 이는 결국 소비자에게 꽤나 짜증나도록 개연성이 없는 혼란을 가져온다. 소니 에릭슨의 엑스페리아 X10은 크고 자랑스러운 안드로이드 폰이지만, 상당히 오래된 버전의 OS를 달고 나왔고(X10은 출시당시 1.6을 달고 나왔다. 비슷한 시기에 나온 갤럭시 S는 2.1을 달고 있었다. – 역주), 소프트웨어 사후지원 역시 흠집이 가득한 역사여서 사용자들의 불만을 자아냈다. 그와 동시에, 무려 1,000만대를 팔아치운 삼성 갤럭시 S 또한 안드로이드 폰이고, 구글이 자랑스럽게 추켜세울 자격이 있는 폰이기도 하다. 제일 짜증나는 예는 바로 LG의 옵티머스 2X다 — 유럽과 아시아에서 파는 2X 버전과 미국에서 파는 G2x 버전 모두 프로요를 달고 있지만, 전자는 브라우저를 보려는 순간 계속 튕기는 반면에, LG의 개조를 모두 무시하고 순정 상태의 안드로이드 2.2를 탑재한 후자는 우리가 만져본 기기들 중에서 가장 부드럽다.
요점은 통신사나 제조사가 개조를 하는것을 버려야 하냐는 것이 아니다. (우리는 이들이 얼마나 표준화를 싫어하는지 잘 이해한다) 바로 일부는 너무나도 삽질을 해놔서 안드로이드 경험을 손상시키고 있다는 것이다. 미래를 생각할 때, 이러한 오염된 기기들과 소프트웨어 빌드의 치명적인 악영향을 없애는 것은 구글이 해야 할 것이다. 이제 평균적인 스마트폰 구매자들은, 아이러니하게도, 점점 기술에 대한 지식이 낮아지고 있으며, “안드로이드”라는 단어가 주는 약속이 제대로 이뤄지지 않을때, 이를 용서하지 않을 것이다.
우리가 지금 세계정복에 참여하고 있는 운영체제에 태클을 건다는 사실이 이상할 수도 있지만, 지금같이 계속 커지고 있는 스마트폰의 시대에서 부귀영화는 재빠르게 추락을 초래할 수도 있다는 점을 심비안의 운명을 통해 알아야 할 것이다. 안드로이드라는 거대한 배의 갈라진 금을 메우고 항해를 계속하기 위해서는 루머의 말마따나 앤디 루빈이 위에서 지배를 해야 한다. X10이나 2X 같은 기기들은 진퉁 안드로이드 기기 포트폴리오에서 빼고 — 구글이 오픈소스 제품이 아닌 지메일이나 지도, 그리고 중요한 안드로이드 마켓을 빼게 하면 가능하다 — 우리가 다음 버전의 안드로이드가 통제 불능의 스카이넷이 될지, 아니면 머뭇거리는 쓸모없는 로봇이 될 것인지에 대한 걱정을 하지 않게 해야 한다. 커스텀 스킨을 없애자는 것이 아니지만, 구글이 자신의 모바일 브랜드를 지키기 위해서는 총대를 매야 할 것이다. 이러한 움직임은 결국 구글의 이미지에 손상을 입힐 수도 있지만, 이것이 안드로이드 OS를 세계정복의 궤도에 계속 오를 수 있게 한다면, 구글 입장에서는 결국 좋은 일이 아닐까?
To PC gamers or PC tuners, the name Crysis is a great value. Even three and a half years after its launch in November 2007, Crysis is still treated as a benchmark of how powerful a computer is. Many people still tout their computers by saying, “My computer can run Crysis in highest settings at XX fps!” (Though it should be noted that most graphics cards these days can run Crysis with no problem, if you give up the ‘highest settings’ part.)
One thing that was much desired in Crysis was that it felt like Crytek did not put much of their time into gameplay, compared to the insane presentation. Pacing in story was quite dreadful, from very slow and sometimes ‘boring’ start, to a sudden progressions in the end that makes you very difficult to comprehend. In addition, while controlling Nanosuit is not that difficult, but it is also not streamlined enough for you to quickly adapt to situations, which results in an instant death if your ‘plan’ goes horribly wrong. (At least in higher difficulties.) Oh, and multiplayer? I didn’t even know that it had it. (I actually had to revise the Korean version, since I wrote, “there’s no multiplayer.”)
Then there were some variations, such as Crysis: Warhead, a retelling of events in Crysis, and multiplayer-only Crysis: World, and finally, after three and a half years, the real sequel, Crysis 2, is upon us. Did it fix the problem? Or is it just another technical demo?
