Yeah, it's been said before, but I still find it immensely puzzling why the original Far Cry is praised wherever I see it. For me it's been an endless marathon of frustration from the very beginning. The graphics are great for a game from 2004, but everything else is just utter crap: The sounds, the story, the guns, the AI and the sneaking mechanics.
The AI, for one, is the most atrociously unfair I've ever seen. I've been able to make it through to the Archive level, and I'm literally stuck in one position. There's one part where you have to cross a bridge over a very open space with enemies all around. I actually realized that it doesn't matter EVEN IF YOU'RE STANDING STILL: the enemies will be in full alert, have they actually seen you or not. And they shoot your brains off with a toy gun from 20 miles away in one shot. Apparently it tries to be challenging, but this is not what I see as good game design.
Some of the gameplay mechanics are a bit frustrating: jumping reduces your sprint meter. The enemies are not marked on the minimap (which is practically useless anyway) unless you seek them out with the binoculars. Sitting on your butt in a bush for five minutes scanning the environment looking for muddy piles of pixels after every time you've been killed? Sounds fun, doesn't it. And in a game this difficult, having no ability to quicksave is a cardinal sin.
From what I've understood, Far Cry also tries to do a bit of stealth. And in this respect it falls flat on its face, breaks the floor and lands on a party held at the floor below. There is absolutely no knowing of whether enemies see or hear you. There is a visibility meter, but it seems to fluctuate however it wants, and is completely pointless.
It wasn't until Far Cry when I realized the importance of sound design in games. Far Cry has by far (hu hu hurr) the weakest sounds I've ever heard in ANY game. All the guns, save perhaps for one SMG, sound like weak farts. So do the explosions. And just about everything. For a game that tries stealth, this is perhaps its biggest failure.
I could keep on ranting how the story is uninteresting, the characters unlikable, the enemies even less likable and just about everything, but frankly Iäm running out of juice even myself. Although when you're actually making progress it's really satisfying but for me, Far Cry is the very opposite of fun.
Thoughts? What do you, fellow Escapists, think of this? I'm prepared for a sewage storm coming my way. I just had to get this out of my system.
The AI, for one, is the most atrociously unfair I've ever seen. I've been able to make it through to the Archive level, and I'm literally stuck in one position. There's one part where you have to cross a bridge over a very open space with enemies all around. I actually realized that it doesn't matter EVEN IF YOU'RE STANDING STILL: the enemies will be in full alert, have they actually seen you or not. And they shoot your brains off with a toy gun from 20 miles away in one shot. Apparently it tries to be challenging, but this is not what I see as good game design.
Some of the gameplay mechanics are a bit frustrating: jumping reduces your sprint meter. The enemies are not marked on the minimap (which is practically useless anyway) unless you seek them out with the binoculars. Sitting on your butt in a bush for five minutes scanning the environment looking for muddy piles of pixels after every time you've been killed? Sounds fun, doesn't it. And in a game this difficult, having no ability to quicksave is a cardinal sin.
From what I've understood, Far Cry also tries to do a bit of stealth. And in this respect it falls flat on its face, breaks the floor and lands on a party held at the floor below. There is absolutely no knowing of whether enemies see or hear you. There is a visibility meter, but it seems to fluctuate however it wants, and is completely pointless.
It wasn't until Far Cry when I realized the importance of sound design in games. Far Cry has by far (hu hu hurr) the weakest sounds I've ever heard in ANY game. All the guns, save perhaps for one SMG, sound like weak farts. So do the explosions. And just about everything. For a game that tries stealth, this is perhaps its biggest failure.
I could keep on ranting how the story is uninteresting, the characters unlikable, the enemies even less likable and just about everything, but frankly Iäm running out of juice even myself. Although when you're actually making progress it's really satisfying but for me, Far Cry is the very opposite of fun.
Thoughts? What do you, fellow Escapists, think of this? I'm prepared for a sewage storm coming my way. I just had to get this out of my system.
