Far Cry®

Well the game is old, witch means you can max out the graphics fairly easily. And they do look awfully good. Especially in the latest 1.4 version where you have HDR and the ability to put on various visual filters, for example there is a mode to make everything look cold, there is the enhanced color mode, the tropical paradise mode, and my personal favorite, the cartoon mode. Yes you can play this game as a cartoon. The game play I think is very fun. The guns all feel right, and there are many guns, and the levels are very well designed. Basely, you have to go complete the objective on a jungle level filled with angry mercenaries. It is fun. There are cars, forts, bunkers, boats, and multiple paths to every objective. It is as I have heard Crysis described: a "Sandbox Shooter". Oh and the violence is most excellent. The story sucks, in a good way. It is like one of those bad Sci-Fi Channel movies. But it is genuinely enjoyable like that. This game is funny at times as well. The mercenary barracks are all full of "Red Neck Magazine" and "Guns Magazine", or even "PlayMerc". The enemies say the most ridiculous phrases, and every cut scene is cheesy. My few complaints about this game are: -No real Iron Sights, just a Fallout 3 style zoom thing. -The later levels are much more railed and not as free roaming. -The friendly AI sucks. I had to restart a level a few time to get my lady friend to follow me correctly. But this game is so enjoyable that I can easily overlook these problems. Before you play this game remember to set the body fade away to 999 seconds. Makes the game more fun.

I bought this from Fry's in their discount section 4 years ago for 9.99 and was shockingly surprised how good the graphics were and how immersed I became in the story. Most games become boring at some point in the linear story, but Far Cry made me want to find out the end, like any good movie and that's exactly how I felt playing this game. I truly felt it was the first cinematic gaming experience I'd experienced While it is a first rate shooter, you will at times need stealth and patience. If you like shooters with a story, you will not be disappointed. The one area I felt could have been improved was in the land vehicle driving, cumbersome is the word. Other than that, just an excellent game. Graphics: A+ Sound: A+ Story: A+ Immersion: A+ Value: A+

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.

I think calling Far Cry a "thinking man's shooter" is perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but there's no denying that it plays differently from most other FPS games, particularly on Realistic difficulty. Every enemy is potentially quite dangerous, and you want to use every tactical edge you can manufacture for yourself, but much of the early and mid-game boils down to patient elimination of soldiers unwisely staying in camp from extreme range. Fortunately, in later levels you are forced into the effective range of the AI, and start encountering real threats. The game really shines here, except where level design or planning issues produce irritating bugs or effectively force you to use exploitive tactics. GRAPHICS: When it came out, this game was praised from all corners for its gorgeous graphics, and 6 years later it still looks wonderful. Good draw distance, lush foliage, nice lighting, sparkling water . . . it has a lot. Character models don't look wonderful up close, particularly your disturbing lizard neck in cutscenes, but overall, it stands up very well. Fortunately, what once required a high-end rig to run reasonably can now be handled by a relatively modest modern machine (but a good one will let you really crank everything up, and it will be ever so nice). It is certainly the most graphically advanced game on GOG as of the beginning of 2011. All of that engine power is well-used, both in sprawling, lush outdoor jungles and beaches and in shadowy, sometimes creepily-lit base interiors. Not only is everything pretty, the designers have done a good job creating the right atmosphere for every area. CONTROLS and GAMEPLAY: It's your standard FPS control set, with a 4-weapon inventory. Throughout much of the game, you're likely to primarily use two, switching as tactics and the ammo on your most recent victims demand, while the other two slots hold a sniper rifle and occasionally a rocket launcher. You'll quickly learn that the machete is essentially useless, so drop it when you have a good chance to increase your tactical options or ammo capacity. Your armament options are pretty standard fare: a pistol, M4 assault rifle followed later by two increasingly advanced models (AG36 and OICW) with low-power scopes and underslung grenade launchers, MP5 (silenced) and P90 SMGs, a combat shotgun, a nice 50 cal sniper rifle, a rocket launcher, an M249 machine gun, and a machete that turns out to be not only weak but noisy as well. I found that I mostly used the best AR I could get my hands on for accurate long range shots, the P90 at short ranges for its lovely rate of fire, and the shotgun against the sturdy trigens when ammo was available. You rarely find ammo without a gun, so if you run out, replace the empty one to broaden your options. In my usual ammo-hoarding way, I underused the sniper rifle, but with patience and sufficient ammo, the AR will serve at range, particularly the highly accurate and slightly scoped advanced models. Most scopeless weapons have a slight "zoom" in which you presumably focus on the iron sights, although your view does not. As with many "realistic" games, using the scope induces some random swaying, particularly if you are standing or crouching (prone is pretty stable) - amusingly this makes the rocket launcher more accurate at most ranges when you are *not* zoomed in. On realistic, you can't take many hits, and the enemy are both reasonably good at finding you and capable of spotting and hitting you at a surprising range. This means that whenever possible, you'll want to sneak around the outskirts of camps or beaches and pick off enemies from as far away as you can - when you have ample AR ammo, this is often just the maximum draw distance while prone and zoomed. When you're far enough out, you can just burn ammo until enough shots have hit to take out