Far Cry

[PopeSmokesDope]

New PC ordered.

Gonna be cranking the settings to maximum in a matter of days. Oh yes.

I did the same. The difference is startling.

The two effects taht get me wet, are the Steam effect and Water. The way things refelect onto the water and the way , when under water, the stuff outside looks

[El Geet]

I'm on normal, the thought of anything higher terrifies me. I guess I haven't noticed too many AI routines or problems, because I'm too damn busy trying to kill them all ASAP once discovered. But as I said earlier, there was a guy who tracked me through some vents and that impressed me. A lot of the time the AI will pull the old "stand behind a tree" stunt, but then so do I, so I cant complain about that without commenting on my own 'intelligence'...

Realistic would be interesting, but even in normal the bullets do so much damage that I can't see it being a lenghty experience... okay in stealth areas, but there are a few instances where you're forced into gunfights, and that's where realism would be a bit grim.

Don't get me wrong. By no means is this too easy for me. I've struggled at times. It's just that at times they've acted very, very stupidly.

Another thing: is it me or is playing this game in a stealthy manner a bit of a chore. There are times where it just isn't worth the effort. I wonder if it's when you ramp the difficulty up that stealth becomes rewarding in the game.

By the way I'm only half way into the level after the boat so I may be talking out of my arse...which is pretty impressive in itself.

[Rowan Morrison]

Don't get me wrong. By no means is this too easy for me. I've struggled at times. It's just that at times they've acted very, very stupidly.

Another thing: is it me or is playing this game in a stealthy manner a bit of a chore. There are times where it just isn't worth the effort. I wonder if it's when you ramp the difficulty up that stealth becomes rewarding in the game.

By the way I'm only half way into the level after the boat so I may be talking out of my arse...which is pretty impressive in itself.

Yeah, they've done some dumb things on occasion - runnning into walls, standing next to me doing sod all... but considering that their actions aren't in any way scripted, I guess it's forgivable - it's very nice to have each battle / level attempt turn out genuinely differently.

Stealth just doesn't work well in the game, it's no Splinter Cell. They spot you far too easily even in the dark and crouched, and crawling is very slow (but effective for sniping). On the plus side, once spotted it is possible to mislead the enemy and get away or outflank them, which is nice.

Maybe the harder levels to play up the stealth aspect, who knows? I have noticed that the game has been giving me loads of opportunities to pick up a machete recently, and I assume that's a stealth weapon. Of course, I've elected to hang onto my rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher and shotgun, but that's just me. I do find that any time I try to be stealthy it invariably ends in an all-out slaughter that I might as well have dived straight into...

[Grimnir]

So, what other neat touches have they put in this game? How long are the levels, and how many? (20 I think is right?). How many guns are there, and what's the best one? Tell me loads of ace stuff whilst I wait for my new PC parts

[Project 2501]

I absolutely shit my pants playing this the other night.

I was exploring a vertical shaft deep in one of the underground facilities that riddle the game, the area consisted of a deep vertical pit with several levels of platforms flanking either side with a couple of catwalks for you to jump across. In the middle of the shaft was a small square platform suspended by chains at each corner which allowed me to jump on to get to the other side. I climbed a nearby ladder and jumped off the upper platform onto the small square platform, all of a sudden, one of those annoying freaky monkey thingies emerged from an air vent below, I aimed down with my M4 to take a shot at it, missed, but then decided that I should simply try to ignore it and escape instead.

It looked at me and prepared to make a lunge at me, I figured it wouldn't be able to hit me from where I was and that it would simply fall back down the shaft, it leaped and just missed me, banging its head on the underside of the precarious platform I was standing on, the beast fell to its doom, but the force of the impact sent the platform shaking and swaying maniacally as the chains struggled to keep it in place. meanwhile, I was rocking frantically back and forth trying desperately to keep from falling to my death!

The cool thing about that is it was totally unscripted and the kind of thing that can only happen once, unforgettable!

