Far Cry

After two very well received demos, CryTek's Far Cry is finally here. Can the game possibly live up to the hype, or is it a case of gorgeous graphics but no substance within? Well read on to find out...

You have probably played the demo, despite the 500MB size of the download, it's one of the most popular demos ever released. You may have looked at the graphics and said wow, perhaps you tried all the different ways to get to the top of the fort and were impressed with the intelligence of your foe. Well sit tight folks, because the full game is even better than the demo suggested.

Before we move on to the subject of the game's content let's first talk about an important issue - that of performance. Far Cry is an amazing looking game and people with a fast CPU and a top end DX9 graphics card are going to see the some of the best graphics available in gaming today. Don't worry, this isn't a private party open to only with those with computers supplied by NASA. There's quite a dramatic hike in performance from the demo to the final version. I played the game on a modest 1.2 GHz Athlon with a new mid-range graphics card (Sapphire Radeon 9600XT) yet the game ran very well on this system, much better than the demo. What's more, even on medium settings the game is much more attractive than the majority of games out there.

So that's the technical nonsense out of the way, let's dive into the actual substance of the game Far Cry. The story is introduced in the form of an impressive rendered cutscene. Valerie Constantine, a journalist with a pneumatic chest, hires our hero, Jack Carver, for a trip to the Island Cabatu. The duo's boat is not welcomed with open arms however, and Jack ends up losing his boat, the girl and nearly his life following an attack by mercenaries. He wakes up in a cave, below a ruined WWII Japanese installation. And this is where the game begins for you.

Thus begins one of the best first person shooters every released. It's rare that we get to see a game so ambitious that isn't flawed in some fatal manner. Be warned though, the game changes quite a lot in tone throughout the adventure. If military shooters are your bag then the first half of the game will suit you down to the ground. Being careful not to give too much away, the later parts of the game take a much darker tone and owe more to Predator and The Island of Doctor Moreau. Be prepared to take on more than just mercenaries. If you can live with that, rather than just wishing for a regular military game, then you are in for a treat.

It's a tough game; even on the default medium difficulty level Far Cry offers a challenge that many gamers won't be used to. Death comes quickly on these islands, and I found myself getting wiped out much more frequently than I did while playing through Call of Duty. One aspect that makes it tough is that the mercenaries wear flak jackets. So no easy kills there then. But it's not just their militaristic sartorial elegance that makes the mercenaries dangerous, nor their numbers, oh dear me no. They are smart. Some of them are very smart, and they tell the less smart what to do.

Many of you will remember how good the enemies were in Half Life and perhaps have hankered to have a similar challenge against some smart AI once again. Even at the lower difficulty settings, Far Cry is pretty tough. Sure, the mercs you can see are pretty dangerous, but it's the ones you can't that are the real danger. Jack picks up some binoculars pretty early in the game that help the player look ahead for dangerous situations. These hi-tech bins not only allow the player to look ahead, but they also amplify distant sounds so one can listen in on conversations. The motion-tracking feature of the device adds a colour-coded dot on the player's radar once a merc is spotted through the binoculars.

The colours denote how alert the guards are to Jack's presence. Care must be taken not to rely too much on the radar as it only shows guards that have been spotted through the binoculars. Concentrating on targets just on the radar often leads to being killed by an untagged merc that has crept up behind the player. If there is a way of altering the scale of the radar, I didn't find it, and I must admit that when mercs get closer it would be good to be able to change the radar range.

Overall though, Jack's technology advantage and the superb enemy AI works really well to create a convincing, tough and exciting conflict. There are times when things don't quite work - such as when a merc sits in a vehicle oblivious to Jack's presence. Other times mercs can be confused by buildings, so when Jack is hiding in a cabin the mercs will funnel in through the door like sitting ducks rather than attempting some more intelligent strategy. But these moments are rare and usually the bad guys offer a real challenge. And then there's the guys, or things you have to face later...shudder. I'm not revealing too much when I say that some very different tactics are required for the kind of enemies Jack runs into later on.

The complexity of the AI coupled with the jungle surroundings of much of the game lends a real stealth element to proceedings. The game can be played all guns blazing, but a more strategic approach pays off. There will usually come a time when there has to be a full-on gun battle but it's best to be able to get into a situation where this is to the player's advantage.