Retroview - FarCry (revisited)

This game is the prime reason why no one should ever rate a game from the first few hours of playing.
Source: Youtube Channel expresszor

I am baffled by the high praise this game received unless they all played the first 4 hours and gave it a score.  Reading back on the original post I had for this game, I had a very optimistic view for the game.  Sadly, things didn't go so well after that initial portion of the game.  There was a long duration where I just stayed away from the game because of how much it was pissing me off.  I'll list my opinions to get straight to the point:

Pros:
-Incredibly beautiful graphics, even looking at it now I'm astonished
-Open ended map traversing to get to the goal
-Some pretty intense moments

Cons:
-Some objectives are vague and can get you lost for a very long time
-Various enemies that charge at you and kill you in a single blow
-Having to walk/run long durations with no checkpoint
-Can't create your own saves; if you reach one with a tick of life left, that's all you get for the next area
-Glitches that occur and break the game
-Enemies come in droves and can kill you in a few attacks, but they take quite a bit to die
-Some odd design choices makes it so that there are no cover or cover becomes pointless
-Moving while scoped it will take you out of scope for a lot of the weapons

You can see where I'm going with this.  I'm not going to even mention bad voice acting and lame story ending as it didn't matter by that point.  There were many instances where I'd die near immediately from gunfire while behind cover or from enemies that charge right into my face.  Hiding behind cover didn't really matter either as enemies would throw grenades, have others charge right where I am, shoot rocket launchers and running to another cover meant getting shot by possibly 7-15 other guys.  I got through most of those points by having enemies get stuck in trees, or funnel them through a doorway they can't quite get through or something that prevents them from one-shotting me.  A player shouldn't have to exploit bugs and glitches just to get through a part of the game (or the entirety of it).  I hated it most when I have to walk through an entire mountain or beach and get close to my destination only to get hit by 2 rocket launchers off from another island (you can't really hear it until it gets to you) and having to start over from the last checkpoint.  I got to admit that it was one crazy adventure for one guy stranded on the island, but it was a very painful experience.  I ended up playing through the rest of the game for two reasons: I already paid for it and I treated it as a study game and tried to learn not what to do in a game such as this one.

I still haven't tried FarCry 2 yet, and I'm hoping that it's good.  When I played Crysis 1, I liked the story but didn't like the gameplay as much while the reverse was true for Crysis 2 which I enjoyed a lot but thought the story was lame.  FarCry 1's story was rather predictable and possibly even cliché, but it had a really nice sense of adventure.  It's just that the frustrating combat and game glitches causes the adventure to be rather erratic and in pieces rather than a cohesive one.  So I'm hoping that FarCry 2 far exceeds its predecessors and have really enjoyable gameplay.  FarCry turned out to be a very bad experience, and I rather not play it again anytime soon.

Retroview - Far Cry

I think I'm quickly becoming a Far Cry Fan.

Source: Youtube Channel hankmanGTA

Far Cry is a First-Person Shooter with sandbox elements released back in 2004 exclusively for PC.  I didn't care much for it back then (mainly because I didn't play much FPS games back then and I also didn't have a computer that could handle anything other than Delta Force 2) and so I never bothered to try the game out.  It was recently on sale for $2.50 on Steam with Far Cry 2: Fortune's Edition for $5.  I missed out on a LOT of great games that many gamers talk about but I never bothered to try (Deus Ex which I finally did, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, F.E.A.R., Hitman, Brothers in Arms, Call of Duty the original, etc.) and so I've been getting them all now that I finished my academics and can afford to buy and play games.

I bought both Far Cry 1 and 2 and decided to start with the original first.  The game surprised me in that the levels were huge and completing an objective didn't have to be completed by going through one path.  I like the option of being able to choose how to approach a fight and having that non-linear pathway to complete an objective.  The graphics are better than I had expected seeing how it's a game from 2004.  The loading takes forever though for some reason, but it's very fast after the initial load.  I'm not entirely far into the game, perhaps 3/10 of the way to being completed, but I'm really enjoying the game so far.  The game provides a fair challenge and different scope in the FPS genre that I am used to, so it feels very fresh even though it's 7 years old.  I feel very immersed with the environment and the whole situation that the character Jack Carver got himself into.  I think it has something to do with being able to explore around that makes it feel like I'm part of the world rather than running from point A to point B.  I can choose to kill people or leave them behind when sneaking around.  I recently played Crysis 1 for the first time and see similarities in gameplay with Far Cry with it being outdoors in the jungle with huts and having the ability to be stealthy or trigger happy.  I'm very happy with my purchase and can't wait to get on to eventually playing Far Cry 2 (and Crysis 2).  You can find Far Cry for $10 on steam or you can wait for another sale and buy it for a fraction of the price like I did.