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Far Cry review

Game: Far Cry
Platform: PC
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Developer: Crytek

Staff review by Mike Suskie

August 31, 2008

The first time an enemy spotted me in Far Cry, he shouted, “I’m gonna shoot you in the face!” It’s hard to take someone like that seriously, let alone be intimidated by him. My opposition in Far Cry managed that anyway.

Through a sequence of events too stupid to recall vividly (this is the kind of plot where you wonder if the dialog was made intentionally lame just to compliment the dumbness of the events unfolding), a vacationing man named Jack Carver finds himself running for his life on an unnamed island in the Caribbean (I guess) where a host of fully armed military thugs are guarding something too secret, and perhaps too dangerous, to be exposed to anyone – certainly not some nobody in a red Hawaiian shirt. They pack the kind of firepower that could level a small town, so surely this lone stranger would be no match for them, right?

Well, that’s up to you. On this tropical paradise of a Caribbean island, the jungle is both your greatest weapon and your biggest liability. With only a handful of markers on your radar to guide you in the right direction, you’ll have to carve your own path through the nearly limitless foliage, and it’s a sure bet you’ll run into more than a few enemy soldiers on your way. How you go about dispatching them is a question of your gamer instincts, but the cold reality is that it only takes a few bullets to bring Jack Carver down. Going balls-to-the-walls is, as you might imagine, not always the most effective tactic.

Using the thick jungles to your advantage is the obvious course of action, and the open-ended level design of Far Cry means that you can theoretically approach any situation from nearly any angle and come out on top. A sweet pair of binoculars you acquire early on (with aural sensory capabilities, meaning you can listen to conversations from a distance) allow you to scope out the surrounding area before you make your move and determine the best strategy. You could, for example, charge into an enemy base and overpower your opposition with a few well placed grenades and the strategic use of cover, but you could also stick to the coast and take out a soldier stationed in a guard tower a few hundred meters off from the camp. From there, you could snipe the other watchmen and any other guards you happen to see, then raid the camp for supplies while taking out any military men lucky enough to survive the wrath of your sniper rifle. That kind of strategy, it goes without saying, is far more rewarding.

As you delve deeper into the heart of this mysterious island, the foliage grows thicker still. Soon the trees and ferns that govern this place will provide natural cover themselves. So when a gunfight erupts in the jungle, it’s often the best idea to get down on the ground, surround yourself in shrubbery, and hope that your opponents aren’t doing the same. Unfortunately, they often are. In Far Cry, it’s one versus many, and those many are smart enough to split up, outflank, move from cover to cover, and generally do any of the other things that intelligent FPS enemies do. It’s important to remember, as well, that these men aren’t wearing red Hawaiian shirts that make them instantly identifiable against the green backdrop of this beautiful island. I’m just sayin’.

Your choices in Far Cry are often dictated by the options given to you, and which of these options would realistically lead to having a good time. Should you hoof it through the jungle and keep a low profile, or stick to the main path behind the wheel of an armed SUV, playing the risk of drawing the attention of the many rocket launcher-wielding army grunts keeping guard? Well, that one’s easy. Advancing on foot may keep you safer, but vehicles, by the very nature of gaming, are just fun. Here’s another easy choice: You emerge from a bunker and find yourself on the edge of a cliff. There are several soldiers stationed here, and a gunboat patrolling the river below. You could realistically bypass the guards and leap into the water, then quietly sneak out on shore and continue. But that’s not nearly as enjoyable as, say, riddling the guards with bullets, taking to the skies with a hang glider, landing right on top of the boat, dismantling its passengers with your machete, and manning the gun to take out the helicopter that came at precisely the wrong time. You can see how Far Cry provides the entertainment, but then encourages the player to go seek it out.

Crytek encourages choices with its open-ended levels, and don’t think you’re the victim of the many age-old tricks of FPS design. There are no invisible barriers keeping you in place; these environments really are that big, that open to exploration. The amazing thing is that I always got to where I needed to go anyway – a feat I doubt had much to do with my radar. Instead, it’s the mastery of this type of level design – nonlinear yet still straightforward and objective-based – that kept me moving in the right direction. Unsurprisingly, it’s during the handful of indoor shootouts (implemented, I assume, to keep the game from getting old) where Far Cry loses steam. The AI remains on top of things, but the choices present by level structure are far more limited, and the game feels more like “just another” FPS, which in most cases is exactly what Far Cry is not.

I commented to myself during the first level that this is the kind of island where one would expect to find genetically engineered dinosaurs, or perhaps King Kong. I did not expect a correlation of the two, but soon enough, I was greeted with the presence of genetically enhanced mutant monkeys. Here’s something I never thought I’d say, but these mutated monkeys – “trigens,” as they’re called – come dangerously close to ruining an otherwise great game. These monsters are mindless and chaotic, the polar opposite of the highly intelligent military thugs who hunt you. They are the Flood to Far Cry’s Halo, another case of an FPS being hamstrung by straying from the very thing that strengthens it. Fighting the trigens offers the kind of visceral thrill that punctuates many games, but that it’s happening in this particular game, where so much value is placed on the AI, is punishing.

When Far Cry isn’t punishing, when it’s allowed to sit back and do its thing, it’s a delightfully entertaining, challenging, and constantly varied adventure, the kind of thing that makes you glad the FPS genre was created. I’ll tell you what: The next time I go on vacation in my yacht, I’ll be sure to wear something green.

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