Far Cry

FPS. First Person Shooters. Since their inception, the first person
shooter genre of video gaming has bombarded gamers with hallways
teeming with monsters, corridors dripping with demons or passages
packed with Nazis. Very few games of this ilk have done anything truely
new. Sure weapons have gotten cooler and enemies have gotten bigger,
but for the most part it is the player’s job to navigate an endless
series of tunnels and halls blasting whatever moves and finding the
next door to the next level.

Ubisoft hasn’t completely stepped
away from the familiar formula, but with Far Cry they’ve certainly
given the standard a much needed face lift. The game is not completely
devoid of hallways and monsters, but most of the game takes place on a
lush tropical island, surrounded by miles of water. Progressing through
the story will require you to hit certain points on the map, but
getting to those points aren’t necessarily on a predertimined path. You
have nearly full run of the island, miles and miles of it.

You
are Jack Carver, an ex-marine vacationing in the tropics. After
comissioning the sail boat of a local hottie, your 3 hour cruise soon
turns into an explosive nightmare. Your ship is destroyed in a fiery
blast and you wake up alone and unarmed on an otherwise gorgeous
shimmering beach. A quick look around reveals some sheer cliffs, a
dense jungle and a flock of special ops soldiers who are less than
willing to help you get back to the mainland. As you quickly learn to
take cover, you’re contacted through a PDA by Doyle, a mysterious
stranger willing to help but with a seemingly hidden agenda. Anyone
smell a plot twist? Your first initial reaction is to get off the
island, but you learn that the hottie is still alive and being held
captive. Like the nice guy Jack is, your first mission is to find her
before getting back to civilation. Mercenaries, secret military
organizations and, of course genetic mutations will jump into your path
before you can get back to sunbathing.

Generic story and
obvious movie tie in (no joke, 2006) the game’s visuals are stunning.
In reality, though the new Crytek engine pushes more polygons and
renders better bump maps for more detailed textures, the beauty comes
in the environment. White sanded beaches, palm trees, the ocean and the
one element that sets the game apart from other FPSs, the sun. Most of
the game is played in the broad afternoon daylight. On higher video
settings, shadows from the branches of the trees above dance on the
jungle floor on off your hawaiin shirt. Sunlight glistens off the vast
expanses of water and really gives you a sense of a larger world,
instead of the cramped building of nearly every other game of this
type. Additionally, subtle nuances of the environment keep you in the
setting. Birds perched on the rocks at the beach, water ripples when
you toss in a rock or fire at the water. Even the slow fogging of blood
when a victim hits the water that surrounds the island.

The
island sounds great too. Very clear stereo and surround seperation are
heard and clue you off to the location of enemies. Even the chirping of
crickets can be heard as the sun goes down. Voice acting isn’t bad, and
can actually be pretty funny. Part of your equipped repretoire are a
special pair of binoculars with an attached audio enhances that allow
you to hear what your target(s) is saying. Often, you’ll hear two mercs
speculating about their reason for being on the island, bickering about
their boss or talking about sports and women.

Of course, the
second they spot you their training kicks in and the mercs will
coordinate with each other to flank you, duck behind trees and rocks or
hop in a vehicle to run your luau lovin butt down so stealth is choice
in a lot of situations. As you play, you have an alert meter that gives
you an idea of how concerned the enemies are about that noise you just
made in the bushes. That doesn’t make them the brightest crayons in the
box though. For example, as I was belly down in the grass behind a low
growing palm, I spotted two mercs in a heavily armed dune buggy. I
grabbed my M4 and used it’s short zoom to plant a slug in the driver’s
temple, slumping him over the wheel and falling out. Impressive
physics, to be sure, but the guy in the passenger seat didn’t move. Did
he not hear the gun shot? Maybe he missed his partner’s blood spray. So
he sits there. I take aim again but my shot isn’t as accurate and rips
through his shoulder this time. I check my alert meter, which shows no
reason to run and look back at the guy. He’s still sitting there as if
waiting in a drive through. Maybe he’s lost too much blood. The A.I.
isn’t horrible, in fact in most places it’s very impressive, especially
on higher difficulty settings.

Multiplayer was okay, taking all
the best elements of the single player game and creating the usual
assault style scenarious. You’re able to pick from 3 types of soldier
classes: Support, Sniper and Grunt. Grunts have the biggest guns, more
armor and are slower moving in general. Support teams have very few
weapons, but are quick on their feet. They primarily construct the
various barriers and gun nests used to defend the opposite teams from
taking the point. Reversely, the support members are the only soldiers
that can destroy the opposing team’s barriers using high explosives.
They also provide med-packs to the rest of the team. Then there’s the
snipers, my personal favorite. Clearly deadly from long range, the
snipers carry the pre-requisite sniper rifle, pistol or you can choose
a rocket launcher for some big booms. Players are able to jump into and
utilize a variety of vehicles and stationary weapons, but I didn’t get
the team experience and rush that I normally associate with
Counter-Strike or Battlefield 1942.

Be aware that this is a
hefty game, and will make slower machines choke. Even with dual
processors, 1 gig of ram and a 128 meg Radeon, I still had a few chops
and skips, especially during the fully rendered cut scenes. Be that as
it may, Far Cry shines as a single player adventure, one of the best
since Half Life and likely to hold it’s ground solidly until Half Life
2. Now, what’s this of a Far Cry feature film…