Posted April 06, 2009
Back in 2004 Far Cry was the Crysis of today. It required then high specs just to get to the menu. It was essentially a tech demo for the CryTek engine, showcasing its ability to render the beautiful landscape of Far Cry, in astounding detail.
Graphics: I’m not going to lie, Far Cry, even 5 years later still looks good. On its maximum settings the game looks great. The enormous jungle setting, and the indoor sections, all look well designed and create a unique atmosphere of being a predator stalking prey.
Audio/Music: Passable, the guns sound meaty and the voices are cheesy as hell. Jack (the main character) particularly annoyed me, sounding like your typical “Johnny Kick-ass” of other games. The music is honestly, forgettable at best; I didn’t pay much attention to it.
Story: You’re this dude who gets persuaded by this hot chick to go on an island. As soon as your boat docks you get shot at by these other dudes and you split up. That’s what I gathered from the opening scene. The story feels very hallow, mutants and other such creatures get involved in the mix too and you have to pursue the chick and the evil scientist. It’s really a cut and paste of pretty much any action film ever; and partially a self parody, (at least that’s what I got from it) it’ll put a smile on your face if you like B-Movies.
Gameplay: This is where the game takes one step forward, two steps back. First off, the most glaring problem is the lack of a quick saving feature. The game uses a checkpoint system, this is highly aggravating as the checkpoints can be poorly placed, often times after major firefights when you have so little life left that stubbing your big toe could kill you.
Speaking of firefights, the enemy A.I is intelligent for the most part. The mercs will flank you and go though the usual motions. However, they are able to fire at you from seemingly hundreds of feet away and manage to hit (and possibly kill) you. They also have the ability to withstand a rather generous amount of attacks; it gets worse when the guys with body armor start showing up too.
The mutants are another story; they will rush you and occasionally sneak up on you from above, behind and so on. They can render your armor useless (read: destroyed in one hit) and maim you easily; this coupled with the fact that they like too attack in groups makes them formidable foes. (Oh, and don’t get me started on the ones that use guns, especially the rocket launcher guys)
As for the weapons, they are your typical FPS fare of pistol, melee weapon, shotgun, SMGs, rifles and so on. They all fill an archetypal niche. The catch is that you can only carry 4 weapons at a time. This isn’t really a problem as there are only a few weapons that you’ll want to really carry through out the game anyway because of the bullet soaking enemies.
The game also has a light stealth element to it; you can sneak up on unsuspecting enemies and give them a nice lead sandwich. Often they’ll usually turn around and you’ll be loading a checkpoint before you can say “surprise!”
In terms of achieving your objectives, most of the time there will be two routes to do it because the island is so large. There’s straight forward “gung-ho, guns blazing” method and what I like to call “the not so guns blazing kinda sneaky method.” The former gets you killed often, the latter not so much, as you usually attack from above or behind the enemy. Both ways are viable options even if they lead you to the exact same conclusion. Your mileage may vary depending on your skill level/difficulty selected.
Vehicles also play a role in navigating through the island, they usually come with some kind of armament, but they make so much noise and alert just about anything with a pair of ears that you might as well just go on foot. The controls of the vehicles can be clunky at times, but they seem to control as fluidly as when you’re on foot.
I’d also like to mention that there is a multiplayer mode; however, I wasn’t able to find any servers so I can’t comment on that.
Overall, Far Cry is a neat tech demo for what the Cry Tek engine was able to do. As a game it really just has its unique setting and decent gameplay going for it. If you see it for something cheaper than say, 15 dollars, pick it up for a pretty, albeit frustrating experience. A half hearted recommendation, go in with caution.
Graphics: I’m not going to lie, Far Cry, even 5 years later still looks good. On its maximum settings the game looks great. The enormous jungle setting, and the indoor sections, all look well designed and create a unique atmosphere of being a predator stalking prey.
Audio/Music: Passable, the guns sound meaty and the voices are cheesy as hell. Jack (the main character) particularly annoyed me, sounding like your typical “Johnny Kick-ass” of other games. The music is honestly, forgettable at best; I didn’t pay much attention to it.
Story: You’re this dude who gets persuaded by this hot chick to go on an island. As soon as your boat docks you get shot at by these other dudes and you split up. That’s what I gathered from the opening scene. The story feels very hallow, mutants and other such creatures get involved in the mix too and you have to pursue the chick and the evil scientist. It’s really a cut and paste of pretty much any action film ever; and partially a self parody, (at least that’s what I got from it) it’ll put a smile on your face if you like B-Movies.
Gameplay: This is where the game takes one step forward, two steps back. First off, the most glaring problem is the lack of a quick saving feature. The game uses a checkpoint system, this is highly aggravating as the checkpoints can be poorly placed, often times after major firefights when you have so little life left that stubbing your big toe could kill you.
Speaking of firefights, the enemy A.I is intelligent for the most part. The mercs will flank you and go though the usual motions. However, they are able to fire at you from seemingly hundreds of feet away and manage to hit (and possibly kill) you. They also have the ability to withstand a rather generous amount of attacks; it gets worse when the guys with body armor start showing up too.
The mutants are another story; they will rush you and occasionally sneak up on you from above, behind and so on. They can render your armor useless (read: destroyed in one hit) and maim you easily; this coupled with the fact that they like too attack in groups makes them formidable foes. (Oh, and don’t get me started on the ones that use guns, especially the rocket launcher guys)
As for the weapons, they are your typical FPS fare of pistol, melee weapon, shotgun, SMGs, rifles and so on. They all fill an archetypal niche. The catch is that you can only carry 4 weapons at a time. This isn’t really a problem as there are only a few weapons that you’ll want to really carry through out the game anyway because of the bullet soaking enemies.
The game also has a light stealth element to it; you can sneak up on unsuspecting enemies and give them a nice lead sandwich. Often they’ll usually turn around and you’ll be loading a checkpoint before you can say “surprise!”
In terms of achieving your objectives, most of the time there will be two routes to do it because the island is so large. There’s straight forward “gung-ho, guns blazing” method and what I like to call “the not so guns blazing kinda sneaky method.” The former gets you killed often, the latter not so much, as you usually attack from above or behind the enemy. Both ways are viable options even if they lead you to the exact same conclusion. Your mileage may vary depending on your skill level/difficulty selected.
Vehicles also play a role in navigating through the island, they usually come with some kind of armament, but they make so much noise and alert just about anything with a pair of ears that you might as well just go on foot. The controls of the vehicles can be clunky at times, but they seem to control as fluidly as when you’re on foot.
I’d also like to mention that there is a multiplayer mode; however, I wasn’t able to find any servers so I can’t comment on that.
Overall, Far Cry is a neat tech demo for what the Cry Tek engine was able to do. As a game it really just has its unique setting and decent gameplay going for it. If you see it for something cheaper than say, 15 dollars, pick it up for a pretty, albeit frustrating experience. A half hearted recommendation, go in with caution.