I know this because I'm guilty of it. Not that Crysis or the appalling state of New Zealand's broadband can be entirely absolved of blame. After staying awake watching the download bar tick over at an annoyingly slow rate, the single-player demo became more of a holy grail than a software package. It represented the collective expectations of a generation of people dissatisfied with every other over-hyped press release that had come before it. Although I had already checked the world news and noted the absence of burning cars in Paris, I found myself muttering "this had better be good.."

Fortunately for Crytek, and the French automotive industry, it was. I knew it was good because my Nvidia 8800GTX video card and E6600 processor clocked to 3.6Ghz managed to squeeze out about ten frames per second when the maximum graphics options were enabled. Once I'd come to accept that an 8800GTX wasn't powerful enough, I moved the graphics options back one notch from "very high" to "high", and proceeded to examine the landscape.

In the initial stages of the game, your character (as part of an elite squad of US military personnel) parachutes, at night, on to an island under control of the North Koreans. Your first quest involves locating a member of your team who has been pushed off-course from the drop zone. Once you've landed, gaped like an idiot at the effects detail, tweaked your config, re-tweaked your config, ordered a new video card online and restarted the game, you proceed across sandy beaches to a woodland area where your comrade is waiting. Various radio commands, which serve to guide you throughout most of the game, are issued from that point, and the real story begins.

The story? Oh yeah, something about North Koreans who have discovered some kind of alien thing in the middle of an island and are trying to use it to change the climate and take over the world. Or something. Anyway, check out these screenshots, this is first light on the first day you land:

Of course, when you're this involved in saving the world, you need the appropriate attire. Never ones to disappoint, CryTek have fitted you with a revolutionary bodysuit that allows you to face the enemy in comfort, and if we're being honest, a little style as well. You can choose which function you wish to be enabled at any given time, for example when approaching an enemy camp you may choose the stealth option. You'll probably only do this once when you realise just how little time it lasts for, so for consecutive camp raids you'll probably use the super-speed modification and just rely on having a good aim. At some points, you'll also need to enable the super-strength option to leap over boulders, or to jump about like a loon, either is good.

As you progress further through the game, you realise that the story simply can't match the quality of the environment and physics you're seeing. But what story could? I could insert any number of descriptive phrases about shadowing, lighting, particle movement, anti-aliasing, collapsible terrain - it wouldn't do the game justice. I already feel guilty enough about squeezing the screenshots down to .jpg files. This game really wouldn't be out of place if it had been released a year from now, and I can't shake the feeling that it's just an extremely good demonstration of the CryENGINE2 which will no doubt be featured in a number of new games over the next few years.