Far Cry

The Good
Well its finals week for college kids living it up in pollution-bathed North Jersey, and like all good college kids I find myself wanting to procrastinate from studying. FarCry gave me good enough reason to do this, as I assumed it would be a quick play and it would be something fun and mindless to do with all of my free time now that classes were over. I turned out being wrong on both parts, and having had enough of a drawn out experience with FarCry, I feel that it warrants some kind of review as a follow-through ordeal.

I really had no idea what to expect going into FarCry except that it was an FPS in the jungle and there was something special about the open environments. About 10 minutes into the game I knew just about the same amount. The opening intro is a collage of explosions and a dude swimming somewhere. What I got is that you and your wife/girlfriend/next rape victim were sailing in the Pacific Ocean for no reason at all, the girl drives off on a jet ski for no reason at all, people come and destroy your boat for no reason at all, you find your way onto an island, and ultimately having nothing else available to have sex with, grab a gun and go looking for the girl for no reason at all. About five minutes in a random black scientist appears on a PDA type thing and decides to help you, and despite the fact that you have no idea who he is or why he wants to help, you decide to follow all of his advice to the letter, most of which is "Go here, kill people, and blow this thing up."

Even then it became apparent that FarCry's plot was going to be as ridiculous as a James Bond movie. Add on top of this an evil corporation trying to take over the world, a mad scientist genetically mutating an army, and a completely obvious plot twist about a third of the way through and you've got one hell of a thin plot line.

Despite this, I was pretty giddy over FarCry at first because it was fun and challenging. The general appeal of the game is the open environments the game provides. Now, don’t be stupid, the game is not GTA. There is obviously a linear progression from village to village and point to point. But each village is always assailable from every angle, and there are always multiple ways through the jungle. This makes it kind of fun planning out your route and your attack method. I remember sitting in a little rubber boat off shore for the first time and using my binoculars to spy out each guard on shore, planning out which guards I kill first before alerting the others.

Thanks to the abrupt introduction and the generally unpolished impression the game gave me, I was actually surprised but the stunning graphics the game has to offer, or rather, the stunning settings in the game. The jungle levels are lush with vegetation; and you can see every faraway building as it stretches onto the horizon. Even as you zoom in on faraway locations through the scope, you can still see (and shoot) guards, people having conversations, etc. over a kilometer away. Indoor levels are equally as nice, with fairly detailed environments and crisp graphics. What's truly nice about playing an old game later is that I was able to turn the graphics up to very high without a single hit to my FPS rate. Not even a single stutter.

Even more so, this game has some amazing AI. Enemies genuinely react to how you act, forming up in teams and moving depending on how you move. You can hear them shouting things like "You take care of him while I go get help," and unless you kill the guy running for help he will call out to his buddies to join him. Another thing I was shocked about is that they also shoot up flares to signal helicopters and boat patrols. Helicopters also interact with ground troops as they pick them up and drop the down behind your position to flank you.

Because of this, FarCry is different every time you play it. There's so many ways to go and new places to explore that you, and the game adapts to how you play so that it always feel like a new experience. For some this is where the strength of FarCry lies. You can always go back and do something different, and even dying sometimes gives you a new chance to try a situation from a different angle.

FarCry cashes in on its fun factor. It's got a stupid plotline, so here's a gun and shoot some people. It's always a blast trying to decide whether to assail a camp and steal their jeep, or to trek to the top of a mountain and use a hang-glider to float overtop of the level. Had they stuck with this, FarCry would have been a fun game for me all the way through

The Bad
Unfortunately, FarCry suffers from something I call "Half-Life Syndrome," which is when a genuinely good FPS becomes long, frustrating, repetitive and tedious about half-way through due to stupid, arbitrary tasks popping up along the way. You see, it's natural in any FPS to continually up the difficulty as the game goes on until it plateaus somewhere between "Impossible" and "Anal rape." Despite its razor thin and ridiculous plot, I was having an absolute blast frolicking in the jungle until the appearance of these skinless ape things that looked eerily similar to those monsters from Doom 3.

