Far Cry

The Good
A while back, maybe six months or so, I was cruising gametrailers.com and saw a trailer for the game "Far Cry." The trailer was titled "AI" or something. This, my friends, was the worst trailer I've ever seen. The entire three-or-so minute video focused on this "advanced" AI which featured enemies taking cover behind rocks, walking around doing nothing, scratching their butts, and yelling to each other during combat. It was wholly unimpressive. I couldn't help but think Far Cry was going to be the dumbest waste of time I've ever played. I mean, "idle animation"? Come on. Idle enemy animations have been the norm since Goldeneye 64 and probably before that, even. "Advanced AI"? I saw a guy take cover behind a rock. What the heck is so incredible about that? Quake 2 was doing that quite well all those years ago.

Yeah, Far Cry looked like just another mediocre half-assed first-person shooter.

Having spent the last twenty-or-so hours playing through this remarkable game, I must confess I couldn't have been more wrong. To say this game is anything less than great is near blasphemy. This game absolutely blew away all my expectations, and it has raised the bar significantly in the first-person shooter genre. This game has made a great leap, much as Doom had before it, and Wolfenstein 3D before that.

But where to begin? Well, let's start with what is probably the most obvious orgasmic element: the graphics. Any reasonably detailed screenshot will give you a good idea of how amazing the graphics in this game are. The tropical jungle-covered islands, surrounded by beautifully rendered water. The highly detailed character models, the guns, the buildings, the...the everything. Yeah. Everything in this game just looks beautiful. I don't think I've played a game yet that has just looked...so very beautiful.

My favorite part of the game, however, is not the graphics. No, graphics, beautiful as they are in this game, usually take a back seat in my judgement of games. And this was another element I was skeptical about. Sure, it looks good, but that doesn't make a good game. Oh, but was I ever surprised, for what this game should be hailed for is the sheer size of the levels and the nonlinearity of it all. Well, to call it nonlinear is perhaps misleading. After all, all your objectives are straightforward: get to point B without getting killed along the way, and pick up a key card while you're at it. But there are ALWAYS more than one way to accomplish any given task. There are almost always a different route you can take, a different object you can utilize, a different method of attack. Every time you replay an area, chances are you'll be doing it different than the way you did it before. Imagine: a group of soldiers are guarding something in a small shack alongside a beach. You could A) Sneak through the jungle foliage and silently pick them off one by one, B) See that explosive barrel over there by where those guys are? C) Find an alternate route and attack them from the flank, D) Just rush in and kill'em all like a maniac, E) You wander the beach, considering your options, when suddenly a patrol boat spots you. They open fire on you and you take cover behind a rock. They call the soldiers from the dock that were guarding that object to come assist. This, my friend, only opens you up to even more options. Do you shoot the soldiers in the boat, commandeer the vessel, go around to the docks, shoot whomever's left guarding the object, grab it, hop back in your boat and drive away while all the soldiers are on their way to where the distress was called from...or what? What do you do? You have but moments to think, but your options are nearly endless.

Did I mention the size of the levels themselves? Granted, these levels require a pretty long loading time, but oh it is so worth it. In almost all cases, whatever you see in front of you, all around the island, from top to bottom, underneither perhaps, around the other side, up the mountainside or into caves, it is all part of the level. You can pretty much go anywhere in the level at any time, although typically you'll be heading to your main objective.

The vehicles are awesome as well, if a bit funky to control. Various jeeps with a gun turret, a patrol boat with a gun turret, a hang glider, a motor boat, large trucks, fork lifts...take your pick and take'im for a spin. Some levels are set up for great stunts, too. One of the first levels will probably send you soaring over a cliff in a jeep. It's magnificient the first (and fiftieth!) time you do it.

Not only are the levels gigantic, but they're varied as well. There is also a continuity to the game. The course of the game takes place over two days, I believe, and you're awake through pretty much all of it. You start out in the day, and as you progress you enter the night, then morning again, and watch again as it gets darker as you go on. Some levels take place on giant ships, small campsites, enemy bunkers and bases, caves, rivers, swamps, and of course the jungles, cliffsides, mountain peaks, even a volcano. And what's really great is that none of it seems out of place. This game boasts its ability to render a massive enviornment, but unlike some games that have boasted such things in the past, the indoor environments look just as good. The game transitions from indoor to outdoor absolutely flawlessly.

