We thought it would never come but after months of waiting, the next generation of first-person shooters is here with Farcry. Brought to us by German developer Crytek, the game features some unsurpassed visuals from anything out in retail thus far, brutal enemy AI, and the best environments and effects since Serious Sam.

You play the part of Jack Carver who is hired to sail a lady named Val around the ocean when an explosion decimates the boat he's sailing. Jack lands on a nearby beach of a tropical island only to find out that he's surrounded by an army of hostile mercenaries. After fending for yourself for a little bit, you find a phone and hear a the voice of Harlan Doyle who says that he's going to help you find Val and get you off of the island as quickly as possible. In a storyline not unlike The Island of Dr. Moreau, Jack will not only have to find Val, but Doyle will lead him through unraveling a mystery regarding some experiments being performed on the island. Granted, the story starts off a little weak but this is an FPS we're talking about. It's all about the action! But seriously, the game's story will eventually pick up and take you through a twist here and a turn there.

Simply put, this game is hard. The enemy AI is definitely worth noting. Even on normal difficulty enemy mercs will duck behind cover, dive out from behind barrels and trees, and run to get reinforcements. Right off the bat the game tries to show you how to use stealth to your advantage, but it never seemed to work. I always found myself stealth killing a guy just to have everyone in the surrounding area spraying fire my way in a matter of seconds.

Control is standard FPS fare and is responsive to an extent. One drawback is that aiming seems a little bit slow, making headshots on an oncoming enemy a tad bit difficult. You have an assortment of weapons ranging from the standard pistol, shotgun and rocket launcher to the OICA assault rifle and mini gun. The rocket launcher also has a sniper scope to tag far off guard towers with a well placed blast. Though you're limited to only four weapons to carry, you'll quickly find your favorites among the bunch. You'll also have a compliment of flash, smoke, and frag grenades. Loading times aren't much of a burden, you'll have one long load at the beginning of each chapter and smooth gameplay through the level after that, though with some short pauses for the game's auto save. Speaking of which, the game is only saved at checkpoints throughout the levels, thus increasing the games difficulty that much more.

The island you're trapped on is pretty expansive and some levels will require you to take control of various vehicles like four-wheel drive buggies, semi trucks, boats and even hang gliders to get across large canyons and valleys. The vehicle control can take some getting used to since the controls seem to become overly sensitive while driving, especially in the case of the buggies, so prepare to drive into lakes, trees, and off cliffs until you get the hang of it.

Unfortunately, the games innovation doesn't carry over into the multiplayer. You'll find the standard game modes with a few of the game's vehicles.

As previously stated, the graphics in this game are above anything on the market now. You'll go through some lush tropical environments filled with trees, tall grass, hanging vines, bushes, and birds flying overhead. Perhaps the icing on the cake would be the game's water effects which are the best seen in a game to date. You'll get realistic reflections and distortions coming off of the surface and it's clear enough to see fish and plant life swimming and swaying beneath. The effect is something to behold, if you have a good enough system that is. Either that or I'm just a sucker for water effects. The game also features a physics system that was just a dream in the Half-Life 2 E3 demo last year. You're able to roll barrels down hills and can even hit enemies with them, push tables around, and knock all sorts of things over. If all of that isn't enough, there are also destructible environments that will allow you to bring down certain huts with explosions, shoot down bridges to detour oncoming mercs, and shoot out chains on precariously hanging storage units to fall onto enemies below. The game also has some great lighting effects that will cast the shadows of swaying leaves onto your gun and the ground below. Player and enemy models look good, but they seem to be recycled a lot. To top it all off, the game also features some great rag-doll physics where guys will fall limp over railings and will have individual bullet holes appear in them. With the graphics turned down to a mixture of high and medium settings, the game performed well and only got some moderate choppiness during big action sequences.

Sound also fares well. Each weapon sounds like it packs a wallop and speakers boom with every explosion. Supporting characters like Dr. Krieger and Harlan Doyle are voiced well, but Jack's lines sound awkward at times and pack a little too much emotion. Enemies are also voiced well, but repeat their lines often. You'll get sick of hearing “I'm going to lay the smack down!” by the third chapter of the game. Environments have their own ambient noises with some occasional music that plays when there's trouble nearby. The music is unobtrusive leaving the ambient sound as the start of the show and it's pulled off well, considering the game has support for up to eight speaker surround sound.

Far Cry is, by far, the sleeper hit for PC of this year. With little to no hype surrounding it, it's managed to beat out its FPS cousins Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 by months and has managed to produce an entertaining, lengthy (about 12 large levels) and esthetically pleasing gameplay experience. Any FPS fan would be happy with Far Cry, if not only to benchmark the new hardware they bought for Doom and Half-Life.

 

- Brad Hicks (aka Dr. Swank), SwankWorld Media