Whoever thought up these things clearly thought the game was not hard enough because these "trigen" as they call them will seriously FUCK YOU UP. On the second easiest mode they will kill you in one hit. That's right, ONE HIT. The only time that mechanic has worked in a video game is when the monster is a one-time-boss, and you're actually meant to run away than actually fight it. But no, once these guys appear they never go away. And what's more is that they're never alone. It's always two or three at a time. The most I've ever fought is seven at a time, after which I needed a fresh application of deodorant. But the true kick in the balls is their twenty foot rape reach of death. So even when you've got your gun trained on them, they can still bridge the distance in under a half a second. I quickly figured out that if they'd already locked eyes with yours then it was already too late and you should just wait for death.

In order to survive the rest of the game I realized needed to bind my left mouse button to quick save and my right mouse button to quick load. That is, of course, if there was saving. It's shocking to see no save feature in a modern computer game. Rather, the game has a checkpoint system which will save for you after it's arbitrarily decided you've done enough tedious shit. This honestly isn't too bad after a while because it gives you a chance to rethink certain situations and how you tackled them and you honestly don’t die enough for it to become an annoyance. Unfortunately, after previously said arrival of trigens, just killing a room full of them becomes a heroic accomplishment in itself, yet you won’t be able to save the game until you blast through the next three rooms full of them. This turns the game into a mad rush to the next checkpoint and makes the game an utter chore. Imagine doing ten minutes worth of frustrating tedious work only to be sent back by a pissant little ape thing with a bad attitude.

After about half way through the game you start to have problems with the crap Doyle gives you. As soon as you're done the three hour monstrous task of getting from point A to point B to take care of arbitrary task C, Val and Doyle arrive to whisk you away for your next ten mile trek of death. I originally assumed Jack must have had balls the size of oranges due the sheer audacity of wearing a bright red Hawaiian shirt during jungle combat. However, after ten hours of taking orders from two people sitting in a quiet bunker shoveling snacks from the nearby vending machine into their mouths, one does begin to wonder who the man in Jack and Val's relationship is.

After the trigen, the game lost its charm. It became more about surviving until the next checkpoint rather than finding fun ways to sneak up on people and lobotomizing them with a rifle. It became less about freedom and more about getting from point A to point B. All in all the game became a total chore. I found myself wanting to have the game be over with so I could uninstall it to free up some space on my hard drive for a new game.

The Bottom Line
However, for a game that came out in 2004, FarCry is rather spectacular for its adaptive AI and open environments. If you can get past the frustration of dying a lot (and there are tons of people out there that can do this much better than I can), then FarCry is game you shouldn't miss. All around, it’s an FPS gem, one which I'm glad I decided to finally try out. FarCry will certainly keep you entertained and is worth shelling out $20 for.

The Good
Way back in 2001, nVIDIA was shown a technology demo called X-Isle: Dinosaur Island by a small development company known as CryTek, to showcase the capabilities of nVIDIA's new third-generation GPU. nVIDIA was impressed and realized that it had potential, that CryTek was happy to turn it into a complete game, just without the dinosaurs.

Players control Jack Carver, a former special-forces soldier now in the boat charter business, is hired by a woman named Valerie Constantine to take her to an uncharted island in Micronesia. Val knows that something is about to happen so she takes off in a jet ski. Jack's boat is blown up by mercenaries for some reason we don't know. Perhaps the mercs have a bad history dealing with people in Hawaiian shirts. He is left stranded on one of the islands where he uncovers a more sinister plot.

Early on in the game, players pick up a communications device in which Carver uses to make contact with Doyle, who helps him accomplish missions such as stealing a vehicle from a camp and cutting off communication between the islands. Preventing him from doing this will be mercs and creatures that were developed in a lab you eventually infiltrate at the end of the game. You can deal with these situations through stealth or going out with guns blazing.

The artificial intelligence of the mercs is brilliant. They are able to detect noise and go investigate where that noise is coming from – as indicated on Carver's radar - so it is important to get down on the ground and crawl like a snake. When they do spot Carver, they will open fire and move about in a specific pattern, making it difficult to get a clear shot. One thing I find amusing is the way they hide behind trees or rocks and demand where you are.

You can take down enemies with a variety of weapons such as handguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers, with each weapon more effective in certain situations. The rocket launchers, for example, is ideal for blowing up enemies from a long distance. You can only carry four weapons at a time, but can drop one of yours for something a bit better.

