Far Cry

The Good
Clearly Far Cry has one thing going for it. The large, sun-drenched environments. While id was putting the finishing touches on their dark, claustrophobic masterwork of DOOM3, and Valve was in the last half-year of polishing Half-Life 2 to a dystopic gleam, the German firm Crytek released this unheralded gem. At least, it starts as a gem...

The Bad
Toward the end of the storyline, the game gets more and more far-fetched. I can't even remember what was going on exactly -- something about mutating humans into an unholy werewolf army. To be hired out to evil regimes, presumably meaning North Korea. Things get out of hand, people are injected with green mutoid plasma, become monsters, that sort of stuff. It all came apart at the seams for me during the last few levels, where I simply wasn't having fun anymore. Not only did the plot get crappy, but so did the level design. It was quite a let-down, considering how strong the opening levels were.

Multiplayer was resoundingly disappointing. Perhaps because by the time I got around to trying it, the only people still playing were experts, and would camp from some indiscernible mountaintop with the sniper rifle. Sniped again and again and again as I vainly look for some cover or a better weapon -- how terribly fun. Leave server.

I'd have given it more time, but Counter-Strike: Source was simply a better option in 2004.

The Bottom Line
Bright, sunny, and expansive tropical environments play host to innovative, long-distance gunplay. But it all degenerates into a half-baked mad scientist plot that left me a little frustrated that Crytek's story department couldn't come up with something more compelling.

The Good
Far Cry is one of the most revolutionary shooters in a long time. It's difficult to classify a game like that, a game that allows you to experience a complete freedom in your actions. We're talking about a FPS game, but you can play it as a perfect tactical shooter.

What makes the game different isn't the diversity of the environments in the game. What makes the game different of another FPS game is its own essence. We're used to play games (not just FPS games) where everything is planned. When the programmers set the enemies on the stages of a game, they set them thinking about the best way to get rid of them, like if everything was planned. Far Cry is the opposite. This game has huge stages with many enemies but we can feel that the programmer didn't mind about how we take care of them. He had no plans about how to kill them when he set the enemies there, they're only there and nothing more. How to take care of the enemies is something that depends just on your decision.

Talking about that, you can kill the enemies in many ways. You can sneak and kill them with your knife (well, some of them...) or just going berserk and killing everything that you see on your screen from a stationary place with a rocket launcher.

Graphics are good, with a high quality physics for everything. We have many stages including heavenly places where to spend your holidays. There are also some inside structures stages, ruins, factories and many more (even a volcano!) that will increase the game's length, which will be increased by game's difficult too (specially in the harder difficulty levels, we will die a lot of times 'till we pass through).

There are many weapons but you can carry just 4. Choose those weapons that you like more because none of them is specially better than the others, it will depend on how do you want to play the game. For example, if you want to be noiseless you'll need the knife, but if you want to kill everything fast you won't need it. There are different vehicles too, from the classic jeep to a hang glider.

Storyline is a bit typical and it reminds me the 80's movies. The main character is something like a superman who may kill a whole camp without messing his hair up (even if we needed 10 attempts...)

The Bad
Checkpoints are a good save system for a game that needs it. To use a manual save system could have ruined many games because it'd be easy to save your game in an inappropriate moment. However, the game is really difficult and that's why you'll hat the checkpoint system many times. Every time that you see the "Saving game" you'll think "well, that's a relief!"

The sound should have been better, specially the radio communications because the default volume is really low. It's the same problem that we have in other games like Bioshock. Even if you're in silence it's difficult to hear what they say (there's no need to say what happens if you're in a middle of a fight). No subs available.

When you start the game you don't know exactly what you're playing. You don't know if you're playing a classic shooter or something more tactical (anyway, you don't know in any moment of the game), that's why in the beginning you'll feel like you're not playing the game as "it should" be played. For example, you take cover on a determined place, hidden in the grass or behind a rock, and you kill a mercenary, the rest of the mercenaries of that area will go there to see what happens and then you start killing them one by one (well, it's not as easy as it sounds, but it could be done), taking care of a whole camp with that strategy. That sensation is something that only happens at the beginning when you don't know what you're playing, but once you've understand how the game works you won't feel it anymore.

Sometimes you want to move stealthily, and of course you go on crawling, but he's too slow. When you try to kill some bad guys that way, you could fail on your attempt, and it's possible that you've spent like 20 minutes to go there with that strategy. If you die, the next time you try, you won't do that again because it needs a lot of time and you'll go there killing everybody as fast as possible (it doesn't mean that you'll survive if you do that way, of course...).

There are many weapons, that's true, but most of them look the same. There are many different machine guns and just one shotgun and one rocket launcher.

