Crytek has fingered Valve's Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead as major influences on the storytelling seen in Crysis 2.

The studio claimed that the sequel - which got a grand unveiling last night in its real-life setting, New York - is of a 'comparable size' to its PC-only predecessor, which took place in sprawling jungle.

However, Crytek has worked to improve the story of the first game - taking notes from Valve's handywork.

"There were large expanses, funnels and action spaces [in the first Crysis], and we're doing the same with New York," Camarillo told Edge issue 212. "It's a comparable size."

Camarillo then agreed that the story of the opening chapter of the first game was a bit formulaic - something ... Read more »

Call of Duty 7 - long rumoured to be set in Vietnam - will feature the custom killstreaks introduced in Modern Warfare 2.

That's according to the eagle-eyed super-fans at CoD Vietnam News, who've dug through Treyarch's recent forum comments with a fine comb to compile a list of things we know about the next Call of Duty (which admittedly isn't much).

Apparently, the developer's 'Treyarch dev Vahn' (real name David Vonderhaar - Multiplayer Design Director for the upcoming CoD game) has strongly suggested the firm will ditch a lot of the imbalances of MW2 multiplayer, including the Commando perk and the controversial nuke killstreak.


Here's what they came up with:

• While they've tried having custom killstreaks for each class, that seemed to complicate the 'purity and speed' of Create a Class.
  ... Read more »