all or most of the enemies - they generally will not come for you (although they do at least attempt to take cover, which just means you have to wait and/or burn more ammo to finish the job). Similar rules apply for patrol boats, and carefully picking off the driver and gunner will provide you with a nice supply of rockets for shore bombardment, which is always enjoyable and does speed things along quite nicely. Vehicles work quite nicely, and enemy vehicles are reasonably effective enemies if you wander into their target zone, but most spend all their time on programmed tracks and don't change their behavior under fire unless they spot you. Deep in foliage or at extreme range, you're completely safe. Your magical target-tracking binoculars will help you spot enemies when they are concealed in foliage, although you can't fire in that mode; this is primarily useful for verifying that you've cleared a camp as much as possible before approaching to take out the last few hiding out of sight among the buildings. Fortunately, you can't always get adequate sight lines from really far out, so you have to get close enough that enemy soldiers will respond to your attacks by sending out a hunting party. The AI occasionally uses flanking tactics, so you'll have to think about maneuvering and finding concealment whence you can pick off incoming enemies one by one. This does liven up the game a bit, and the game gets points for occasionally sneaking up behind me when I thought I was safe [listening carefully for rustling leaves can save your life!] Later in the game, a lot of time will be spent indoors, where you will need to use corners and chokepoints creatively. A lot of areas are designed with loops, and the AI will properly employ these, sometimes even leaving a couple soldiers to distract you from the front while their buddies come around the side. Some soldiers even know how to sneak silently, which is a rude awakening the first time it happens to you! You will also eventually meet the trigens, who are both quite tough (bring a shotgun) and eventually armed; they do make things a bit more interesting because you can't hide around a corner and just headshot them when they show up - a few bullets to the braincase won't finish them off before they maul you. Most interesting and at times irritating are elite soldiers toting riot shields, who need to be staggered by a hearty helping of lead and then quickly shot before they get their shield back up. I didn't really use grenades much until I started meeting those, but boy did I need them then! On the grenades note: you have HE, smoke, and flash grenades, and each can be useful. Unfortunately, on Realistic it is all too common for one guy to either successfully evade the flash or decide to "spray-and-pray", so flashbangs are mostly a desperation tactic to cover a retreat. You can also throw rocks, which on realistic rarely does much, but in a couple cases can be a helpful distraction. Unfortunately, in water more than knee-deep, you can't fire weapons or throw anything at all, and one of the most irritating shortcomings is that there is no melee other than the terrible machete (which won't stagger most enemies), so if you're out of ammo, you may be completely unable to cause damage in any way. Sneaking around is vitally important in this game, but while foliage cover is critical and the tactical value of sneaking is undeniable, the combat value of stealth is extremely low - sneaking up directly behind someone does not allow you to quickly or quietly slit their throat, so you might as well shoot them in the head from a distance. Once aroused, the AI will usually search thoroughly, so you can't unrealistically melt into the shadows after taking out half the guys in a room. This does feel a lot less silly, but it means that play indoors requires a fair bit of traditional twitch shooting: you better put some lead in every head that comes into view, and quickly too. STORY/ACTING: A typical and often over-the-top James Bond plot, essentially - nothing new or special here. The protagonist's voice acting isn't great, but there isn't too much of it. You aren't here for the plot, and it sure ain't Half Life 2. Your occasional companion Val isn't too bad either (although in a fight she's kind of stupid [never crouches, wears white, ignores firefights if she's facing the wrong way and sometimes charges enemies patrolling a populated base while you are trying to stay in cover 200 feet away]). I actually liked the missions where I had to follow her between objectives, because she forced me to play a bit less conservatively and really use all the tools at my disposal to successfully push to the target (and she's a decent shot and not too delicate). So, the game gets no points whatsoever for originality ore acting, but doesn't lose any for being painful either. DIFFICULTY: This depends heavily on how you're used to playing games. I play like a sniper all the time, and I'm cautious and conservative whether I need to be or not; thus I really enjoy games that force me out of that comfort zone, and I found the basic gameplay of Far Cry both a good fit and not all that challenging. However, in those levels where deliberate and methodical sniping isn't an option, the challenge definitely rises. There are a few sections that will seriously pile on the pressure, including a defense segment with wave after wave of elite troops, many carrying riot shields; a push into a big, open cylindrical ramp that brings down a small horde of the same guys; and the final big mutant fight where you can only barely bring in enough ammo to deal with the overdose of rocket-launching superheavies. Plenty of other sections will throw unpleasant surprises and unexpected flanking maneuvers your way, so it stays pretty interesting. Unfortunately, part of the difficulty comes from bugs in the way that some set pieces and some of the much lauded nonlinearity are implemented. While the game is objective-driven and mostly linear, you can indeed take different paths ith the big outdoor levels . . . but this may rob you of critical checkpoints. Sneaking around the back way to every single radio tower in that level worked pretty well for me, but in a couple levels I spent half an hour or more wandering about