Techtite's PC Game Reviews!

" If this game had [poorer graphics], I'd be far less forgiving ...[but] that is not the case here. For every instant death, you'll quickly click your quickload key, to get back to the game, if just to see what other graphically stunning environments you can encounter. The graphics are that good here."

---from the review

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Far Cry

Click picture to order this game (PC/windows version)

A Techtite Review

Games are a different entity from movies, even though they often seem nearly synonymous these days. While most movies are merely sub-par if they rely solely on a few special FX tricks, a game can be very appealing with such graphics tricks, if only because the typical game is just one big graphics trick. That said, Far Cry is one whale of a graphics trick. Heck; it's one big, beautiful, breathtaking graphics powerhouse! If not for one "instant death" too many, this would be Best Game 2004 for sure..

The story is simple; so simple, in fact, you're not entirely certain who you are or why you're in the predicament you're in, until nearly the end of the game. The prologue merely shows your character on a sailboat ride with his girlfriend, when someone in a nearby island shoots the boat with a rocket launcher (Talk about people afraid of trespassers!). Your objective, upon swimming to the shore, is to find and save your girlfriend, discern what is happening here along the way, and of course, inevitably, save the world. Helping the task at hand is the fact your character is a military mastermind, though you knew that already, right?

Here's the bottom line, if you'd rather jump ahead to the "final" conclusion for this review; this is a breathtakingly stunning graphic powerhouse. However, as a game itself, it tends to disappoint. Then again, it is a graphically stunning powerhouse. Then again, you just suffered your 20th instant death. Then again, the graphics are really, really awesome. Repeat this ping-pong effect in your brain, until done with the game. Did you have fun? Yes...though it could've been award-winning, with just a little spit and polish. If this game had less graphics firepower, I'd be far less forgiving with the instant death frustrations, because there'd be less reason to bother. However that is not the case. For every instant death, you'll gladly click your quick load key, to get back to the game ASAP, if just to see what other graphically stunning environments you encounter. The graphics are that good here.

I won't list the weaponry at your command, which is same-old guns in the "real world"; rifles, shotguns, and so on. What this shooter lacks in ingenious weaponry, however, it gains in accessories. Approach any mounted machine gun used by the enemies, and you can use it for yourself. The same thing goes for most vehicles, including jeeps, rafts, power boats, and even a hang glider at one point. Although you cannot commandeer a helicopter (or at least I never could), they make for amusing target practice, as you ward off the militia armies that rope their way to your position from them. This is realism, in a good way (so far)...

Best of all accessories, however, is a pair of self-recharging thermal vision goggles that makes even pitch black environments clear as day, with warm bodies seen in colorful "heat" vision. Even when your girlfriend joins in the fun (for some amusing "protect her and you at the same time" missions), it's fun to use these goggles to check her out. I'm just saying.

Have I mentioned the great graphics enough yet? NO. Sure, there are good graphics in many games out there, but I'm telling you; here, they are not only award-winning, but nearly historical in nature. This is simply the best graphics I've seen in a game, ever. Sand looks like real sand, with waves that "foam" near the shore, like real waves. The view of the sand beneath the waves is distorted by the water; an old graphics trick, I know, but here it seems even better. This is just a small taste of the excessive realism at work here.

While good looking, however, I would have preferred the environment was more "real," a la Max Payne 2. In that game, even the most common prop reacted accordingly to a gunfight; boxes and papers flew in the air, glass shattered to smithereens, and pushing a swinging door with an enemy behind it sent them flying. That was some cool stuff. Here; although pre-release rumors claimed otherwise...not much happens. Enemies have rag doll physics, and yes the craters a grenade leaves on the ground are pretty cool. However, that's about it.

Instead, the game tries to be "real" in its game rules; a flaw that places it just two degrees away from suffering what I like to call "Trespasser Syndrome," named after a game so real, it was almost impossible to play! That game had you die so easily it wasn't worth the bother. Far Cry isn't that bad, though it can be frustrating at times. Here's what's weird: use your binoculars and your character holds them in his hands as steadily as if they were on a tripod. Yet he holds a sniper rifle like he's just had six shots of tequila. This can be annoying, when long-range attacks are the only attacks that don't guarantee an instant death. There's a similar gripe with how easily some enemies can hear you sneaking by them, even when you're crawling (seriously; did these guys have The Bionic Woman as a mom...?). Then there's the way you can shoot most enemies with a head shot, instantly, yet so can they. I'd say "no fair," though...yes, this is pretty "fair." It just isn't very fun.

Does good strategy help? Sure...though not by much. Stick to the beaten paths and roads and you'll be dead meat for sure. Stick to the brush and forestation on the far sides of any road and you have a chance...though, again, not by much. Sure, I've had my share of patiently crawling my way through Thief and Splinter Cel, though this game can sometimes be slow to the point of being irritating. But hey...great graphics. Very, very, very good graphics here. That's the major sales point at work here.

Yes, one more time: this is still a breathtaking, beautifully rendered game. Is that enough? For the FPS fan who loves a good challenge, yes. However, be ready to keep that quick load key at the ready, because you're dead meat without it. Sure, a fair amount of strategy goes a long way, though not by enough to give this game the "Deep Impact" high rating it would've gotten very easily otherwise. I'm very happy to have played Far Cry. If I were to play it again, however, I doubt I'd bother without a cheat code. We're talking very tough gaming here.

---Techtite