[PopeSmokesDope]

So, what other neat touches have they put in this game? How long are the levels, and how many? (20 I think is right?). How many guns are there, and what's the best one? Tell me loads of ace stuff whilst I wait for my new PC parts

Its fucking huge

Just on one of the huge battles between the mercs and the monsetrs, plowing through the middle of em in my 4X4

[AndyB]

I was exploring a vertical shaft

Fnar

[Miner Willy]

Just got myself a Radeon 9800 Pro to see what Far Cry can really do. I whacked the "detect settings" thing on, and it suggested "Low" for pretty much everything, with Water Effects on "Very High". I tought that sounded a bit shit, so I stuck everything on "High" & it runs reasonably smoothly, though it does slow down a bit at times. The thing is though, I was expecting to be able to run it with everything on "Very High" with my new card - was I being overly optimistic? My system is a an Athlon 2600+, Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo, with 512MB ram. All this in 1024 x 768.

[Sybernetix]

Just throw a grenade from the base of the ladder before gong up. It will hit the helicopter and down it in one hit.

Wow that way is the hard route why didnt you just shoot the chain holding the boat and peg it, avioding the whole area

[whohe]

It took me a good few attempts too. It's annoying because you know what you need to do but it's just hard doing it...so it's annoying in a good way.

What sort of level are you lot playing it on? I'm playing it on 'Normal' and I haven't been particularly impressed by the AI. I was wondering if this was a Halo type scenario in that to get the best out of it you need to be playing it on the highest difficulty setting.

Way past that bit now - just taking a pleasant cruise down a river in a little inflatable boat

I notched it up one (or maybe two - can't remember!) levels from the default difficulty.

[New York Mikey]

Just got myself a Radeon 9800 Pro to see what Far Cry can really do. I whacked the "detect settings" thing on, and it suggested "Low" for pretty much everything, with Water Effects on "Very High". I tought that sounded a bit shit, so I stuck everything on "High" & it runs reasonably smoothly, though it does slow down a bit at times. The thing is though, I was expecting to be able to run it with everything on "Very High" with my new card - was I being overly optimistic? My system is a an Athlon 2600+, Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo, with 512MB ram. All this in 1024 x 768.

I have 3.2 P4 HT, 1.5gig RAM, Radeon Pro 9800, and when I detected settings, everything was 'very high' except textures which defaulted to 'medium'.

Needless to say, I bumped the textures up to very high, water up to ultra high and took it from there.

Perhaps the extra RAM makes a lot of difference?

[Dimahoo]

Proberly. The textures can be preloaded and it will stop stuttering. Not Video card slow down, but the kind you get when you move a mouse quickly.

(i suffer this oh, so slightly with 512 @ 333 but to take full advantage of my Neo2 Mobo i'd have to buy 1024 @ 400 from new).

Anyone buying ram buy the way should buy 1024 of Crucial.

Not the fastest i grant you, but theres minimal difference when custom PC tested it.

[footle]

Athlon 2800, same motherboard, 1280*1024 res (TFT you see), No AA/AF on, 1GB ram, 9700 Pro.

Far Cry chose medium.

I chose very high on everything.

No real problems, AFAIR. (It's been a week or so).

But I'm not really a frame rate junkie ( to which the question is - why that graphics card? - and the answer is - I don't honestly know )

Playing on Hardened, and didn't notice Stealth working ever (though there was a nice bit in a Jungle with guys on either side of me, and me creeping through the undergrowth between them trying to place them by their shouts... Dolby 5.1 is great).

[V3zna]

What the hell is going on with the online multiplayer? Every game type / map is just too laggy to play.

[V3zna]

Actually my ping is really low, it is just a crap frame rate in multiplayer. The spawn points are just daft in team death matches as well. It's a pity, there is so much potential there. There is a thread on the official forum asking how the multiplayer could be improved. It's quite a long thread.

Edited April 4, 2004 by neemo

[pretentious_helvetica]

My mate was showing off Far Cry, and it looks very impressive indeed. He has a habit of testing the ragdoll physics and shooting dead corpses to see how well the physics behave. His verdict - very good. Compared to the woefully under-programmed and stupidly exaggerated breakable ragdoll physics of Deus Ex 2, Far Cry's are a revelation. Mmm. More.

[Dimahoo]

Theres a really cool bit in level 3 where you can shoot a barrel down a hill and watch in roll over two guys.

Sometimes, the barrels will knock men over when the blown up, although its rather hard as you don't know where the barrels will fly, and, its likely, the guys will get blown up anyway.