The physics! In Max Payne 2, when enemies died, they sort of just fell apart like sacks of flour. In Far Cry...well, it just looks so much better. More lifelike. And corpses have wounds on their body, so you can see just where and how much damage you inflicted upon them.

The greatest thing, perhaps, about this game is the immersion. A lot of people will scoff at the lack of a quicksave feature, but I, for one, have never appreciated the lack of it as much as I do having played this game. I'm a sucker for the quicksave. I probably quicksave three or four times a minute in most games. I just can't help it. But Far Cry doesn't let you do that, and that is just...oh, how can I explain it? The checkpoints occur often enough that you won't get frustrated with the levels, and while you're PLAYING the levels...oh, man, it is just plain intense. Knowing there is no quicksave, knowing that if you die you'll have to revert back to your old save...well, that's one thing. But picture this. You find yourself in a shootout just outside some installation. You take cover behind some barrels while the enemy soldiers continue to shoot at you, knocking the barrels around and attempting to get you to come out. You're low on ammo, but you think you can take them, if you're good. You reload and get ready to pop out and shoot when you hear a massive growling sound. From above, mutant apes suddenly pounce on the soldiers and one comes after you. You waste an entire clip on the quick moving opponent and watch in delight as the apes chew up the soldiers. You realize now that perhaps you don't have the ammo to take your opponents. Your fear is confirmed when you see a jeep pull up and more soldiers pour out. And you are even more certain of your demise when from the bushes come a behemoth creature with a rocket for an arm. Screams and gunfire fill the air in chaos and you are most certainly dead...except for the jeep. You sprint right through the middle of the battle, taking a moment to shotgun a soldier in the face to keep him out of your way. You leap into the jeep and peel off just as a crazed mutant ape jumps at you -- and misses, barely. Just down the road you see a pack of monsters coming your way. You slam on the breaks, spin a '180 and floor it. You run over that damn monkey that tried to get at you, you drive, and drive, and you drive the hell away from there, the sounds of chaos slowly fading behind you. You see the "saving game..." message, and you realize you're safe.

Imagine that sort of thing happening a lot.

This game is not just run 'n gun. It has a lot of scary-as-hell elements at times, too. When the power goes out and the lights turn off and all you hear is the drip-drip-drip of water...and then "grrrroOOWWWLL!!".

The AI is also exceptional. While it does make mistakes (I think at this point in time it's still impossible to make truly lifelike AI) it feels more like an actual...well, human mistake. But in either case, the AI is great. Enemies will flank you, even going for that extra detail by physically issuing each other orders. They'll take cover behind trees and rocks, they'll crouch and sneak toward you in the foliage. They'll go for the high ground and snipe you from there. They are devious, and for the most part, really, really good. They're not omnipitent, either. They won't always see you, just as you won't always see them.

And on top of all that, the game has some twenty levels. Considering the size of any given level, this will keep you busy for hours and hours.

Far Cry...what a beautiful game you are.

The Bad
Of course, like any game, this game too has its flaws.

First of all, the story. The story is great, I think, but what the HELL is the back-story? Who the hell ARE you, and WHY are you here? I'm sure if I read the manual or looked it up on the 'net I might know, but the game really introduces you into the story in an awkward way. The very first thing you see is a cinematic of your boat getting hit by a rocket and you finding yourself hunted by mercenaries and you yourself hunting them, following the orders of some scientist and for what reason you don't really know.

One particular level is the stealth mission from Hell. I usually prefer stealth missions, but this one...it's just rediculous. I don't know many games that have had a more difficulty stealth mission than this one. Well, I guess it makes it all that much better when you beat it :)

Occasionally the ragdolls die in funny ways. I've seen a few enemies die in a sort of Elvis-like stance, and even seen one die looking as though he were doing a back-bend. Every once in a while a guy will die in a way in which part of his body is stuck in the wall, and he'll flip around like a chicken without a head.

The game requires quite a bit of power to run it, and unfortunately that means a great deal of people won't be able to see it. As far as I know, it's also only being released on DVD, so that probably shuts a few more people out. Installation is also 3.5 gigs or more, which may shy away even more people.

The Bottom Line
Far Cry has set a new standard for first-person shooters and games of all genres. The graphics and gameplay is unequalled. The options available to you at any time make this game worth replaying over and over again.

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.