Blow stuff up? FOR FREE?!

Something about long weekends seems to put publishers and distributors in a good mood, and they start offering bargains left, right and centre. Or maybe it's just that they know we might have the free time to take advantage of their temporary altruism and become further addicted to our favourite pastimes, thereby ensuring them future profits? Well, anyway, in a move that's fast becoming a bit of a holiday tradition, EA and Crytek are once again throwing the doors to Crysis Wars wide open with a free trial period.

The trial began on Thursday in the US, so since we're a few hours ahead of them there's still quite a lot of the eight-day free period to go; the trial comes to an end on Friday, 17th April, meaning here in more advanced time zones we can probably squeeze a chunk of Saturday 18th in, too.

Getting in involves the usual ritual of signing up for a free account over at MyCrysis and having a key sent to you; the client is the same one that was available last October (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4), and you'll need the 1.4 Patch this time as well. For more information, pop over to MyCrysis.com.

A series of recent patches has addressed some of the faults that might have put you off Crysis Wars during previous free trials, but EA's repeated generosity (this is the third free trial off the top of my head) has this cynical child somewhat concerned for the future of the game; if EA, a publisher widely distrusted as "money grubbing", is giving stuff away, does that mean the online scene isn't doing as well as might be hoped? Do you still play Crysis Wars or the singleplayer Crysis Warhead? Should we all jump on board?