Far Cry

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Description

You play Jack Carver, a charter-boat businessman in Micronesia, on a job to escort Valerie Cortez, an ambitious journalist, to the island of Cabatu. The next thing you know someone's blown up your boat (and with that, everything you owned in the world), kidnapped Valerie, and left you for dead. Your job now is to rescue Valerie and get back at the soldiers who destroyed everything you had.

Proprietary Polybump mapping, advanced environment physics, destructible terrain, dynamic lighting, motion-captured animation, surround sound and the ability to render an entire kilometer of actual terrain in real time all showcase CryTek's new CryENGINE.

Advanced A.I. means enemy soldiers make realistic decisions based on observations of the current state of the world. These highly trained mercenaries are designed to utilize environmental features, attack in groups, divide and conquer, respond to player actions, and call in reinforcements from air, land, or sea.

Far Cry ships with a Sand Box Editor, allowing you to create and edit your own maps with an easy drag and drop interface.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Alternate Titles

• "極地戰嚎" -- Traditional Chinese spelling
• "孤岛惊魂" -- Simplified Chinese spelling
• "X-Isle: Dinosaur Island" -- Early development title
• "X-Isle" -- Working title
• "FC" -- Common abbreviation
• "Far Cry Classic" -- PS3 / Xbox 360 title

Part of the Following Groups

• 3D Engine: CryEngine 1
• Anti-Cheat Technology: PunkBuster
• BPjS / BPjM indexed games
• Covermount: Fullgames
• Far Cry series
• Games made into movies
• Green Pepper releases
• PC Gamer Presents Games
• Scripting language: Lua
• Setting: Tropical Island / Deserted Island
• Software Pyramide releases
• Sound engine: FMOD
• Technology: amBX
• Ubisoft eXclusive releases

User Reviews

FPS (First Paradise Shooter)	Windows	NeoJ (455)
Fun is Inversely Proportional to Difficulty	Windows	Matt Neuteboom (989)
Just a little touch of paradise...	Windows	Katakis | カタキス (42056)
One more step along the world I go	Windows	Ashley Pomeroy (233)
A Far Cry from your typical FPS	Windows	Terrence Bosky (5463)
Rough around the edges but an under-rated, ground breaking achievement.	Windows	Tibes80 (1567)
Absolutely incredible. Sets a new standard. Blew away all my expectations.	Windows	kbmb (435)
Stunning environments play host to a half-witted plot	Windows	Chris Wright (105)
A delicious, well-designed, well executed example of what a 3D shooter should be.	Windows	Marty Bonus (41)
Good looking FPS	Windows	Grov (667)

Critic Reviews

Game.EXE	Windows	May, 2004	5 out of 5	100
Game Chronicles	Windows	Apr 22, 2004	9.5 out of 10	95
Gameplay (Benelux)	Windows	Feb 28, 2004	91 out of 100	91
WomenGamers.com	Windows	May 12, 2004	9 out of 10	90
Super Play (Sweden)	Windows	Apr, 2004	9 out of 10	90
Gamezine	Windows	Apr 11, 2004	18 out of 20	90
PC Powerplay	Windows	Aug, 2005	88 out of 100	88
Game Critics	Windows	May 26, 2004	8.5 out of 10	85
Eurogamer.net (UK)	Windows	Mar 26, 2004	8 out of 10	80
Gaming since 198x	Windows	May 25, 2008	3 out of 5	60

Forums

There are currently no topics for this game.

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The PC version of Far Cry appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Development

The game actually started out as a tech demo made by Crytek, to demonstrate the capabilities of Nvidia's (then) new graphics chip, the GeForce 3. Much like what happened with Serious Sam: The First Encounter, it then got turned into the complete game it is now.

German version

The German government agencies for the protection of children are not to be trifled with – a lesson that publisher UbiSoft learned the hard way with Far Cry.

Due to realistic violence, especially with regard to the ragdoll model of the enemies, the full English version of Far Cry was banned in Germany by the federal agency BPjM on April 2nd 2004, meaning that any kind of advertisement for this version is forbidden, and it may only be sold on request to persons aged 18 or older.

UbiSoft and developer Crytek had anticipated this, and created a special version of Far Cry for the German market – the usual procedure to abide by the strict German standards. In this version, ragdoll models were disabled. As expected, the modified version was rated “18+” by the USK, the official German rating board. Any game with a USK rating may only be sold to persons of the specified age group, but is protected from being banned. UbiSoft produced and shipped a large amount of copies of this German version, which hit stores on March 25th 2004.

