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Far Cry drained my life away
10 March 2005
It’s 2 a.m. Do you know where your life is? I obviously don’t. I’ve put in far more late night session in front of the computer of late than I have since I was in my 30s. It’s so easy to get led astray. I was diligently working on my review of Front Page 2003 when I started playing Ubisoft’s FPS (First person Shooter), Far Cry.
Suddenly it’s a week later, my FP review still isn’t complete and I am bone-tired from too many late “just one more level” nights.
What’s compelling about Far Cry isn’t the plot. You are jack Carver, washed up on a deserted jungle island populated with a bunch of mercenaries out for your blood, and run by a group of mad scientists making monsters. Good thing you had special forces training before you became a beach bum. Ho hum…
Throw in a bit of the Island of Dr. Moreau, a bit of Jurassic Park and a good measure of Half Life, leave a lot of weapons and first aid kits lying around the island, make the player fight from checkpoint to checkpoint to get to the next level, and voila: a predictable, linear plot. Must have taken all of 20 minutes to think this one up.
No, what drags me into the game isn’t the plot. It’s the truly astounding game engine, and some pretty fancy AI scripting. The jungle is dense with foliage you can crawl through – including recognizable plants like bamboo, palms and ginger. You can hide in this stuff, sneak around enemies and avoid detection under the leaves and fallen trees.
The landscape looks convincingly like an archipelago of small islands rising from some ancient volcano. The water looks like water, it laps at the beach, it moves, it reflects the sky, you can swim in it. It’s like playing in a holiday postcard. Having a wonderful time, killing some people, wish you were here…
And did I mention the birds? The fish? The pigs? Or the vehicles you can pilot – trucks, Hummers, forklifts, boats, even a hang glider…. Objects in Far Cry move and react. You can push tables over, roll barrels down a hill, throw rocks, even shoot the birds and pigs. Bodies slide down slopes. Steam issues from broken pipes.
It’s not all outdoors, however. Seems the islands were fortified by the Japanese in WW2, and you have the remnants of their bunkers and tunnels to play in, plus an old, rusting aircraft carrier. You also have the numerous “Jurassic Park” buildings erected by the mad scientists, full of computers and lab equipment. And monsters, of course.
The lighting is dynamic, the tunnels are dark, characters have shadows, the plants move in the breeze. This is a rich, realistic and highly varied environment. I simply like to wander around in it and enjoy its complexities… after I’ve killed everything, of course. It’s a game, after all.
Then there’s the AI. I haven’t seen such well-scripted AI since Half Life. Out of doors, mercenaries will work as teams, flanking your position, searching, hiding, running from cover to cover. Even at the easiest level, this is a tough game. The AI seems bound by some rules: they don’t magically know your position and they can lose you in the vegetation.
Indoors, they’re not quite as good. While they aren’t as stupid as in some games – standing idly by while you pick off their buddies – they seem confused by the limitations of narrow corridors and confined spaces.
That’s compensated by the aggressive violence of the creatures. In Half Life, you could walk through the game in easy mode and the creatures were little more than moving targets. Not in Far Cry. Even in easy mode, the lowest of them is fast, vicious and lethal enough to rend you into shreds in two swipes of its claws.
The meaner ones are armed, too… and often armoured.
The monsters share the same AI as the mercs: they hunt, they circle and they flank. Sometimes their assault is so unexpected and sudden it startles me. Which means I die a lot. First thing to learn is the console trick for saving games between checkpoints. Save, and save often.
This all adds up to one addictive, time-consuming game.
Of course, Far Cry requires one heck of a hot computer system with a good graphics card, plenty of memory and lots of speed (2 GHz, 512 MB and up recommended). It also consumes almost 4 GB of hard drive space to install.
Far Cry is one of the new generation that demands a lot from your system, but rewards you with immersive, challenging game play. Sure the plot is about as fresh as a week-old bagel, but all the other things make me forget my normal cynicism and keep playing.
I gotta get a real life.
Suddenly it’s a week later, my FP review still isn’t complete and I am bone-tired from too many late “just one more level” nights.
What’s compelling about Far Cry isn’t the plot. You are jack Carver, washed up on a deserted jungle island populated with a bunch of mercenaries out for your blood, and run by a group of mad scientists making monsters. Good thing you had special forces training before you became a beach bum. Ho hum…
Throw in a bit of the Island of Dr. Moreau, a bit of Jurassic Park and a good measure of Half Life, leave a lot of weapons and first aid kits lying around the island, make the player fight from checkpoint to checkpoint to get to the next level, and voila: a predictable, linear plot. Must have taken all of 20 minutes to think this one up.
No, what drags me into the game isn’t the plot. It’s the truly astounding game engine, and some pretty fancy AI scripting. The jungle is dense with foliage you can crawl through – including recognizable plants like bamboo, palms and ginger. You can hide in this stuff, sneak around enemies and avoid detection under the leaves and fallen trees.
The landscape looks convincingly like an archipelago of small islands rising from some ancient volcano. The water looks like water, it laps at the beach, it moves, it reflects the sky, you can swim in it. It’s like playing in a holiday postcard. Having a wonderful time, killing some people, wish you were here…
And did I mention the birds? The fish? The pigs? Or the vehicles you can pilot – trucks, Hummers, forklifts, boats, even a hang glider…. Objects in Far Cry move and react. You can push tables over, roll barrels down a hill, throw rocks, even shoot the birds and pigs. Bodies slide down slopes. Steam issues from broken pipes.
It’s not all outdoors, however. Seems the islands were fortified by the Japanese in WW2, and you have the remnants of their bunkers and tunnels to play in, plus an old, rusting aircraft carrier. You also have the numerous “Jurassic Park” buildings erected by the mad scientists, full of computers and lab equipment. And monsters, of course.
The lighting is dynamic, the tunnels are dark, characters have shadows, the plants move in the breeze. This is a rich, realistic and highly varied environment. I simply like to wander around in it and enjoy its complexities… after I’ve killed everything, of course. It’s a game, after all.
Then there’s the AI. I haven’t seen such well-scripted AI since Half Life. Out of doors, mercenaries will work as teams, flanking your position, searching, hiding, running from cover to cover. Even at the easiest level, this is a tough game. The AI seems bound by some rules: they don’t magically know your position and they can lose you in the vegetation.
Indoors, they’re not quite as good. While they aren’t as stupid as in some games – standing idly by while you pick off their buddies – they seem confused by the limitations of narrow corridors and confined spaces.
That’s compensated by the aggressive violence of the creatures. In Half Life, you could walk through the game in easy mode and the creatures were little more than moving targets. Not in Far Cry. Even in easy mode, the lowest of them is fast, vicious and lethal enough to rend you into shreds in two swipes of its claws.
The meaner ones are armed, too… and often armoured.
The monsters share the same AI as the mercs: they hunt, they circle and they flank. Sometimes their assault is so unexpected and sudden it startles me. Which means I die a lot. First thing to learn is the console trick for saving games between checkpoints. Save, and save often.
This all adds up to one addictive, time-consuming game.
Of course, Far Cry requires one heck of a hot computer system with a good graphics card, plenty of memory and lots of speed (2 GHz, 512 MB and up recommended). It also consumes almost 4 GB of hard drive space to install.
Far Cry is one of the new generation that demands a lot from your system, but rewards you with immersive, challenging game play. Sure the plot is about as fresh as a week-old bagel, but all the other things make me forget my normal cynicism and keep playing.
I gotta get a real life.