Crysis 2 is situated in 2023, three years after the story concludes in the first Crysis. An unforeseen epidemic of huge proportion starts to infect Manhattan. Soon, U.S Department of Defense declares martial law on the area, and makes a contract with CELL, an elite mercenary unit owned by Crynet, to be deployed. Meanwhile, U.S Marines are deployed to pick up Dr. Nathan Gould, who potentially has a solution to the outbreak, and they are immediately attacked by Cephalopods (Cephs for short), an alien race also present in Manhattan area. Only a marine by callsign Alcatraz survives, and is picked up by Prophet, the leader of Raptor Delta Force team in Crysis. Considering that he’s also infected with the virus, Prophet decides to hand over his Nanosuit to Alcatraz. Now, it’s up to Alcatraz to save New York.
In Crysis 2, it’s already apparent that Crytek is trying to push out Crysis as a series. (Crytek did say they intend to makes this story arc a trilogy.) Pacing is much better than the first game this time around, but still it has a lot of the important plot points in the back. I was hoping for a more even distribution of plot points, but still, it’s much better than the first Crysis.
The another problem with the story of the game was that it doesn’t tell you much. It doesn’t tell you much about the major factions (like CELL and the Cephs), about the major characters (especially Gould and Hargreave), and while it does not have too many throwbacks to the first game, but then where there is one, it’s totally impossible to understand. (Especially, if you have not played the first Crysis, you’d have no idea what Tara Strickland’s father did.) The game also does a very poor job at explaining what Prophet was doing for past three years after the events of the first game. Rather than poor, it does absolutely nothing. These facts all lead up to a reasoning that Crytek is intending to release some sort of prequel to Crysis 2, as something like what Warhead was to the original Crysis, but nothing is confirmed at this point, thus leaving players very confused.
Finally, ending is difficult to say it’s a straight-up cliffhanger. It is a good thing, since it does wrap things up quite nicely. This is quite a direct comparison to the first one, which ended in one of the worst cliffhangers in game industry. (With Halo 2 still topping it.) Funny thing is, none of the characters from Crysis with the exception of Prophet made a comeback in Crysis 2. One speculation is that they may be saving that for Crysis 3. It was even rumored that Alcatraz was actually Nomad, main character from the first Crysis, which turned out to be false.
Nanosuit makes up a huge portion of gameplay in Crysis series, and that’s no different in Crysis 2. As aforementioned, Nanosuit’s time efficiency in control was not great in the first Crysis, but Crytek managed to fix a lot of those issues in Crysis 2. Firstly, now Nanosuit has only three distinct suit modes: Armor, Cloak, and Power, which combines Strength and Speed from the first Crysis. Power mode is now automated. For example, when you run, speed mode automatically kicks in. When you need to use maximum strength, in situations such as when you kick a car, or throw an enemy (Yup, that’s still there.), strength mode automatically kicks in.
Also, now you can switch your suit mode with just a button, rather than having a select wheel a la weapon selection screen in Assassin’s Creed II and Brotherhood. (The only difference is, the suit mode selection screen in Crysis did not pause the game, while Assassin’s Creed does.) This is more like a move in order to make a smooth transition to console controllers, (Xbox 360 version uses two bumpers for mode keys) but it’s now much easier to quickly switch your tactics in the middle. For example, when you are busted while cloaked, you can quickly trigger the suit to go into Armor mode for an epic firefight, and quietly disappear again by quickly cloaking yourself again. Of course, you have to manage your suit energy carefully. Of course, there still is an option for PC users to use the wheel if you so desire.
To be honest, you have to just get out of there in that situation.
Another aspect that makes this game much more realistic is enemy AI. It’s pretty darn smart. It’s pretty much on par with AI in Halo: Reach, but in a different way. You see, there are some scenes where the player can take out each one of the enemies in a sandbox like predator gameplay in Batman: Arkham Asylum. (But then, unlike Batman, you can avoid them as a whole if you desire.) In this instance, enemies are much more actively engaged in finding you, and also reacting to a teammate’s disappearance is much more realistic. (Not to say that AI in Arkham Asylum was dumb.) In CELL’s case, they even call backups, so that makes taking them out one by one a lot more difficult. In my case, there was a part that took me 20 minutes to get through, thanks to CELL soldiers keep calling in backups, and I felt like I had to take them all out. On the next playthough though, I just sneaked past them and decreased that time to 5 minutes. But this AI also has a terrible bug where the soldier would just run around in circles, or helplessly watch as his teammate is taken out right in front of him. But this does not happen that often. For me, it was a lot more fun to play with CELL, since Cephs react much more quickly to my presence while cloaked, so I got annoyed and killed them all on Armor mode.
Overall, the AI and the choice that Nanosuit gives you make up to be a very satisfying experience with a lot of replay value. As I review the game, I’m on the third run, but it’s never boring. You can try different tactics each time. Actually, I even managed to find a secret passageway that I didn’t find in the last playthrough.