Another thing that Carver carries around with him is a pair of binoculars. Not only can these be used to locate any enemies in a distance, but its built-in sound enhancer allows him to eavesdrop on conversations. I found that most of these conversations interesting, since they usually give you a hint on what you need to do later.

As I just mentioned, you have to steal a vehicle from one of the camps, but you also have a chance to commandeer trucks and patrol boats and jeeps. It may be fun to drive around and mow down enemies that get in your way, but these transport is prone to damage, possibly by mercs aiming their rockets at it. My personal favorite are the hang gliders that give you a bird's-eye views of the island, and it is easy to control them once you get used to it.

I normally avoided going out too far into the horizon, for fear it would send unwanted choppers to my location. I also liked driving the jeeps as it allows you to mow down any merc that happens to get in your way. The highlight of this game is using the binoculars that you pick up earlier to not only look at distant areas close-up but to eavesdrop on the enemy's conversations. The conversations are interesting, with some talking about Carver. You can also haul a grenade in their direction, and they become alerted, actually trying to hone in on your location.

Far Cry was the first game that utilized the CryEngine, which was quite new at the time. The engine provided humongous indoor and outdoor areas, as well as the ability to see long distances. There were times that I really wanted to wander off the main island and go exploring an island that is completely isolated, but I risked summoning an attack helicopter that cannot be shot down, even if you hurl a few rockets at it. Also, I like the shadows that get reflected on whatever weapon you are carrying as you pass by palm trees. By the way, I like how they just sprout out from the ground as you approach the island.

Far Cry uses a checkpoint system, in which the game is automatically saved when you cover a certain distance. I quite like this system, because you are not limited to a certain amount of save slots and it allows you to go back and play each chapter again if you like the missions that occur in that chapter.

The game comes with its own sandbox editor that allow players to create their own levels, and there are plenty of mods out there for other players to have a go at. In my opinion, the best mod out there is “First Contact”, a mission that has you exploring the planet Hestia evaluating its possible risk/benefit to humanity. It features a beautiful alien world and contains a story well worth diving into. There are even total conversions that upgrade the game to today's standards.

The Bad
The action turns to dark red when the mercs are shooting at you from all directions. This, combined with the flashes their bullets produce, is enough to hurt your eyes. Also, when you attempt to take out an enemy using the sniper rifle, the crosshair jumps around even if you don't move the mouse, making it difficult to get a clear shot.

I talked about how the artificial intelligence of the mercs is brilliant: the way they move and shoot, making it difficult for you to get a clear shot. But some of their actions are questionable. I've seen one merc stand behind another while opening fire, resulting in the merc in front go down. Then, there's the situation where you throw a grenade at a merc just standing in the same spot. In this case, he will stand there waiting to be blown up.

I didn't like how Val kept Carver company near the end of the game. The annoying thing about her is the way that she gets ahead of you and risk being shot at. She can get killed, and when she does, you get killed as well and you have to go back to the last checkpoint, even if you are not low on health.

Also, I found the ending to be rather weak.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, Far Cry is so much better than any first-person shooters before its time. It basically has you walking through breathtaking locations, shooting down mercs that get in your way and completing a set of mission objectives given to you. You can use binoculars to spy on enemies and overhear their conversation, and throw grenades at them occasionally and watch them hunt you down. You can use any weapon you like to take them out, with the basic weapons ideal for taking out enemies earlier in the game. (Too bad about the sniper rifle.) The more heavier weapons are effective against enemy vehicles.

As I mentioned before, users can create their own maps and distribute them freely on the Internet. To be fair, Far Cry isn't the first game to be shipped with a sandbox editor of its kind. Half-Life came out a lot earlier and shipped with the WorldCraft editor.

For their first game, Crytek did an excellent job on making Far Cry reflect real-life situations and introducing features that were unusual for a first-person shooter before its time. The graphics and sound are great, and any FPS gamer should purchase this.

The Good
I marveled on the graphics when i first saw them and I still do now, even though I don't have the best computer they still look damn good. The game was also very fun, I loved how you could be stealthy, or (for most of the game) just go in guns a blazing. The story, characters and voice acting were also good.

The Bad
I thought this game was overly hard in some places and I had to keep trying in the same place over and over again.

The Bottom Line
This game is worth the purchase because it has great gameplay, great graphics, and lots of big explosions. If you haven't got it, get it now!!!