If the previous 10 years of video game design were led by the characters we control, this decade is already being defined by what they wear. Not in terms of fashion; aside from the cut of Bond’s tuxedo in Goldeneye, style never had very much to do with shooting games. But in terms of the performance-enhancing abilities they offer our avatars, the identity of many titles now pivots on the suits we are given to wear.

Suits transform the man into the super man. They allow us to skid on our knees at 50mph, to leap tall buildings in a single bound, to punch through concrete. They cloak us with invisibility, they toughen our exteriors to withstand the bite of shrapnel and they provide justification for the head up displays that almost no video game can do without.

It started with Master Chief, a faceless cipher whose identity exclusively hangs on his regenerating armour. From here games as diverse as Vanquish, Dead Space and, in its latter stages at least, BioShock have relied on the suits their characters wear for relevance. Stepping into the shoes of a space soldier is no longer interesting enough. We demand rocket boots.

This is threaded into the very story of Crysis 2. The man in the nanosuit, a soldier known only as Alcatraz, is so peripheral to the plot that, for the first half of the game, every other character you meet presumes he is someone else. Like Clark Kent, they don’t care about him. All that matters are the clothes he wears, a futuristic weave of technology that enables its wearer to stiffen himself to withstand the blast of a grenade, or blend invisibly into his surroundings. The characters on your side are only interested in putting the suit under a microscope; the characters that oppose you are only interested in stripping you of it.

Every time you walk into a new area, the suit will highlight key tactical options in the environment for you, useful for planning your attack.

So Crysis 2 is a game about a suit. But it’s also a game about a suit. The mechanics all fall within the triangle of abilities that the silvery, sinewy lycra provides. By default, in ‘power’ mode, you can run at twice the speed of a man and jump twice the distance. Tap the left bumper and the suit hardens into ‘armour’ mode, turning you into a human-shaped tank, able to take a missile to the chest and walk away giggling. Tap the right bumper for ‘stealth’ and you turn into a ghost, blending into your surroundings and evading detection.

This combination of abilities offers the ultimate gaming power fantasy. One moment you can be Solid Snake, skulking behind an enemy till you see the hairs on the back of his soon-to-be-broken neck. The next, you’re a Big Daddy, charging forward into the slack jaws of death, cannons to the left, cannons to the right. The wide-open spaces of Crysis 2′s New York are playpens in which you can toy with your prey in whatever way you wish using these tools.

For console gamers whose tactical brains have grown fat and dull after so many Call of Duty-style corridor shooters, the opportunity to plan, think and execute without fairground direction is invigorating and sometimes paralysing. The suit may turn you into a God – but you’re the one that has to provide the divine inspiration.

You can read the rest over at Eurogamer here

For the video game sightseer drawn to urban breadth and spectacle, nothing yet beats Grand Theft Auto’s Liberty City. It’s a sprawling virtual capital with distinct districts, diverse architectural influences and landmarks that imprint the memory.

But if you want authenticity and depth, Yakuza 4′s grimy Kamurocho is the go-to destination. The geography may be more limited than in Rockstar’s city, but its ambition is no shorter. And it’s in the details that Kamurocho – a semi-fictional location based closely on Kabukicho, Japan’s notorious red light district – beguiles.

In the daytime, the higgledy-piggledy mess of a Tokyo district is in plain view. Tangles of overhead electrical wires bunch like bird nests in a forest of neon and concrete. Buildings hunch shoulder-to-shoulder next to one another, one tall, another squat, their almost-embrace forming tight alleyways all around – narrow tributaries darting off from the main street inviting snug exploration.

Red neon Ka-Ra-O-Ke signs try to out-glare the dreamy eyes of mousse-haired idols on billboards opposite, while every shopfront screams for attention with blasts of bold lettering, and the irrepressible shouts of a staff member, loudspeaker pressed to lips, boasting of its wares.

At night the distant clanging of a construction site gives way to the Babylonian jangling of a city seeking thrills. Young men in medium-priced suits hover at the shoulders of pretty girls, inviting them to sign up to become hostesses at nearby establishments, while professionals loiter with impatient tuts and foot taps awaiting their tardy dates.

The furious rattle of ball bearings can be heard muffled behind the sliding doors of a pachinko parlour, while schoolgirls squeal as their teen suitors try to win them a cuddly toy at the Club SEGA arcade.

Kamurocho has a weighty sense of verisimilitude, not only in its architecture – which can be viewed on high from the rooftops, or at the roots level from underground malls and carparks – but also in its people. Beggars scratch sleepily in shop doorways, while salarymen march purposefully towards their next appointment.

For anyone familiar with contemporary Tokyo, the sights and sounds are pitch-perfect, the main difference being that, dressed as a virtual native Japanese, you now have access to many of the establishments that, as a real-life gaijin, are usually off limits.

We’re still some way from being allowed to enter every building in the city, but around 35 per cent of Kamurocho’s establishments have doors that open and bellies that can be explored, a fact that moves this video game city away from the dolls house façade of Liberty City and contributes to a new sense of depth.

Who might be behind this door? What adventure lurks at the end of that alleyway? Persuasive questions. And, for once, they regularly come with satisfactory answers.

You can read the rest of this review over at Eurogamer here