At that time, the BPjM judgment on the English version was pending. The BPjM testers quickly found out what was already widely circulated in the Internet: Crytek had not physically removed the ragdoll model from the German Far Cry, they had just disabled it -- and every user could turn the feature back on with just a few simple modifications. This made the German version identical to the English one. Identical content is the one criterion that would allow the BPjM to ignore a USK rating and ban a game. That, however, had never happened.

Up to now. On April 2nd 2004, the BPjM banned the German version of Far Cry along with the English one, on accounts of identical content. From one day to the next, stores nationwide were no longer allowed to display the boxes of the most popular, extremely successful action game.

UbiSoft’s reaction was feverish, yet professional. As soon as word had spread that a ban was imminent, the company started the production of a new, non-modifiable German version to replace its now worthless predecessor. This second edition retained the USK rating “18+” and was distributed two weeks later, on April 15th. UbiSoft took back all copies of the previous version at its own cost.

The German second edition cover of Far Cry is easily recognizable by a big red box in the upper right corner containing the line “Deutsche Version” (German version). If you happen to own one of the banned first editions, you should probably hold on to it; over time, it may become a collector’s piece.

Graphics

The game allows you to set a way to render it, such as the bright "Paradise," the dim "Cold," or the cel-shaded "Cartoon."

Patch 1.3 of the game adds support for HDR lighting (high dynamic range lighting) on the new nVidia GeForce FX 6xxx line of graphics cards. Its inclusion makes Far Cry the first commercial game to support HDR lighting!

This feature increases visual quality in the game tremendously, improving the detail and dynamic range between light and dark, and simulating lens exposure effects between light and dark areas of the image.

The feature is not accessible from the game configuration screen, but must be enabled via the command line, console or config file. The feature is not available on ATI's competing generation of graphics cards due to the implementation/hardware limitations.

Mods

Far Cry fans have created an unofficial modification that adds a Capture the Flag multiplayer mode and comes with five new maps.

Far Cry seems to be on its way to become the most longevous game in history. Following the visual change that patch 1.3 meant by enabling HDR, two patches were released to bring the game up to the world of 64 bits. While they don't really take advantage of any 64-bit specific features, these patches do improve graphics even further, and they add a couple of new levels and some other stuff.

What, you didn't make the jump to 64-bit yet? Fret not. Most of those graphical enhancements are available for 32-bit users as well, via a little thing called the FC 64ecu to 32os conversion patch.

Movie

The game became a movie in 2008. The main character Jack Carver is played by Til Schweiger. Although it does not stick to the game's storyline, it cuts close with the setting and game elements. German investor Boll KG bought the rights to turn the game into a movie franchise in February 2004, a month before the game hit stores.

Patch 1.2

In July 2004, patch 1.2 was soon recalled after the release, due to unexpected behaviour on specific hardware configurations. There was no fix released afterwards. Users had to revert to 1.1 and then wait until October 2004 for a new patch (1.3).

Title

On May 28, 2002, developer Crytek changed the game’s name from X-Isle to Far Cry. The “X” was too allusive of Microsoft’s game console X-Box.

Awards

• 4Players
  • 2004 – Biggest PC Surprise of the Year
• GameSpy
  • 2004 – #9 PC Game of the Year
  • 2004 – Special Achievement in Graphics Award (together with DOOM³)
• GameStar (Germany)
  • February 2005 - Best German PC Game in 2004 (Readers' Vote)
• Golden Joystick Awards
  • 2004 - Runner up to DOOM³ in the "PC Game of the Year" category
• PC Gamer
  • April 2005 - #18 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
• PC Powerplay (Germany)
  • issue 01/2005 - Best German Game in 2004

Information also contributed by -Chris, Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze, MAT, piltdown man, Sciere, Tiebes80 and Zack Green

Related Web Sites

• FarCry (Official website)
• FarCry Headquarters (English/German fansite)
• IGCD Internet Game Cars Database (Game page on IGCD, a database that tries to archive vehicles found in video games.)
• Planet FarCry (GameSpy's FarCry website with game info, forum, downloads etc.)
• Wikipedia (The Far Cry article at Wikipedia)