Far Cry
Far Cry is a first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek Studios from Germany and published by Ubisoft on March 23, 2004 for Microsoft Windows. Far Cry sold 730,000 units within four months of release and has currently sold over 3 million copies worldwide. It received positive reviews upon release, and critics labelled it as one of the best first-person shooters for PC. The original game has since spawned several console ports and a movie.
Synopsis
Setting
The game's story follows an ex-U.S. Special Forces operative Jack Carver, who is stranded on a mysterious archipelago. He is searching for a female journalist he was escorting after she went missing when their boat was destroyed by mercenaries. The game includes thematic elements relating to the dangers of weaponizing genetic engineering and the genocide of local islanders as can be seen by the deformed creatures created by a mad scientist named Krieger.
The terrain in Far Cry varies greatly. Set on a South Pacific archipelago, the landscape includes beaches, dense rain forests, towering canyons, mines, swamps, and even volcanic forests. Many of the interiors range from simple beach huts and army camps to elaborate complexes, an underground temple, and ultra-modern research labs. Several of these mazes use the remains of Japanese WWII-era fortifications and bunkers.
Plot
Jack Carver has left his mysterious and bitter past behind him and dropped out of society to run a boat-charter business in the South Pacific. He is hired by Valerie Constantine to take her secretly to an uncharted island in Micronesia. After Valerie takes off on her own with a jet-ski, Jack's boat is blown apart by a mercenary rocket. Jack manages to escape but is stranded thousands of miles away from home. With his employer lost somewhere in the depths of the jungle, he must now find his way back to civilization. The mercenary commander, Col. Richard Crowe, orders his men to find Jack as his body has not yet turned up. Upon waking up, Jack is contacted by mysterious stranger named Harlan Doyle, with whom Jack keeps in contact.
In order to rescue Valerie, Jack fights the mercenaries, searching a beached Japanese aircraft carrier, where he overhears radio traffic indicating that Valerie is being moved by helicopter.
Jack attempts to stop the helicopter and Valerie manage to escape. After swimming to shore, she reveals herself as an undercover CIA agent tasked with investigating Krieger's operations. Val suggests two of them split up in order to better investigate the islands.
After further exploration, Jack must again search for and rescue Val. Trigens, however, have escaped captivity and stolen weapons, starting a revolt against the mercenaries on the island. After Jack battles through both parties to reach Valerie, they split up again, and reunite shortly after Jack kills the mercenary commander. The commander carried information suggesting Krieger having a tactical nuclear weapon on the island. Valerie further discloses that Doyle was sent by the CIA to infiltrate Krieger's research under the guise of a lab technician.
After the Department of Defense has analyzed the situation, Jack and Valerie steal the tactical nuclear weapon which Krieger had intended to use as a last resort in destroying any evidence of the operation. They make their way to the research factory, before entering, Doyle warns that the mutagen might infect them after the factory is destroyed, and advises them to take some antidote found inside before arming the nuke. They manage to escape and destroy the factory.
While Jack and Valerie are unconscious from the blast, Krieger visits the site and abducts them. Jack wakes up on a helicopter with Krieger and Val, and is kicked off by an elite guard. Along the way, Jack notices that his arm is turning green. Doyle directs Jack to find Krieger who would likely have the antidote, being infected himself.
During the chaos, Jack ascends the volcanic slopes to reach the headquarters, where Krieger has apparently found a way to prevent the eruption and harness the lava flows for energy. After mortally wounding the mutated Krieger, Jack asks where the antidote is. Krieger responds "Who infected you? The mutagen can only be administered through sub-dermal injection. I wish I could take credit, but I had no time to prepare the serum." Doyle appears on a display, saying "The old man was always one for melodrama. Too bad he had no head for business," and reveals the 'antidote' they took earlier was the very mutagen they were trying to protect themselves from. Jack decides to find and kill Doyle.
In the crater of the volcano just about to erupt, Jack fights his way to Doyle and kills him.
