Will Porter takes a look back at Crytek's shooter, Far Cry, in this week's retrospective on Eurogamer.
Quote:
Crytek's first foray into paradise saw meathead idiot Jack Carver escorting a journalist-cum-CIA-agent called Val around the honeymoon destination of Micronesia. Here, amidst many disturbed parrots and the occasional pig, he found swarms of mercenaries to pick off from afar - a villainous crew led by a chap called Krieger who had monkey mutation mischief in mind. Alarms were slammed, alert flares went up, helicopters were called in and chimpanzee monsters were unceremoniously released from their cages - throughout the lengthy play-time, the violence felt stirringly organic. In fact, the only thing staid and one-dimensional about Far Cry was its pantomime iron-jaw hero.
Carver's loud hawaiian shirt was the closest he ever got to having a personality (and perhaps the primary reason he was so easily spotted by his foes) but thankfully his failings were drowned out by the vibrancy of the world around him. The enduring beauty of the island chain's lush maps was matched only by the clever ways Crytek would siphon you through them. Far Cry put you front and centre in free-form combat bubbles; it was an action hero simulator that encouraged you to make and break tactics on the fly. Strong tangs of the real Hollywood then doubled this down: an assault on a jungle base was lifted from Predator, while tree-top paths above rampaging Trigens were strongly redolent of Jurassic Park and its escaped raptors.
Minus the impossible columned hallway of hell at the end that I could never get through without enabling godmode (which I never did) this was a great game.
A game I started numerous times only to lose interest when the lizard things gatecrashed the party. From the screenies it still looks better than most console games.
__________________
Steam ID: NEDKIL™ Meusli
Gamertag: Meusli Last Fm
The author uses the term Parabolic to describe the difficulty, and I agree. it starts out ridiculous, gets easier ... and then gets stupid. I got lost on the island fleeing in a hummer sometime after the Trigen (Which were Doom ripoffs, not only out of place but didn't even match the story built around them) attacked the fortress. I decided it wasn't worth it, so I threw in the towel.
Bring back Jurassic Park: Trespasser! Imagine what you could do these days with CryEngine 3 on the Xbox or PlayStation 4.
Honestly playing Crysis and Far Cry before it really gave me a trespasser vibe too. Trespasser wasn't a great game but, the narration and the feeling of discovery was really special. I played it to the very end, shitty game play and all, just to hear the commentary.
I think we could upgrade the GUI a bit. What I want, what I wanted more of in Far Cry is simply exploring strange places. Kind of an FPS tomb raider.
I've enjoyed everything Crytek has put out. Played them all to the end. Their aliens are weak, better in Crysis 2 than in Crysis or Warhead but, still weak. If I was crytek, I'd switch to mutated human like in "Dead Space".
