April 22, 2004
FARCRY ROCKS!
UBIsoft has done it again! After such huge hits as Splinter Cell and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow I must say I'm not surprised. If you're one of those frustrated gamers waiting on DOOM3 or HALFLIFE 2, wipe those tears from your eyes and tear into a little peace of heaven called FarCry! FarCry (developed for UBIsoft by CRYTEK, hence farCRY) has taken the PC gaming world by storm and really came out of no where! This is a first person shooter based on a chain of tropical islands. Okay, I can't say this strongly enuf:
THIS IS THE MOST VISUALLY STUNNING GAME I HAVE EVER PLAYED!
Of course the horsepower required to run this game with the highest setting would put my Trans Am to shame (well, probably not). I'm running a 1.47 GH AMD with 512 MB RAM and a 128MB GeForce video card and I can only run at 1024 X 768. Even then it gets a little choppy indoors and when a lot of enemy units are attacking (which is often).
The environment itself is awesome. From the first time you walk out into the sun laden beaches you will be blown away. And don't take for granted that all of the beautiful foliage is just another wall to walk around. It's not just grass. It's shrubs and grass and trees and palms and ...well you get the idea. It's foliage, you can walk through it, hide in it and ambush your enemies from within it! You can go anywhere that you can see. And with it's 1 kilometer draw distance, that's a long way fo shizzle! The water is another great feature. It shimmers and shines, breaks against the beach and does water is supposed to. Remember all those games where you die as soon as you fall in the water (Grand Theft Auto for instance). Not in FarCry! You can swim to your hearts content. You can even see things on the bottom while on the surface. On one level I shot down a helicopter over the bay. I was able to swim out to the spot and swim underwater to inspect the wreck. Of couse there wasn't any payoff for exploring this way except the sheer fun of doing it.
The lighting is also top notch. Beside the wonderful sunshine, there is light and shadows in the interior sections. You have a flash light for those realy dark places.
There is also great physics at work here. Objects have weight and density, so they float or roll down hill as they normally would in our world. The addition of rag-doll physics on the AI models is also a lot of fun. No two dead guys fall the same. Crytech has also developed a pretty savy AI (Artificial Intelligence, yes..it's in there!) for the enemies. Enemies will be able to react to sight but can't see you through the bushes. The are alerted by sounds as well. They are capable of a coordinated attack. You can here them barking out flanking orders in the midst of a fire fight. In fact, if you are facing a single enemy he will often turn and run for reinforcements. This brings up another of my favorite features. Enemy reinforcements do not just randomly spawn into the map. If the enemy requires or requests reinforcements they must come from somewhere on the map. This usually means air transport via helicopter. All of the enemy are spawned at the beginning of the map and that's all there are!
Vehicles! That's right I said vehicles. This game has Humvees, dune buggys, Zodiac type and patrol boats! Heck, there is even a hang glider! This offers multiple routes to your objective. Luckily for me I have played so many of these types of games that driving with W,S,A and D keys is easy. The choice of routes also offers a choice between stealth and full frontal attack. Even though stealth is an option, you will enevitably be drawn into a firefight.
Well, just how good is this game really? All I can tell you is that I just bought Battlefield Vietnam a couple of weeks ago and have been completely enthralled with it...until two days ago. I haven't booted BV since. Don't get me wrong I will go back to it, but this game is the best thing since Al Gore invented the Internet!
Speaking of the Internet! This game also ships with full multiplayer support. Single and team death match along with the more popular objective based games. Well, I'm running out of room so I must stop this rant. If you haven't already stopped reading this review and run out to buy this game what are you waiting for? I will have a review of Battlefield Vietnam soon. In the mean time mortgage your house, upgrade your pc and buy this game!
BANDIT