First off, this is a review
of an enhanced version of Far Cry with the 64bit
patch applied. This gives better textures and
graphics, apparently. It's also played using
a quicksave mod, so there's no replaying checkpoints
over and over again.
Now, I'm not sure how good
this game would have looked unpatched on a 2004
spec computer, as there's no way you could run
it at maximum settings. However on a brand new
2011 spec computer built specifically for gaming,
this game can run happily with maximum quality
and resolution. There was one point in the game,
in front of a boat in one of the first levels,
where it ground to an almost complete halt.
Not sure why it did it there, but the rest of
the game ran smoothly.
Now Far Cry was a hugely popular
game from a brand new gaming studio, Crytek,
based in Germany. It's not often that a new
startup releases a game of this quality using
their own engine. It's a fairly amazing feat,
especially compared to most of the games Germany
puts out.
However as amazing as Far Cry
looks for a 2004 release, I do have to bring
it back to earth as there are other weaknesses
in this game. But I'll talk about the graphics
first. Now Far Cry is the first so-called sandbox
game i've played. Games like Call of Duty, Medal
of Honr and Vietcong had some sandbox elements
where you weren't stuck on an absolutely obvious
linear path, but even Far Cry isn't as open
as I was expecting. There's still 20 levels
which you can only play one at a time. You can't
decide to return to the island from the first
level at the end of the game. And many of these
levels are quite linear, especially the indoor
ones. There's a few where you can pick a path
across an island, but your destination is always
the same. Of course this is kind of a good thing
for me, because I don't mind some linearity
so I know where I'm supposed to be going.
The outdoor levels all look
amazing. No game I've played up until 2004 (and
for a couple years following Far Cry) comes
close to the huge scale and tropical beauty
of Far Cry. No other shooter comes close to
the awe-inspring scenic scenes, as you climb
a mountain and can look back at the ocean and
cliffs you just climbed. It's truely epic.
Unfortunately this quality
isn't carried through to the indoor levels.
Ships, catacomb, factories, bases... everything
indoor sets the par back to average. In fact
every time an indoor level interrupted my enjoyment,
all I could think about was getting back to
the lush jungle in, hopefully, the next level.
The indoors are just plain, lacking detail and
you really see that the CryEngine doesn't come
close to id Tech 4 or Unreal Engine 2+ at close-up
visual eye candy. What it does well is huge
sprawling levels. But everything does look a
little cartoony and unrealistic, not helped
by the average CryEngine lighting.
What Far Cry also fails at
is a story. You're thrust into a game after
an epileptic low quality intro apparently trying
to save an oddly clothed women with some random
person helping you on the phone. Perhaps I was
supposed to read the readme to get an idea of
the plot, but as you start the game you have
no idea who you're supposed to be or why your
trying to save the girl. And none of that really
changes throughout the game. Ultimately, the
story is an afterthought.
Other weaknesses are the models.
The Trigen look like they came from a 90's shooters,
even the human models look average.
Now, I played Far Cry on medium
difficulty with a quicksave, which in same cases
I used enough to make it worthwhile. I imagine
this game, in it's later stages, would have
become very frustrating with limited checkpoints.
A couple times my quicksave corrupted and I
had to use checkpoints. One of which took me
back almost 10 minutes of gameplay. So playing
this game with checkpoints, I repeat, would
have been painful. In particular the last level
where you'll get obliterated in a couple of
seonds by enemies which are too far away for
you to shoot if you have the wrong weapons (which
I did). So I threw god mode on, ran out into
the open where I could actually see the enemy
because once they get too far away the engine
doesn't render the characters even though they're
still shooting at you, which itself is another
major flaw in the game. And with god mode on
slaughtered everyone as quick as possible and
kept notice of how many times I would have died
without god mode (a handy feature of this particular
cheat). 130 times was the answer, which is ridiculous
with no quick save.
So overall the last couple
of levels were very poorly done, but overall
the gameplay was all standard realistic shooter
type action. Not too difficult, in fact quite
easy for the first half of the game. Apart from
driving sections because Crytek failed miserably
at providing a usuable vehicle.
So for 2004, Far Cry is one
of the best games alongside HalfLife 2 and Doom
3. It renders non-linear (but not totally sandbox)
outdoor areas like no other game before it.
It's worth playing just for this. In all other
aspects (gameplay, indoor levels, story), it's
just another shooter.
