…………………………………………………

Far Cry Game Review

Far Cry is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Crytek and published by Ubisoft. It’s one of the hardest games that I have ever played.

When this game was first released, it was renowned for its graphics primarily, but also for its gameplay and some advanced mechanics, especially the open-world elements. It spawned a franchise eventually, one that saw better results with each subsequent entry, making this original game somewhat dated and not as well remembered nowadays.

………………………………………………….

The plot behind this game is rather standard military stuff with the added science fiction element of genetic engineering. Not enough was done with this element, but it did make for a more interesting experience. The overall story is rather clichéd and typical, but at least we got some sort of story and the cutscenes looked quite cool. The characterization is very slight, however, and most of the characters were boring to me. As for the voice acting, it was at times quite cringe-worthy in its delivery and way too familiar. The sound mixing done on the voices wasn’t the greatest as at times I missed hearing some crucial information.

The overall visual presentation is by far Far Cry’s biggest accomplishment. This was one of the toughest games to run on PC back in 2004 and for obvious reasons – the textures are richly detailed, the open-world elements made it feel sprawling, and the creature designs and well imagined exteriors and interiors were uniformly superbly crafted. This must have been a small miracle to witness visually back in the day, though obviously most of its visual impact has been blunted by this point.

Another highlight is the sound. The mixing was problematic, but the editing and design of the sound was great. Sound plays a crucial role in most of the levels as hearing the enemies coming behind or in front of you was of the utmost importance in making you get prepared for them. Some of the sounds were also super creepy, accompanying the game’s suspenseful atmosphere wonderfully.

………………………………………………….

The game controls solidly albeit not greatly. The world building done on it was tremendous as every level felt distinct from others and unique. The interior levels were super claustrophobic and limited in the tactics that you can employ while the outdoors levels are the exact opposite – sprawling and featuring limitless potential in gameplay variety. Both worked for me, though both were difficult in their own ways. The Fort level was so well designed, the River and Boat levels were most adventurous, and of course the final Volcano level was epic in the best way possible.

So yes, Far Cry was very well designed and made across the board, but the reason why I didn’t quite care for it lies in its difficulty level, which is infuriatingly daunting. This is in fact one of the hardest games I’ve ever played with only ‘Sekiro’ rivaling it in the sheer power of enemies and number of times that I had to repeat every single level and checkpoint. I did not like that the game did not save your progress instantly, but there was at least a cheat that you can employ and save your progress on your own. I liked the vehicles in the game, but driving them should have been more intuitive.

Every single soldier and creature here almost seems to be able to sense your presence, which was ridiculous. No matter how careful and stealthy you are, they are bound to spot you one way or another, which made for a pretty unfair clash. It’s unfair because there were so many of enemies at all times and they seemed to have perfect aim even from afar. The weapons were so unintuitive and aiming rough and those made it even more difficult for me. Either the guns fired too quickly or too slowly.

………………………………………………….

I appreciated the open-world elements, but the game is linear in plot, so ultimately it limited your movement quite frustratingly. But the game begs you to use stealth and wit to beat it, which was its greatest quality. It was still unfair, but when I came up a perfect plan and executed it well, the sense of accomplishment was quite satisfying. I just wished that the enemy A.I. behaved in a more realistic and fair way.