Far Cry

Far Cry : $9.99
Time Played Before: 0 Hours
Time Played After: 10 Hours

Review

Remember when games didn't rely on magical health regen and body armor was a luxury found in the obscure corners of levels? Well, welcome to nostalgia with Far Cry. A run and gun adventure through a jungle, facing both human and non human enemies, on a mission to save the world from an evil genius. Sounds like the plot for a B-list movie, which, I suppose would be a appropriate for Far Cry.

The game starts by showing you on a boat, as a woman speeds off on a jet ski, and then your boat is promptly blown up by an RPG. You're then dropped into the island surrounded by mercenaries. Not much of a start, but at least it gets you to the action right away. You find a device that has an insider on the island willing to help you. He leads you into secret bases, blowing up targets, along boat rides through rivers swarming  with mercs, and generally just gets you into trouble. All of this ultimately leads to a story that is bigger than just escaping the island, and has to do with the mystery woman at the beginning, but I won't spoil it.

The mechanics of the game don't work as well as you'd want them to. Stealth seems to be impossible to accomplish. Staying crouched or prone in the grass and moving along silently seem to do nothing, and it doesn't help that there is only one suppressed weapon in the entire game, and it's terrible. The AI seems to instantly know where you are should you take down one of their own, making it really annoying trying to get the jump on them. I gave up trying to be a ninja about 5 minutes in, because it's far easier to run in with guns blazing and shred the opposition with bullets. Granted, I was playing on the normal difficulty, so if you're playing on "realistic", more stealth and the use of cover will be needed I'm sure.

I for one really wish games hadn't gone to the health regen of today. Having to hide behind a box for 4 seconds while my health recovers makes the game far too easy. That is what Far Cry does well. You have a health bar, it gets low, the only way to get it back is to find a med pack. Body armor is lying around as well, and as your mystery friend over the radio tells you, it'll cover up your red Hawaiian shirt your wearing as well. Med packs are still plentiful enough to make the game not frustrating, until some of the later levels with rockets spamming past you.

Gun play is what it's all about, and that is satisfying for the most part. I enjoyed most of the guns, but tended to stick with only a few. You can carry 4 at a time, and most of the time I kept a shotgun, sniper, M4 assault rifle, and a P90 Sub-machine gun. New guns are introduced by enemies  as you get later in the game, but most didn't have the accuracy or range to make them any good in ranged combat, but tear through enemies when you get close. There are no iron sights, which surprised me. All that happens is the reticule zooms in a bit, allowing better accuracy.

Both cars and boats are available for you to commandeer to make your way through the level even easier. As some of the missions are quite expansive, these make the trip through them a bit less tiresome. They're surprisingly weak though, and can be ready to explode in a matter of seconds with enough guns pointed at you.

About a quarter of the way through the game, new enemies suddenly appear in the form of "Trigen". Basically mutated monkey things. They're ugly, they jump long distances at you, and take your health down in an instant. I wasn't really expecting mutant monkeys when I set out on this adventure. The story kind of took a 180 almost instantly, from shooting mercs to shooting monkey creatures. Theses Trigen have no loyalties, and can do your work for you with mercenaries wandering about, but will quickly turn toward you when they run out of targets. Eventually, you get Trigen with guns and rockets. And can cloak. Joy. Really reminds me of the random changes of the Uncharted series, except this happens far sooner.


Graphics are alright for an older game. I remember the big thing with this, which runs on the Crytek engine and was made by the same crew that currently makes the Crysis series, was the draw distance. Really, by now, the distance is comparable to average games, but at the time, being able to zoom in using a sniper or your binoculars, and see or shoot distant enemies was a big deal. Everything else just looks like the typical older game. Textures pop in when you near them, not that they're great. You shouldn't go into the game expecting gorgeous graphics, but remember, the game is quite old at this point, and does hold up well enough to not be painful.


Sound is actually decent, apart from the voice acting. If you do try to stealth, mercs foot steps can be heard along corridors allowing for surprise. Gun fire is booming. Guards actually discuss random things among themselves, usually the bashing of either their leader or you. As for the voice acting of the 5 people that speak the most, it's awful. I'm not sure if they were going for as corny and played out as possible, but they nailed it. The player sounds quite a bit like Duke Nukem, minus the fun. It's just bad. He makes jokes that nobody would laugh at. I really wanted to skip cut scenes more than once because of it.

Story is weird. At the beginning, there really isn't much of one. As you explore, you learn more, things like the woman was with CIA, and chose you to transport her because you have spec ops training. It really all comes down to an evil genius wanting to better man kind, by wiping them out with a jump in evolution. It's utterly ridiculous, but it still made me want to see the ending.

Final Verdict

Gameplay: 7/10
Graphics: 6/10
Sound: 6/10
Story: 4/10
Replay: 2/10

Overall: 5/10

There's really nothing wrong with Far Cry, it just doesn't stand out with today's bloated market of FPS. I really enjoyed the old school way of health and armor, but that doesn't justify its mediocrity elsewhere. The story is absolutely as weird as it gets, and it told with some of the worst voice acting I've heard in a while. If you enjoy older style FPS games, try it out, otherwise, just stick to the newer games in the series.

Next Spin will occur later tonight.