The Bottom Line
A really different FPS from other games of this genre. It has many elements of the tactical FPS games but it's not a tactical game at all (but it could be if you want, that's the magic of this game). It's a good choice if you're looking a different game with an almost perfect AI of the enemies and many different ways to progress. If you have no patience don't try unless you want to lose your temper.

The Good
Taking a shapely photojournalist to an archipelago in the Pacific sounds like easy money to charter boat captain Jack Carver, but as Val’s Jet Ski disappears behind an island, Jack spots a rocket homing in on him. Thrown clear from the explosion, Jack finds himself floating amongst the wreckage of his boat. Alone and unarmed, Jack swims toward the nearest island. How can he find Val and get the hell out of here?

Since Far Cry is a first-person shooter, Jack isn’t unarmed for long. A tutorial level puts a gun in Jack’s hand, as well as a handheld communication device and a pair of binoculars. The communication device connects him to a man named Doyle. Doyle can help Jack find Val and get away, but he needs Jack to do something for him first. The device also has a compass which points Jack towards his objectives. The binoculars include a microphone set up, so Jack can spot enemies from a distance and overhear their conversations. Once Jack has spotted an enemy with the binoculars, they show up on the handheld device as a blip.

Jack’s first objective is to steal a jeep from a mercenary camp and drive it to a dock on the other side of the island. Here’s where Far Cry shines. Jack can use stealth to sneak around the back of the camp or he can go in guns blazing. He can blow-up gas canisters to thin the ranks or he can climb a sniper tower and take the mercs down that way. He can stay concealed and make it to the jeep unnoticed or he can announce his presence with a few well placed grenades.

Far Cry places very few constraints on the player. While Jack isn’t going to be able to talk his way out of any situation, usually there are multiple ways to do what needs to be done. Far Cry encourages exploration. A path might be the fastest way to your objective, but flanking around an area helps avoid patrols and shows how lush and detailed Far Cry’s levels are.

When it comes to beautiful islands, Far Cry outdoes Myst. The islands are rich with detail. The jungles hide crashed Japanese Zeroes and vine-strewn ruins. Wild boars run through the trees and parrots fly overhead. Even at the minimum specs, Far Cry looks great, but kick the graphics up and the sense of realism explodes. The archipelago would be a great vacation getaway if it weren’t for vicious bands of mercenaries and the secrets they protect.

You know a game is challenging when the medium difficulty setting is the second option out of five. Far Cry has smart, tough opponents. Mercs follow intelligent patrol paths. They are quick to spot you and are able to hear you. They work in packs, drawing your fire while flanking you. They are quick to use grenades and aren’t afraid to call in for reinforcements or helicopter support. Luckily Jack has some tricks up his sleeve.

Calling on his military background, Jack is capable of using any weapon he gets his hands on: from lowly machete to the sophisticated OICW Advanced Assault Rifle. Jack can carry four weapons and a few grenades at a time. He can replenish his armor (which conceals his orange shirt making him harder to spot) and his health, but he can’t carry power ups. He also takes full advantage of the turrets scattered around and the variety of vehicles available. Far Cry lets you off-road in Hummers, cruise in patrol boats, hang-glide and more.

The Bad
Out of the box, Far Cry has a check point save system which can be player unfriendly. Patching the game adds a quick save function, but this is handled awkwardly through the console and isn’t something you’d want to attempt during combat. Frankly, the lack of a save anywhere function is usually a game killer for me, but here I wasn’t as bothered. It almost hearkened back to Fallout for me, in that if one battle plan fell to pieces, I was eager to try a different approach.

The thing that bothered me more was the rocket launcher. First up, I’m never sure why villains are given rocket launchers. Invariably, they blow themselves up or cause massive collateral damage. Rocket launchers versus vehicles, okay, against people, that’s different. Anyway, Far Cry has its share of henchmen who use rocket launchers more against themselves than Jack, but conversely, Far Cry also has the slowest rockets I’ve ever seen. Of course this is purely the result of a balancing issue: if the rockets traveled at a respectable clip Jack wouldn’t stand a chance, but you shouldn’t be able to mosey away from a rocket.


The Bottom Line
In terms of gameplay, Far Cry isn’t wildly different from other first-person shooters, but it comes across as more polished. There’s much more attention to level design and much more attention to story. . Reluctant hero Jack Carver tackles a storyline that feels pulled from a Bond flick (to a point). Almost half the game passes before Far Cry reveals its secrets, but until then game play is so enjoyable you almost don’t expect more. Far Cry doesn’t define what a first-person shooter is, but it does illustrate what a first-person shooter can be. I eagerly await the next entry.

That Uwe Boll has his hands on this franchise kills me.