I reckon this is basically bits of Doom 3 (the jumpy, scary monsters) and Half Life 2 (sans material physics) merged into one, and spat out over a series of islands. A bloody cracking game nethertheless.

You see how great games are with good Physics, eh?

Edited April 4, 2004 by Afterbirth

[pretentious_helvetica]

Yeah, he showed me the barrels rolling down hills... quite a neat idea, reminded me a bit of Predator when Arnie shoves that van down the hill. Physics can make good games feel great - Halo's grenade physics are up there for game enhancement. When physics is used for gameplay purposes like those barrels - or when you can knock down soldiers with a pole you uprooted when you crashed into it in your jeep, it's great.

[V3zna]

Compared to the woefully under-programmed and stupidly exaggerated breakable ragdoll physics of Deus Ex 2, Far Cry's are a revelation.

Deus Ex 2 had stackable corpses. What more do you want from a game?

[Dimahoo]

So did Nemesis (2000AD) on the spectrum. Pah! Hardly new.

But HL2 will potentially take the physics interaction far futher.

Edited April 4, 2004 by Afterbirth

[Rowan Morrison]

Compared to the woefully under-programmed and stupidly exaggerated breakable ragdoll physics of Deus Ex 2, Far Cry's are a revelation.

Yeah, but can you imagine running around the Far Cry islands with Deus Ex 2's level 3 strength mod? Now *that* would be something special. I seem to recall from the FC demo days that it's quite easy to tweak this kind of thing, actually - there were simple mods for making bullets send people flying. I think we'll see some great mods for FC before too long.

[pretentious_helvetica]

I hear the Sandbox editor is the dog's danglies.

[PopeSmokesDope]

Athlon 2800, same motherboard, 1280*1024 res (TFT you see), No AA/AF on, 1GB ram, 9700 Pro.

Far Cry chose medium.

I chose very high on everything.

No real problems, AFAIR. (It's been a week or so).

But I'm not really a frame rate junkie ( to which the question is - why that graphics card? - and the answer is - I don't honestly know )

Playing on Hardened, and didn't notice Stealth working ever (though there was a nice bit in a Jungle with guys on either side of me, and me creeping through the undergrowth between them trying to place them by their shouts... Dolby 5.1 is great).

Same spec as you, but with a 9800 pro, 4*AA, Smooth as a babys arse!

Sweet man, sweet!

I'm on the bit, where you come out of the lift and immediatly get two, very, VERY nasty suprises!

[whohe]

Same spec as you, but with a 9800 pro, 4*AA, Smooth as a babys arse!

Sweet man, sweet!

I'm on the bit, where you come out of the lift and immediatly get two, very, VERY  nasty suprises!

Spoiler

Run like hell and try to find the air duct

[PopeSmokesDope]

Na, thats for pussies. They are easy to take down. 4 Automatic shot gun blasts and they go down.

[pulsemyne]

The sandbox editor has a 180 page manual! Got some great tutorials though. Very funny when you place a grunt in mid air and then run the level! Such a superb game. For a first game from crytek you have to say its an amazing acheivement.

[Sng]

Up there with Valve's Half Life Debut.

Well, almost.

[PopeSmokesDope]

I think its a case of teh games Technical achievment far far outweighing the actual game itself.

It's anoying really. The game starts of great, gets really shit then goes all brilliant on your arse.

8/10 was a fair score for the game.

Technically it should get a 10/10 imho.

Looking forward to mucking around with the editor when I get the chance.

Is it as good a debut as Half Life? hmmm. Its better I would say. This company has create dtheir own tech, istead of basing it around another engine. So it just edges it for me on that basis.

I only hope the mods we get for it, are of teh same standard as some of Half LIfes.

The freeform outdoor aspect of it can promise so much!

note to mod makers. Indoors = shit, outdoors = god like

[pulsemyne]

My God the boat level is awesome . Best level in the game so far.

[PopeSmokesDope]

What, the one nearthe start with the beached Jap carrier????

Nah, not even close.

Wait till you stumble into an all out battle...

Brilliant! Do you Join in, Run for it, or wait for it to die down and pick upall the ammo/killoff any straglers??