Jack then escapes just before the volcano erupts, using a blast door to shield himself from the initial explosion. Both he and Val make it off the island in a sailboat, just as the eruption destroys what is left of Krieger's labs. Jack, having already administered the antidote to himself, proceeds to cure Val of the mutagen.
Gameplay
The tropical rain forest provides cover and concealment, of which the player and enemies can take advantage. Enemies react dynamically to the player's tactics and actions. If a lone mercenary spots a player, they occasionally run for help, signaling reinforcements through use of flareguns. They will work together to outmaneuver, outflank, surround, and provide suppressive fire, providing them a tactical advantage over the player, who, in turn, is able to spot and mark enemies on their minimap through use of special binoculars, which also grant the player the ability to listen to enemy conversations from afar, merely by pointing the binoculars in the direction of the enemies.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer features three different modes: Deathmatch, team deathmatch, and 'Assault' - An attack/defend mode where one team must guard three bases and the other must capture these.
Graphics
Crytek developed a new game engine called "CryENGINE" for Far Cry. Reportedly, the game was born out of a technology demo called X-Isle: Dinosaur Island made by Crytek to showcase the capabilities of the NVIDIA GeForce 3. The game features relatively long view or draw distance, similar to Operation Flashpoint, but has a more advanced rendering system for vegetation. All of the level territory is accessible to the player without loading pauses. The game engine features seamless transitions between indoor and outdoor areas.
The release of the 1.3 patch saw the introduction of HDR in the CryENGINE.
Other versions and console ports
On September 1, 2007, Ubisoft released a single player-only version of the game as ad-supported freeware on FilePlanet. According to Ubisoft, the offer is no longer available.
On April 8, 2004, Ubisoft announced Far Cry Instincts for the Xbox, GameCube and PlayStation 2 systems. Far Cry Instincts is not a direct port of the original, being designed specifically for consoles. The game uses a similar premise as the original PC version and same game engine, but by comparison, Instincts is less open-ended and more linear, due to the console's reduced processing power which prevents the full rendering of the PC version's vast islands and landscape. However, Instincts added new multiplayer modes, weapons, dual wielding and feral abilities, which is also added to the storyline. The PS2 and GC ports were later canceled because the systems were not powerful enough to support the game. Far Cry Instincts is now exclusive to Xbox and was released to wide acclaim on September 27, 2005, in North America.
On March 28, 2006, Ubisoft released a sequel, Far Cry Instincts: Evolution for the Xbox, which was met with less enthusiasm than the first versions of Far Cry. On the same day, for the Xbox 360, Far Cry Instincts: Predator was released, which essentially contains both Instincts and Evolution, running in 720p high-definition. Evolution includes a new single-player campaign, although it is considerably shorter than the campaign found in the original Far Cry Instincts. The storyline focuses on Jack Carver's work for a woman named Kade, which results in him being hunted by local governments due to a frame-up during a botched arms deal. Jack again meets up with Doyle, who is practicing damage control, and eventually must battle a native warrior named Semeru who possesses the same "feral abilities" as Jack.
A game based on the franchise was released as part of Ubisoft's launch lineup for the Wii (Far Cry Vengeance). In the Wii version, the Wii Remote is used for many of the tasks assigned to buttons in previous iterations of the game, including driving vehicles, shooting, and running.[http://www.ubisoftgroup.com/index.php?p=59&art_id=60&vars=c2VuZGVyPUFMTCZzZW5kZXJfdXJsPWluZGV4LnBocCUzRnAlM0Q1OSUyNmFydF9pZCUzRCZjb21faWQ9MzYxJmZpbHRlcl90eXBlPSZmaWx0ZXJfbW9udGg9JmZpbHRlcl95ZWFyPQ%3D%3D] Far Cry 2 has been officially released by Ubisoft, although it was not developed by Crytek, but by Ubisoft's Montreal studio.
Translation
The phrase "Far Cry" occurs as such in the following languages: English, Czech, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Galician, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Dutch, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish.
Translation(s) in other languages: Korean: 파 크라이, Italian: Far Cry (videogioco), Chinese: 孤岛惊魂.
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