BradyGames are back with their official strategy guide for Crysis 3 from EA and Crytek. Compared to many BradyGames guides that we’ve reviewed we were surprised at how small the guide is. This is definitely one of the smaller guides by BradyGames and it weighs in at just over 200 pages.
Despite the short length the guide is well laid out and easy to follow with clear descriptions and plenty of screenshots to help identify the where you are up to. The guide contains the following chapters:
- A new Crysis is coming: An introduction to Crysis 3
- Mobility and Utility: Crysis 3 gameplay
- Overcoming Adversity: Enemies in Crysis 3
- Weapon systems and Suit dynamics
- The Campaign
- True Combat: Multiplayer Crysis 3
- Multiplayer Maps
- Appendix
The guide opens up with a quick introduction and overview of events from the previous two Crysis games. These are a nice refresher for returning players and they also provide some useful background knowledge to those new to the series. This section also has a little information on the main characters of Crysis 3.
The second chapter explains how to control the main character Prophet. It covers everything from simple movement to combat. The game itself has some simple tutorials for you to learn these but having this guide handy will really help newer players. This chapter also explores Prophet’s Nanosuit and details all the upgrade modules that you can unlock through play. Finally the chapter ends with a list of xbox 360 achievements and ps3 trophies. Each of these has a small tip to explain how to unlock them.
Chapter 3 goes through all of the enemies, vehicles and traps that are used by CELL and Ceph forces throughout Crysis 3. The chapter looks at each in turn and explains their tactics, armour, weapons and weak spots. Newer players in particular will appreciate the tips on offer.
Next up is a guide to the weapons of Crysis 3 and each is given an image, statistics and a short description. Spending some time here is useful as you can compare the various weapons which helps understand the best situations to use them. Each weapon is rated out of 10 for accuracy, rate of fire, mobility, damage, range and stability. This section also lists the various customisation options available to you for each of the weapons as well as some of the items that you can collect as you progress through the game.
The largest part of the guide is dedicated to the campaign walkthrough. As Crysis 3 gives you a certain amount of freedom to tackle the various situations you encounter the guide features two campaign walkthroughs – one for stealth and another for action. Depending on your preference you could follow either guide or mix and match the two different styles. It’s interesting to see a strategy guide giving multiple options but be warned there is a lot of repetition between the two parts. This isn’t necessarily the fault of the guide as they can only document what the game allows you to do.
Chapter 6 is another large section which focuses on the multiplayer aspect of the game. Everything you would expect is covered from setting up your profile, to customising your equipment and joining games. Each of the different game modes are explained along with tips to help you get the best out of them. The chapter details the attacker and defender roles and again newer players will get the most out of the information on offer.
The multiplayer section also looks at the various weapons and vehicles on offer to you. The section finishes with details and overhead plans of each multiplayer map. There are a very useful reference and can really help you learn the layouts of each. Important locations and weapon spawn points are shown for each map.
The guide finishes with a quick appendix that lists the locations of all the Nanosuit upgrade modules and CELL intel locations throughout the game.
The Crysis 3 strategy guide may be much smaller than some of the others we’ve reviewed from BradyGames but it’s certainly concise. There is just enough information about every aspect of the game and players who like extra help when gaming will get a lot out of it.
