Far Cry review

Help.

I am hiding in a tiny bush somewhere in the South Pacific. The air about me is saturated with birdsong and what I can only guess are the idle conversations of insects. The sun hangs high in the clear blue sky and a waterfall can be heard somewhere in the middle-distance. It's a beautiful day and men are trying to kill me.

But such things should be trivial given my aforementioned location - one of countless bushes on countless Pacific islands, no more or less remarkable than any other about me. Am I not safely anonymous in my cowardly retreat?

Well, frankly, it means squat. Of the half a dozen men after my blood, two are occasionally firing at where they think I'm hiding, another is dangerously enthusiastic with his grenade tossing and the other three are advancing quietly towards my approximate position. I can't hear them coming. I'm not sure where they are any more, but my time is running out and I need a plan. I cannot simply point, shoot and strafe my way out of this.

Primal screams

Attention to detail abounds.

I love it when a plan comes together and, in the case of Far Cry, even appreciate it if it's not one of my own. My opponents are trying to outflank me, they're calling for air support, they're laying down suppressing fire, they're backing off into defensible positions and the cheeky bastards are even camping. Halo may have raised the bar when it comes to first person shooter artificial intelligence, but Far Cry has airlifted it to even greater heights. Sure, a steady hand and quick reactions are still absolutely vital should you wish to stay alive more than a few minutes, but the numerical advantage that Far Cry's mercenaries possess must be offset with preparation and tactical savvy. There's no shame in creeping past, either.

What I am less impressed with are the philosophical questions that Far Cry has left me asking myself. I wonder - if I were an elite mercenary with a rocket launcher, would I really run up to my opponent and fire it point blank at them, with no consideration for my own well-being? Perhaps, during an assignment where I am tasked to guard a top secret laboratory, I would find turning to face the wall preferable to defending my comrades as they are cut down one by one? Maybe I should devote more attention to figuring out quite why a patrol boat would corkscrew under hostile fire, self-absorbed in circular glee? The impressive smarts that Far Cry sports turn out to be a double-edged sword that make any failings all the more obvious. When it's smart, it's damn smart, but it's not without its moments of idiocy.

Call of the wild

Thermal vision is essential for spotting some foes, and always a useful aid.

A recap for those of you unfamiliar with this highly anticipated shooter: You are Jack Carver, a man possessed of a name so generically masculine that your testosterone is liquid steel. Working in the sunny Pacific, you're tasked to escort journalist Valerie Cortez to the island of Cabatu before everything goes to hell and you have to shoot, drive, boat and hang-glide yourself out of trouble, under the direction of the mysterious, and humourless, Doyle. Everything is not as it seems, however, and your island adventure soon shifts a gear from Rambo to Aliens.

Of course, the plot is largely redundant being, as it is, merely a device to insert you into ever more challenging situations. A mixture of in-engine and pre-rendered cut scenes clarify quite why the next bit of shooting is required and the B-movie feel which manifests itself justifies the cheesy voice acting and back story somewhat, appropriately keeping the focus on the action. Far Cry is not a game you will play to see what happens next, but to see what explodes next or where fate will send you to. Dense, sprawling jungles, winding rivers, bunker complexes and the much loved Mad Scientist Volcano base all make an appearance and the game can be neatly divided into two very different experiences - that of the expansive outside environments and the more restrained, indoor sections.

With the sun beating down, the clear blue sea lapping at white, rolling beaches and hot lead tearing through the palm trees around you, the outside is the place to be. The views are, frankly, gorgeous, and should you tone down the graphics settings to squeeze out a few extra frames per second Far Cry's engine still impresses, scaling commendably. There are times, such as crossing a rope bridge or gliding over sheer cliffs, when you'll just want to gawp at the view. If you can see something, you can get to it. Or at least die trying.

A call for help

It almost feels cruel to open fire.

Outdoors is also where you'll have the most fun. The level design is excellent, although it comes with something of a caveat - Far Cry has a distinct lack of impressive set-pieces. Each of your outside journeys typically consists of several encounters, each being the discovery of a group of mercenaries going about their business (they're not just standing around waiting for a fight, but frequently are up to something) and then the challenge of how to progress past them. A great deal of thought has clearly been placed into generating these encounters, as a number of approaches are usually open to you each time, be it charging in with all guns blazing, attempting a silent takedown of each opponent individually, taking a different route to avoid a fight all together, creating a distraction or... well, any combination of those you care to choose. Careful exploration often reveals ideal sniping positions, alternative approach routes or weapons and vehicles that can be turned against their owners. Operation Flashpoint players have had many tales to relate to each other of how they managed to tackle the massive, open-plan levels they were presented with, and Far Cry is clearly designed with a similar intention, but the smaller encounters and almost total lack of scripting make for less moments of genuine 'wow', and your opponents are rarely on the move or a threat before you encounter them.

