FarCry - Post Mortem

Once I play a game all the way through, it's pretty much "dead" to me. I'm not big on replays, so I figured this was an appropriate moniker, even if it is a tad misleading. Besides, between the curly-braces of my site, all variables are scoped locally, so that's all that matters ;)

So, the infamous FarCry. The first thing that I have to say is that, even compared to big brother Crysis, FarCry is still, today, a DAMN good looking game. The water is still mesmerizing, the foliage is realistic (at least from a distance) and the draw distances are still pretty damn impressive.

Story
You're a corny European mercenary type with a tacky red "Hawaiian" shirt. Somehow, you end up on this island with all these mercenaries and of course on your way to escape, you end up having to rescue "Chesty Springfield" the token "tough-as-nails" "gun chick". At some point, you find out about a mad scientist, and some monsters and you end up saving the chick and killing all the bad guys. Same routine, different cup(s). Nothing award winning here. I don't even bother with the sub-par storylines anymore. I'd rather just recognize the good ones. You know, positive reinforcement and all.

Gameplay
Again, welcome to standard-ville. Population YOU! The notable exceptions are that you get to ride around in jeeps/trucks, there's a hang glider that's pretty decent, you have an infinite number of rocks to throw for distracting the guards, and SUPPOSEDLY you can sneak around splinter cell style and pull the old "Puff Daddy" routine on the guards with a machete (Take that! Take that! Take That!) but I couldn't tell...

And speaking of the guards, they're another mixed bag. In the beginning, I thought they were smart. Now I see that their "smart" behavior was just a different flavor of pre-programmed sameness. This is made up for in an odd way by the fact that you can overhear some pretty goofy conversations between the guards at times all over the island. Really good concept, but really bad dialogue.

Graphics
Like I said before, top of the heap, even for a four year old title.

Sound
Typical stuff. I did notice some glitches though. If you caught a guard by surprise and killed him, or a barrel rolling down the hill gets stuck on something, the sound will freeze and repeat. Non-stop, until you...hell, I don't know until you give up and run away like I did.

Multiplayer
Think Doom\Quake on a tropical island. Not much new or different from 10 years ago.

Conclusion
Pretty decent game. It's aged well and from a programming\game engine standpoint, the draw distance on the maps is phenomenal.

Recommendation
I'd say get it for sure at $20 or less.