FarCry is two games in one: The first game is a graphically groundbreaking game with huge, lush outdoor levels and sandbox gameplay, where it's up to you to figure out how to traverse the jungle from point A to point B, and what plan of attack (or stealth!) you want. The second game is the third-rate corridor levels you have to put up with. It's as if they were designed by an entirely different staff of developers: nonsensical layouts, buggy implementation (don't get me started on the map "Steam"), and trigens whose swipes can somehow kill you from across the room. It's as if no one even playtested these levels. Skip them. Just open the console and skip the corridor levels outright. They're in no way worth playing, not even for the story (which doesn't make sense anyway. I mean, not even remotely: at one point you escape from a nuke, only to find yourself in a cutscene where you've been captured). A complete waste of time. In short: play the jungle levels. Play them a thousand times. 5 stars. But skip the corridor levels, which are mediocre at best, and infuriating at worst.
Some games grow on me. This one withered. I started out liking it--interesting comic book opening, a witty robot companion--but increasingly found myself getting angry. A poor plot and poor design both hamper this game. A sign of poor writing is an inconsistent tone and the tone in this game changes constantly. You're supposedly playing in a dystopian industrial city like Blade Runner, but most of the game is so lighthearted, full of bright colors and carefree music and jokesters, that you'd never know you were supposed to feel oppressed. Even your robot Joey is inconsistent: he starts as your witty companion, talking back to you and attacking everything with his welding torch. Then he disappears for half the game and reappears as a subservient android who acts like a cocker spaniel. What happened to his personality??! And don't get me started on the ending, which doesn't even make sense, but does make you look like a dick. The gameplay is off, too. Several sequences are beyond unintuitive (I have to talk to the gardener before I can walk into the courtroom? Of course!) and there are puzzles that *require* you to change the game speed to proceed. Who in their right mind makes a game with off-screen events that will time out unless you *happen* to know to adjust the game speed?! The wrench cabinet, the steam valve and the cyberworld all suffer from this--you could do every action correctly and still never get anywhere because some hidden event timed out. You could never ever ever finish this game without the hint book to tell you how to get past these moments, and there are several of them. Moreover, the graphics are bad enough that they get in the way of gameplay. The game features a comic book style intro, and then abandons it for the rest of the game. The screens often have items that are so tiny that you could look at them a hundred times without noticing a critical item. How am I supposed to notice the metal plate on the wall when it's dark grey on darker grey in the background and only *six* pixels large!! Add to this the fact that there are several easy-to-find red herrings and you'll pull your hair out trying to figure out why all the stuff you found doesn't work, when the stuff you actually need is so obscure you can't even see find it. And the plot! Your reward for all this obtuse and inconsistent gameplay is an ending that doesn't even make sense. [SPOILER] You end up looking like a dick to the dying man, and then fly off to the wilderness to... hang out with your destroyed tribe and die hungry and alone? Did anyone proof read this script!?!
Moonbase Commander won Gamespot's Best Game No One Played award in 2002. Well you should! This game is EXCELLENT! It's a strategy game that's instantly understandable, easy to play, hard to master, and tons of fun. Throw crawling bombs into the lake, send decoy cluster bombs to take out his anti-air, lob a virus at his hub, and laugh maniacally as he amputates his own arm! The music is hilariously bad. Don't let the Crayola graphics fool you--this is a deep game and a blast to play with friends. A *must* for LAN parties!