You can also upgrade the Nanosuit itself. You gather up something called Nano Catalyst when you kill a Ceph. This acts as a currency towards the upgrade of your suit. You have four categories with three perks in each category. Though you can unlock them all and make the ultimate Nanosuit, you may only choose one perk in each category, keeping the game in balance and adding variety to the gameplay, since you can change the perks on the fly. Also, since these upgrades are kept through the different playthroughs of the campaign, you can upgrade your suit in easier difficulty settings and tackle on more difficult playthrough with your suit maxed out. Some of the important suit upgrades include using much less energy while cloaked, and dramatically boosting charging speed of the suit energy.
Fox three!
Campaign aspect of the game can be cleared in about 12 hours, which is very respectable compared to mere 5 hours of Modern Warfare 2. While pacing is not top-notch, the set-pieces are evenly placed to keep you hooked to the game, and replay value, with all these upgrades and various collectibles, is pretty high, if you are an achievements nut.
Tight battle.
However, that is not all: there is also multiplayer to talk about. I personally don’t play multiplayer that much, but I played it anyway for the sake of this review. Basic premise is that marines and CELL fight in Nanosuits (much weaker than the kind that Alcatraz wears, I might add), but it’s a mixed bag when it comes to the differentiated experiences. You have kill streaks (though it’s differentiated by each map), perks, and level-up system, much more like Call of Duty and other shooters. While the utilization of Nanosuit does make the gameplay more interesting, it’s not enough to add a whole lot of difference from other shooters. But then, everything is pretty well-balanced, so you can have good fun through the multiplayer.
It’s just jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
Now let’s talk about the presentation, something that many are really looking forward to. To start with the conclusion, it is not a dramatic upgrade from the first game. In fact, some of the aspects has dropped back. For Crytek’s defense, they also had to think about the console versions now, so they have gone through a lot of optimization, which comes out in sacrifice of some of the textures as well. However, the optimization has worked: despite all the concerns, Crysis 2 runs quite well on consoles, while there are still some frame rate hiccups from time to time. It is one of the best graphics quality ever seen on (at least) 360, and I thought I’d never say this since Halo: Reach. (In some ways, it is much more optimized than Reach.)
Thanks to the optimizations that was very needed for consoles, while the overall graphics quality may not reach the pillar of the original Crysis in general, but there are some aspects that the successor excels over predecessor. Firstly, the light effects are truly great. Especially when there is a sunset, it’s almost like a photograph. Secondly, the facial animation and facial textures are greatly improved. You can see the improvements clearly even from the beginning of the game. Finally, physics is top-notch. Since the game is situated in New York in ruins, it tends to collapse everywhere, and those scene are pretty realistic. It’s one of the best physics engines I’ve ever seen since Star Wars: Force Unleashed. While I still recommend PC version for the true graphics prowess and optimization that Crysis 2 can offer, most of the hardcore PC gamers may be disappointed by lack of options, (There are only high, very high, and extreme. You can’t even dare to go medium) and some aspects that Crytek thought of console gamers way too much. But then, console versions are no slouch, either, and Crysis 2 still has top graphics even among both the console and PC games, daring other developers to follow their footsteps. (Or, use their CryEngine 3.)
The sound is also fantastic on Crysis 2. I was very impressed by the realistic sound effects in distance, especially in gunfires. Also, the music score, partially written by Hans Zimmer, is also pretty good. Although the characters were disorienting, the voice acting was not as bad as the characters themselves.
You’re on.
To sum things up, to the question “Is Crysis 2 another tech demo?”, I’d like to answer a firm no. The graphics departments may have dumbed down a little bit, Crysis 2 feels much more like a very well-made game. Sure, there are some plot holes that may confuse players, some unfortunate bugs, and multiplayer is pretty generic. But as in the overall package, Crysis 2 gives much better potential to the whole Crysis series, and is the chief reason that I personally can’t wait for Crysis 3. (Or some other expansions.)
Final Verdict: Crysis 2
Strengths
Vast tactical choices thanks to Nanosuit and enemy AI
Nanosuit controls are much more streamlined
Still one of the best looking games ever, now with more optimizations as standard.
Long and exciting campaign with epic set pieces.
Weaknesses
Multiplayer is pretty generic
Story pacing and sometimes forgettable characters
Not much options towards PC users
AI bugs and framerate issues (I just put it in here to even things out)
Final Score – 9.0/10
(This review is largely based on retail version of Crysis 2 for Xbox 360. Cleared campaign twice on normal, currently going through the third run on Supersoldier, the second-most-difficult setting. Nanosuit is fully upgraded, and 29 out of 50 achievements unlocked. Multiplayer level at 13.)
