Far Cry Hands-On

Ah yes, one jeep delivered right on time.

Pink Hawaiian shirts won’t stop this baby!

It was only after a few weeks of making an ass of myself across Ubi Soft's Far Cry server farm that I decided to actually sit down and write my impressions of the latest stage of the Far Cry multiplayer beta. You see I was just having too much fun making an ass of myself. And how did I do this you ask? Well, the recipe is really simple. All you need to do if call people stupid names and make outrageous requests. For example I kept asking this one guy that loved to build stuff on the Assault map (I'll get to that) to build me a crooked white tower because the angle would help me snipe better and the gleam of the white color would dishearten the evil enemy. Then I begged this other guy to slip in the water and fetch me the boat because I forgot my moisturizing cream and I just HATE it when my skin gets all soggy from the water. After my 34th request, he began to lose his nerve. Finally, I kept bothering this one poor schmuck to point me the way to the nearest tourist information bureau. I told him I got separated from the rest of my group, that I'm from Saudi Arabia and that I lost all my wives near a tall coconut tree. Anyway, to cut a long story short, none of the bastards that I talked to wanted to help me out, so I ended up shooting them all in the back. Much to my dismay I couldn't continue to shoot at their limp carcasses after they went down, because, apparently, the physics model has been dumbed down somewhat in the multiplayer portion of the game. And while we're on the subject of technical issues (are we on that subject already?), it definitely seemed like I was getting much smoother frame rates in multiplayer with the same visual settings I used to play single-player. This can only lead me to believe that the multiplayer mode is using some kind of KaZaa-like file sharing system where players are sharing system resources between each other as they play the game. Yes, that's right. What, you're calling me a liar?! Are you a top-level game journalist currently enjoying the privilege of playing early builds of top PC games?! Of course you're not, so shut up! I'm sure they're using something like a KaZaa file sharing system to make the multiplayer run smoother.

This is paragraph two. I thought I'd begin this second paragraph out of the blue, the same way I got shot all the time in this damn game. Far Cry in multiplayer is like Counter-Strike heaven for campers that like to cover themselves in leaves, pee on their clothing to fool the dogs and sit and stew in their own piss for three damn days on that tropical heat just so they can shoot someone in the back. Seriously, Far Cry multiplayer is slow, deliberate and sneaky, and it favors people that think Quake II has something to do with tectonic plates. For crying out loud! You can't even bunny hop in this damn game! Well, you can, but only for a little while. There's this bar in the left hand side of the screen that keeps rising as you continue to hop around. Once it maxes out, you're not allowed to hop anymore. In other words, even the close-quarter firefights end up being this slow, deliberate aiming procedure with very little movement involved. Far Cry is one of the rare shooters that I played that you can play better if you stand in one spot and aim rather that hop around like you've received a flaming flagpole up your butt. Obviously, any of you out there who have played the demo are aware of the gameplay pace and this apparent focus on the more realistic approach to combat. After all, just remember what Clint Eastwood said in "Unforgiven." Guys will be drawing their pistols blazing fast and shooting everything but the son of a bitch they were supposed to gun down. I'd just stand there, slowly draw my colt from the holster and shoot each one of them sons of bitches. I love Clint, he's awesome! Anyway, if you like his idea about gun fighting, you'll like the firefights in the Far Cry multiplayer. The only thing that really freaking frustrated me in multiplayer are the fuckers that climb atop of some hill, pee on themselves (well, you know the drill) and shoot people at random like they're fucking terrorists or something. This problem is made less irritable somewhat by the fact that it's very tricky to aim with a sniper rifle. The damn scope will be waving like crazy when you have it zoomed in all the way. It'll be like taking two gallons of beer intravenously and trying to shoot your boss's moving Ford Explorer from a mile away. Boy, wouldn't that be fun though!? (He drives a hummer H2 but I get your point and relish in the thought. -Ed)

It’s a long way down...

No one crosses that pond without my permission.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes... The other mode of play I got to try was Assault, which is really sort of fun. Not sort of even; it's plain fun. You get to drive around in them buggies and attack the enemy base while the defenders try to make the perfect kite and throw it from the tallest cliff on the island. Well, not exactly. The defenders are trying actually to defend the base. As you can imagine, these damn Far Cry maps are huge, which in this case is a very good thing. There are three player classes to choose from altogether: Assault, Engineer and Scout. As I have mentioned earlier Engineers get to build all kinds of stuff; it's almost as if you're constructing a base in a RTS game. There are these crates with symbols on them laid out all across the base. Bob the Builder (that's how I called that overzealous engineer) was going around the base with a monkey wrench and constructing all kinds of crap: guard towers, bunkers, walls, etc. It was really fun. We were preparing for an assault from the opposing team. I was assigned to guard a very important strategic position; a bridge that connects two parts of the map. The bridge was littered with burnt out car chassis so that the enemy buggies couldn't cross it. Right now you're probably wondering how in the hell I got to defend such an important strategic position, especially since I can't aim for shit and I get scared whenever I see someone else in the game. It's simple really; it turns out me and Bob the Builder were the only ones left on the server, and while he was busying himself constructing every damn structure in the game, I was lying in some thick shrubbery somewhere and peeing on my pants to fool the dogs. Seriously though, I did get to play The Airstrip Assault map with a lot of people and it was really, really fun. This game works much better in team deathmatch and Assault than it does in classic FFA deathmatch (which was what the other map, "Monkey Bay," was all about).

From a purely visual standpoint, I saw a lot if jungle in this game. Loads and loads of jungle, but at least the pattern was somewhat livened up with a long strip of runaway, an airplane and some actual structures. Hopefully, the final retail product will have something more to offer than the blue lagoon settings we've all grown to love, cherish and respect. Actually, the Airstrip map featured this swamp-like, muddy setting that was kind of what the jungle would look like once you've left the beach and went in search for other shipwreck survivors.