Still, that's not to say that the arrival of radioed reinforcements, playing cat and mouse with a sniper in a guard tower or individually picking off each passenger in a jeep don't get the adrenaline flowing. When the proverbial hits the fan the action becomes frantic and tense and, as I related earlier, the challenges of an AI which is leading the field forces you to tackle your foes more intelligently. At your disposal are the usual suspects of the genre - shotgun, sniper rifle, pistol, SMGs and a selection of assault rifles - as well as grenades, flashbangs and stones, the latter useful for turning unwanted attention elsewhere. There's a veritable armoury's worth of ammunition laying around - Far Cry doesn't want you to scrimp and save - and you'll probably need it too, as Kevlar is king, making armoured mercenaries difficult to take down. Being able to board buggies, 4x4s, patrol boats and hang-gliders helps you cut down journey times and slightly oversensitive driving controls are more than compensated by the sheer pleasure gained from running down tardy mercs or powersliding around jungle back roads.

I scream, you scream

Rocket launchers aren't essential for downing choppers, but they sure help.

So far, the outlook is good. In fact, no, the outlook is great. Far Cry is a straight A pupil with an almost perfect record and, since no computer game is flawless, is vying for a position at the head of the class. However, and this is a big however, two things pull Far Cry down and give it a rather damning C grade for its next assignment. What's worse, these two things almost always arrive together, gatecrashing your fun.

The first is the indoor experience. The design and layout of Far Cry's interior locations is pretty unremarkable and they lack the atmosphere and excitement present elsewhere. At these points, Far Cry becomes Just Another Shooter, throwing the bad guys at you and tasking you to find key cards or pull switches. Your freedom is curtailed and, although these sections are adequate in their own right, you'll soon be yearning to escape outside again. There's far less to see, to do or to enjoy.

And then there's the mutants. I'm sure that, by now, many of you will have heard about the mutants - proto-humanoid beasts which have given the designers an excuse to pit something far more challenging against the player. Whenever they surface, Far Cry becomes Quake II.

They're crap. There are cheap shocks to be had when the beasties are leaping in your face, but, in the same way that screaming "boo!" at someone just causes annoyance, the mutants do not generate an atmosphere of dread, or raise tension with subtle hints and suggestion. They simply absorb ordinance like giant bullet tampons, kill you with unforgivingly powerful attacks (with some questionable collision detection) and growl occasionally. There's never a sense of menace or foreboding, simply of merciless strength. Sure, it reinforces your own mortality, but it also frays your temper. Outside, the mutants are less of a problem when you have room to manoeuvre, except for in one particular case which I found so unfair I offer this cryptic hint to you all now: For God's sake, stay in the stream, under the water.

No more tears

Val and Jack. What a pair of posers.

Far Cry is going to be remembered for years to come. People will moan about the mutants, babble excitedly about stealing patrol boats, recall nostalgically their first hang-glider flight and swap stories of hidden treasures discovered off the beaten track. The attention to detail, from the little sighs Jack gives when applying a much needed medipack to the conversations between mercenaries that fill in plot holes (just one of many Half-Life nods), is brilliant. The binoculars which lock on to and track your targets and their status, the ragdoll physics and a game engine that allows you to shoot away supports on rope bridges, roll barrels down hills or send household objects flying during frantic gunfights - all these things combine to make Far Cry so much more than the sum of its parts.

The tacky mutants, the fact that your opponents become almost anally accurate towards the end (or on high difficulty levels), the slightly disappointing finale - all these things may mar Far Cry to various degrees, but they cannot dull its shine. This game is a gem that every first person shooter fan should play and an impressive achievement in gaming as a whole.

I regret to finish this review saying that we didn't have the opportunity to play Far Cry in multiplayer mode, but curiously the review copy did not contain this element of the game. Naturally, Boomtown will give you the low-down as soon as possible. In the meantime, enjoy the single player experience, which will easily eat up at least a week's worth of evenings and don't be surprised if you miss something first time round.