As for the gameplay, initially I wasn’t particularly impressed. It just felt like a more futuristic version of Far Cry. However, after playing through the demo a couple of times, the subtle excellence of the game started to come across. Because most of the environment is destructible, you can hurt people in really creative ways. One guy was inside a shack, so I activated the “strength” powerup and threw a heavy crate through the wall, killing the guy inside. You can pick almost everything up, including chickens; I haven’t killed anyone with a chicken yet, but I’m working on it.

I have certainly killed some chickens, however. Jesus Christ have I killed some chickens. I stuck a can of gasoline in a coop, set fire to it and ran. I activated Strength and flung a chicken far, far into the sea. I picked up a chicken and used it to punch another chicken, killing them both. I stole a jeep and cut down a whole bunch of chickens with my mounted machine gun, before running over their mangled bodies and laughing in a way that is wrong. I have sniped hens from 200 metres with my reflex scope; I have grenaded pullets and watched in awe as their bodies carved a graceful arc across the sky, finally coming to rest on the top of a burning barrel; I have rifle-butted, kicked, helmeted, chaired, shrubbed, wheeled and dead-korean-soldiered every feathery clucking object in this game multiple times, and I am still not bored.

In fact, I’m enjoying hurting livestock more than playing the actual game. I haven’t even got started on the crabs, turtles, kiwis and seagulls yet, but believe me, I’m formulating plans. I’ve noticed a couple of butterflies flitting about, and I intend to ascertain the effect on Chaos Theory when a butterfly flaps its wings in a forest shortly before being rammed through a tree by a jeep full of burning chickens.

—Crysis (not Far Cry 2), comment by Camerhil

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