The Ubisoft Far Cry Review!

[News Writer]

Trees, sun, the ocean, and a beautiful lady to bring along for the ride. Yes, life does indeed look good for you, Jack Carver. But one thunderstorm later, you're dumped on an island in the middle of nowhere, suddenly faced with mercenaries who want to kill you, mutants that want to debone you, a missing reporter, and a story that slowly unravels to reveal the diabolical plans of an evil genius with aspirations, unsurprisingly, to take over the world.

Welcome to Far Cry, Hell's version of Paradise! Join us as Maximus_Detritus takes a humorous look at Far Cry and what it means to be Jack Carver!

Link : The Ubisoft Far Cry Review!

[PsYkHoTiK]

Great review! Man, I love this game....

[peaz]

thumbs up! great review.
Hmmm.. now I wanna play the game!

[Maximus_Detritus]

Thanks guys. *sheepish grin* These fingers type what they can

[Hinton]

I have some comments on the review:

The AI, whilst being one of the game's strengths, can border on omniscience

Not at all, the AI is not omniscient. Ie. hide where the enemy can't see you, and notice how they walk around searching for you. You'll often see them practically walking over you without spotting you.

Try shooting an enemy that's close, and watch how he reacts by looking in the wrong direction, ie. he often wont know where you shot him from.

Not omniscient at all.


Herein lies the problem. Picture again the above scenario. After you've seemingly cleared out all of the enemy forces, you can't save!

Well, so download the patch that allows you to save. Some players like to save every 10 seconds, others like the challenge in not being able to.

They put out a patch for thoose of you that need to save constantly.


The radar doesn't show ALL your enemies. Although earlier on in the game you are led to believe that all mercenaries will be visible to you, it is rather different in practice.

You're at no point led to believe this. You're clearly shown that an enemy appears on the radar once you pinpointed him with your binoculars, and /only/ then. An enemy that you haven't spotted with the binoculars will never appear on the radar, even if you see him with your own eyes.

I wonder how you missed this. Try replaying it again, knowing how the game works makes it much easier


Pirated copies of the game will NOT be playable over the Internet, only LANs.

Yes they are playable over the internet.


I've completed this game, and the AI is fantastic. I can highly recommend it.

[Maximus_Detritus]

Originally Posted by Hinton

I have some comments on the review:

The AI, whilst being one of the game's strengths, can border on omniscience

Not at all, the AI is not omniscient. Ie. hide where the enemy can't see you, and notice how they walk around searching for you. You'll often see them practically walking over you without spotting you.

Try shooting an enemy that's close, and watch how he reacts by looking in the wrong direction, ie. he often wont know where you shot him from.

Not omniscient at all.


Herein lies the problem. Picture again the above scenario. After you've seemingly cleared out all of the enemy forces, you can't save!

Well, so download the patch that allows you to save. Some players like to save every 10 seconds, others like the challenge in not being able to.

They put out a patch for thoose of you that need to save constantly.


The radar doesn't show ALL your enemies. Although earlier on in the game you are led to believe that all mercenaries will be visible to you, it is rather different in practice.

You're at no point led to believe this. You're clearly shown that an enemy appears on the radar once you pinpointed him with your binoculars, and /only/ then. An enemy that you haven't spotted with the binoculars will never appear on the radar, even if you see him with your own eyes.

I wonder how you missed this. Try replaying it again, knowing how the game works makes it much easier


Pirated copies of the game will NOT be playable over the Internet, only LANs.

Yes they are playable over the internet.


I've completed this game, and the AI is fantastic. I can highly recommend it.

This game was written from the view of someone who bought the original, as a casual gamer, and of course, isn't the most up to date person in the world. Not everyone will have known about the patch, and besides, the patch does not fully cover up all the holes in the gaming experience. (=

To come to your points :

Tha AI CAN border on omniscience, not IS omniscient. Meaning that in some situations the AI is nuts, and in others, its fine. See? not ALL the time, which is what I think you implied. (= That's how it is. As it is, all games with AI do have issues, as does Far Cry, that's all.

As for being misled about the existence of the mercenaries on your radar, almost from the first few cutscenes, your 'mentor' Doyle points out that everyone on the island is fitted with a locator, etc etc. Perhaps I missed out the bit about needing to have seen them first, but even in some cases, where enemies have already been identified, they still dont appear. (=

I have played the pirated copy of the game, and it wont work, because you need a valid CD key, which only ships with an original copy. Heck, some pirated DVD copies of the game even inform you that the game is not playable over the Internet. INstallation does not require a CD key.

If, however, you have gotten your hands on a key generator, then I'm sure the less-fortunate gamers amongst us will appreciate you sharing it with us.

Like I said, this was review revision 1.0, meaning that the game was run on v1.0. The patch is 26.5 Mb, and not all gamers have high-speed internet access to download it. This was an attempt at consideration for those with dial-up connections. (=

Thank you for the criticism, because it IS my first review. I'll look to improve in the future.

[Maximus_Detritus]

Oh, and Hinton, welcome to the ARP forums, and we hope you enjoy your stay

[Hinton]

If you look at other games AIs, they're so poorly programmed that they are actually omniscient. Ie. blindly walk towards you no matter what, whereas in Far Cry the mercs acts like you would if you were them. They communicate together, try to figure out where you are, hide if they notice that you're hiding from you etc. I think omniscient is a bad word to use for this behaviour, as they're clearly not using any abilities that you as a player don't have.

The only reason you can beat them ofcourse is that you can survive a ton of hits, while they often die from a single shot.

In the hardest level, it's almost impossible, because you as the player are no better or worse than the mercs. Your only advantage is that they don't know you're there untill you reveal yourself.


The primates have a different AI, as you're informed in the treehouse scenario, they're really stupid. Which is good, because they're tough!


If you want to play online with a pirated version you need to use unofficial servers, that's the only way. But it is possible.

I bought the original btw. One of the few games I felt like actually paying for. And there'll be an addon too

[Maximus_Detritus]

Well, its good that you like the game so much, and are willing to overlook its flaws so readily. (= To each their own.

[Hinton]

Ah, but which flaws is that?