Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Crysis On Ice

By Alec Meer on November 5th, 2007 at 9:19 pm.

First, we had the tanks and the helicopters and the nukes and the aliens. Now, thanks once again to modders experimenting with the outer limits of the bundled Sandbox2 editor, we get the Crysis demo in a whole new, sparkly setting. Is this the best demo ever? Apart from the goof many years ago in which a UK magazine accidentally stuck, rather than the demo, the entirety of the game in question (wish I could remember what it was – I’ll try and find out) on its coverdisk, I reckon so. Details of the map and how to get it after the jump.

‘Renji’ has managed to relocate the demo’s island map from tropical paradise to ice-bound winter wonderland, giving the demo a totally different feel (aided by some layout changes). Plants spew frozen crystals when you brush past them, and the snow texture on the ground looks pretty incredible, if you can force your PC up to the fabled Very High video quality. Renji’s also been kind enough to liberally sprinkle guns and vehicles into the map, together with a few static but big boats -including a helicarrier- we’ve not seen before. And many, many bright red explosive barrels left next conveniently next to anything you could possibly want to detonate into a few dozen smouldering pieces. All told, the map feels a bit like a Michael Bay movie. [Insert scathing comment about Michael Bay movies here].

Grab the map from here . To play it, just follow the same instructions as scrawled in our earlier post. Nice work, Mister Renji.

__________________

« | »

, .

20 Comments »

  1. A now defunct UK magazine, I wonder?

    report

  2. Was it the initial Hellboy demo?

    report

  3. Inflatable Moron says:

    Would anyone even want the full version of Hellboy? I mean even for free?

    report

  4. Alec Meer says:

    Don’t think so. I believe it was back in floppy disk times. But I could be wrong.

    report

  5. Richard says:

    You probably mean Robocod. PC Format. It locked out the later levels, but left in the ‘access all areas’ cheat-codes.

    report

  6. PC Gamer did it once with a shareware game, but I seem to remember that was their fault and not the magazines (there was a bug in the code that let you unlock the full version for free, or something). I remember being in the old pcgfans chatroom at the time when someone mentioned it to (then Editor) Matt Pierce, he nearly had a heart attack before he realised he wasn’t to blame.

    report

  7. Amiga One. I have an issue that gives out a “free game”, although I don’t know if it was on purpose.

    report

  8. Tim says:

    It was Abuse wasn’t it?

    report

  9. Cigol says:

    Does anyone remember the half-hour demo of Resident Evil on the PC (I seem to remember it being available on either PC Gamer or PC Format) – I wasn’t aware of a nefarious underworld of crackers and so forth back then (so no the idea never crossed my mind until now) but was it possible to unlock the whole game, or was it only a clever partial release?

    report

  10. Bobsy says:

    James Pond 2: Robocod was indeed famous for its demo also containing the full game, yes.

    report

  11. wcaypahwat says:

    Down south here, we got master of orion 3 free on a coverdisc, due to an error. yay for us, twasnt the mags fault. On the other hand, I also got a penguin doco one one disc, too. God bless Australia.

    report

  12. CrashT says:

    I got the full game of Earth 2140 on a cover disc once… but I believe it was intentional.

    report

  13. I just received a full boxed copy of City of Villains with PC Zone! However, I’m not sure if PC Zone came with City of Villains (as I recently bought it for online download – maybe they also send a free boxed copy), the game came with the magazine :) Confusing!

    report

  14. Oh! Hello everyone by the way :)

    report

  15. Alec Meer says:

    Hi Paul. Thanks for making games’n'stuff.

    report

  16. Rodti MacLeary says:

    The dire Piers Anthony game ‘Companions of Xanth’ was included in its entirety on a coverdisk about ten years ago. I think it may have been PC Format, but whoever it was they had a new coverdisk editor the next month.

    report

  17. CrashT says:

    Paul Wedgwood: PCZone have sent out copies of City Of Villians to subscribers.

    report

  18. Jodi says:

    Nah, it was the dearly departed PC Review. I loved that dearly, and actually really enjoyed Companions Of Xanth. So there.

    report

  19. Preachy Preach says:

    PC Format once included a remarkably complete demo of Steel Panthers that in actual fact seemed to be a late beta.

    And, I think, that PC Gamer once managed to include some hard-core pornography in a Duke Nukem 3D map.

    report

  20. I’m the “old” lady that asked about removing huge Natchez crepe myrtles…I will be cutting them down to the ground and take it from there. I have another question..how do you prune bridal wreath and hydrangea? I’m about to attempt taking care of things myself! Thanks

    report

Comment on this story

XHTML: Allowed code: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Search

Respond to our gibber

  • Kadayi : “@AndrewC I'm all for immersion in games, but the only way you could envisage anything as sublime in Skyrim is if that is all you'd ...” on The Sunday Papers
  • Jorum : “If we'd told Rob six months ago he'd own two copies of risk.....” on Cardboard Diaries: A Change Of Pace
  • sinister agent : “@RobF You make some interesting points, and some arguments that I've made myself in parallel discussions on entirely different subjects. Perhaps I am just more ...” on The Sunday Papers
  • Unaco : “I'd contest the claim that it is "completely and utterly misusing epic, or sublime", as far as he provides a definition (or an interpretation of ...” on The Sunday Papers
  • Chandos : “Archonsod: "In fact, from a business perspective it would be incredibly hard to justify taking the time to email a response, let alone make an ...” on The Sunday Papers

Browse the archive