and cleaning out camps without triggering a single checkpoint. I generally survived, but ocassionally by the skin of my teeth . . . and sometimes I didn't. Worse though is the method they've chosen to keep the wonderful and cinematic soldiers vs. trigens battles going - until you pass certain invisible boundaries (which often are not checkpoints), all enemies in some areas are invincible or respawn once they've taken lethal damage . . . without dropping ammo. In a game that encourages sniping from a distance, this can lead to a lot of accidentally wasted ammo, and a lot of aggravation when you're not sure. It feels rather silly to sneak around a battlefield searching for an invisible trigger so that you can finally sneak back to your sniping position, wait for it to resolve, then pick off the survivors. However, the worst problems occurred in (at least) two areas with multiple paths to the exit, one of which was the mesoamerican ruins battle. There are three trigger points that set off different enemy arrivals, and you can get them to fight each other . . . but if you set them off in several apparently-untested orders that work particularly well for starting the fight, you will make some of the enemies permanently enter a respawn loop. This is bad enough in general principle, but when one of those enemies is a rocket-launching heavy that spawns in the next area you have to pass, and walks down the only hallway to enter it, this becomes a little bit problematic. In one of the cases, I never did manage to trigger things in the "right" order, and had to charge through a room full of effectively invincible defenders until I was able to set off the next trigger or checkpoint, mortalizing them and enabling me to desperately fight them down. This was an interesting challenge and a great opportunity to use those special grenades I'd been hoarding . . . but not exactly the most fair gaming experience. The final level is composed of three segments, all hard, but only one really enjoyable. The first presents you with a lovely arsenal, then traps you in a fairly small room with a bunch of elite troops who spread out and use the ample cover on their end very effectively. This took a lot of tries and a few tactics, but was very fun. The second is a boss fight that was depressingly easy once I figured out the only apparent way to not get splattered. The third was the aformentioned area where you hardly have enough ammo, in which you also lack proper cover and which I was only able to beat by taking advantage of the AI in a way that felt fairly cheap (the popular method seems to be to exploit the doors so that you can escape the arena - but I have since then watched a walkthrough and learned that the M249 does a lot more damage than I realized and would have let me beat the level in a much "fairer" way with similar tactics . . . although then it wouldn't really have been much of a challenge anymore [on further reflection I'm not sure I believe that he was playing realistic, given another video where he clearly is not]). LEVELS, STRATEGY, and OTHER ELEMENTS: I mostly covered this in the section above. A few of the levels have bugged triggers that can result in invincible enemies blocking your path, and sometimes taking advantage of the flexible open world (when possible) can leave you without any checkpoints . . . but overall the levels are well designed, and reasonably varied. Camps are a bit cookie-cutter, but there's only so much you can do with quick-assemble buildings, some tents, some turrets, and a tower or two. The different surrounding landscapes provide some variation in base-clearing strategy One aggravating level not mentioned above is a driving section where you're manning the hideously unprotected turret in a jeep that Val drives. It's effectively a rail shooter, since all you can do is swivel and fire, and it involves a swing through an occupied base with too many targets to effectively cover at once (you simultaneously enter the field of fire of two snipers and at least 4 others). Even if you ace the entire previous run, taking out all opposing vehicles with minimal ammunition expended and no damage to yourself (which I did consistently), at Realistic difficulty it is quite a crapshoot whether or not whichever of the guys you aren't focusing on gets in the few lucky shots needed to kill you; I tried many different orders and even saved rockets for the base, and only succeeded essentially by luck after a lot of tries (after viewing some videos it seems that I may have been paying insufficient attention to the second sniper, but I was getting a lot more fire from those guys on the ramp than I've seen in any video). Be careful about checkpoints, as it is possible to trigger them with enemies nearby. In the waterfall run level, I triggered the checkpoint right before the helicopter with a trigen on my back, in leaping range. Loading that point resulted in immediate death except if I turned and dodged in a very specific way, and then successfully zig zagged all the way to the water to shake the beast. The time it took to do this allowed enough further enemies to show up that I had to just keep going, which triggered an unexpected helicopter attack (without warning from doyle), but I managed to reach the opposite shore, triggering yet another checkpoint that teleported me back to the downed chopper. Unusual behavior and very odd. THE VERDICT: I am only giving minor bad marks for the overly hard jeep-on-rails section and a couple other irritating bits because I did choose to play on Realistic (although that really feels like how the game is meant to be played), and I may well have been doing something wrong. However, the trigger-point bugs and other checkpoint weakness are not only frustrating, but also really break the otherwise solid immersion . . . and having to go back several checkpoints and redo good work simply to figure out how to avoid triggering a game bug is much worse than just failing to reach the end of a too-hard segment. A game with that sort of problem (particularly when it is repeated) simply can't earn a 5 in my book. However, outside of the problematic sections, it's a solid game, with a nice level of challenge, a good feel, lovely graphics, and some fun guns. A very solid 4.