This has got to be one of the most frustrating FPS games I have ever played. It astounds me that this was the game that spawned the Far Cry franchise. There's so many problems with this game I have no idea how anyone can enjoy it other than wearing rose-tinted nostalgia goggles.
Let's start with the good stuff. For 2004 standards, this game looks great. The island setting is very nice and I can only imagine how demanding this game was on PCs at the time. The weapons feel nice and punchy, with all of them I found so far having their separate uses so none of them felt like an objectively worse option. The story and dialogue is pretty campy but I enjoyed it since I don't think they were aiming for a super impressive narrative.
That's all the pros I could think of because this game has so many problems with its gameplay I'm shocked it made it through playtesting. Firstly, this game has horrible AI. The standard mercenaries you come up against range from "dumb as bricks" to "NASA Super Computer". They can spot you and open fire at you beyond their own render distance. So you'll literally get shot at by enemies that haven't even loaded in yet. This makes stealth pointless as crouching in grass barely conceals you and enemies will shoot on sight as soon as they spot you unlike every other Far Cry game where it takes a bit of time for enemies to engage in combat. There's a detection meter on your HUD but that fills up instantly when an enemy spots you from a planet away so there's no point in using that. I'm not even gonna bother mention how enemies can see and shoot you through tents because that's an AI bug that they never fixed, but you can do so with an online patch.
The Trigen mutants are horrible too. One melee hit from them instantly kills you ON NORMAL DIFFICULTY and most of the time the game throws them in the more claustrophobic areas where they can pounce on you.
To say Far Cry hasn't aged well is an understatement. The original Far Cry has been absolutely pulverised as time has passed. The game is littered with such outstanding issues and I could only recommend this game to people who want to try out a piece of FPS history or by people who want to know where Far Cry started. If you don't fall into those two categories, I would only recommend this if you have god-like levels of patience.
Let's start with the good stuff. For 2004 standards, this game looks great. The island setting is very nice and I can only imagine how demanding this game was on PCs at the time. The weapons feel nice and punchy, with all of them I found so far having their separate uses so none of them felt like an objectively worse option. The story and dialogue is pretty campy but I enjoyed it since I don't think they were aiming for a super impressive narrative.
That's all the pros I could think of because this game has so many problems with its gameplay I'm shocked it made it through playtesting. Firstly, this game has horrible AI. The standard mercenaries you come up against range from "dumb as bricks" to "NASA Super Computer". They can spot you and open fire at you beyond their own render distance. So you'll literally get shot at by enemies that haven't even loaded in yet. This makes stealth pointless as crouching in grass barely conceals you and enemies will shoot on sight as soon as they spot you unlike every other Far Cry game where it takes a bit of time for enemies to engage in combat. There's a detection meter on your HUD but that fills up instantly when an enemy spots you from a planet away so there's no point in using that. I'm not even gonna bother mention how enemies can see and shoot you through tents because that's an AI bug that they never fixed, but you can do so with an online patch.
The Trigen mutants are horrible too. One melee hit from them instantly kills you ON NORMAL DIFFICULTY and most of the time the game throws them in the more claustrophobic areas where they can pounce on you.
To say Far Cry hasn't aged well is an understatement. The original Far Cry has been absolutely pulverised as time has passed. The game is littered with such outstanding issues and I could only recommend this game to people who want to try out a piece of FPS history or by people who want to know where Far Cry started. If you don't fall into those two categories, I would only recommend this if you have god-like levels of patience.