r/gaming • u/ZS1664 • Oct 06 '24
The original Far Cry still holds up pretty well today.
You might know Far Cry as the franchise most responsible for making Ubisoft the way it is today. Assassin's Creed laid the groundwork, but Far Cry 2's large open world built the solid foundation, and you can make a strong argument that Far Cry 3 was the game that firmly codified the Modern Ubi Formula. But long ago there was a little German developer called Crytek with a big dream. They wanted to make an engine for a PC game that could let you see as far as they eye could see, and be as lush and beautiful as it was fun to play. And possibly melt your computer if it wasn't powerful enough. That's where Far Cry began. It was a big success - big enough for Ubi to snap up the IP for itself, and certainly successful enough for Crytek to make a spiritual successor, Crysis (which would most certainly melt your computer if it wasn't powerful enough.)
I've been meaning to give it another go, and this still very in-development mod that adds a bunch of tweaks and modernizations gives me the perfect excuse. So far it's been really good; that Far Cry mix of stealth and precision attacks still works great even in its infancy and gameplay has been fast and tight. Yes, I remember what happens in the second half, but hopefully it'll be much more bearable with knowledge and foresight. I'm impressed that people would actually take the time to polish this old game up and it's still fun as hell.
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u/CaptoOuterSpace Oct 06 '24
Extremely tight gunplay for it's era. Outstanding production design.
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Oct 06 '24
Still my favourite of the series. Shame they steered away from the horror/monster aspects of the OG far cry
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u/frostygrin Oct 06 '24
That's an interesting take. Back when Far Cry came out, the horror/monster aspect was seen as bullshit by many.
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u/Numerous_Witness_345 Oct 06 '24
The demo level was nearly perfect.
Approaching from the water (which was amazing at the time) across the beach, up to the bunker.
Especially if playing silenced, you felt like the Predator.
Then the monsters showed up and you felt like like a desperate park ranger trying to tranq a meth puppy. I fucking hated the monsters.
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u/Carlastrid Oct 06 '24
I hated the roid monkeys. Same story in Crysis with the space squids, both games just take this jarring turn into something entirely different than what has happened previously.
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u/sFAMINE Oct 06 '24
The difficulty at the end of this game is nuts. So many rockets
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u/buggytehol Oct 06 '24
Honestly can't imagine. I played for like an hour and found the AI so unfairly omniscient that I quit.
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u/sFAMINE Oct 06 '24
It’s not great I’ll say that. I used to mess around with the map editor as a kid so I was familiar enough with the game. Some old titles hold up, some don’t. I don’t think I’ll replay the game a 3rd time
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u/eiamhere69 Oct 06 '24
The original Far Cry wasn't made by Ubisoft, it was made by Crytek (Crysis/Cryengine).
Ubisoft made them from Far Cry 2.
Even quite a few years after release, the first game was a marvel.
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u/Altruistic-Key-369 Oct 06 '24
And didnt Ubisoft move to the Dunia engine for FC2? Couldnt have predators cus they'd eat the orey animals and starve to death 😂
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u/Steinoj Oct 06 '24
I should get around to test the VR mod
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLNxqtKPEN0&ab_channel=ObscureNerdVR
A patch broke the AI giving it wallhacks, but theres a mod for that too.
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u/MotorPace2637 Oct 06 '24
I was wondering how well they were seeing me! The VR is awesome btw. Game definitely holds up.
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u/Chit569 Oct 06 '24
Saying "the original xyz still holds up" and then ending with "use this mod to make it worth revisiting because it adds modern features" is contradictory.
Does the original hold up or does the mod make it worth replying, it's one or the other no?
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u/HeresyOnToast Oct 06 '24
The original holds up and the mod improves it is a possibility
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u/Chit569 Oct 06 '24
But if the original holds up then why do you need a mod for an "excuse" to play it? The original holding up should be the excuse to play it.
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u/armchairwarrior42069 Oct 06 '24
Being pedantic about such silly things is not going to make you friends.
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u/karlweeks11 Oct 06 '24 edited Oct 06 '24
It’s a valid point it’s not pedantic. Ad Homs aren’t going to make you friends either.
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u/armchairwarrior42069 Oct 06 '24 edited Oct 06 '24
It's really not. But you can believe that all day.
"This old game holds up. This mod will even help add modern quality of life improvements if you need further convincing" is how this post reads to a normal person.
"This old movie still holds up, but it's been digitally remastered if you need more of an excuse to watch it" you: "hmmm, if it needs a remaster then it must bot hold up".
"It still holds up but they remastered Rush's 2112 album to suit modern audio devices better" "well if they had to remaster it to suit modern audiences devices than obviously the album does not hold up"
These last 2 examples are how you sound. Pedantic, missing the point on purpose and generally being unpleasant with it.
Edit: they blocked me.
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u/karlweeks11 Oct 06 '24
Not only have you completely failed to understand the point being made you’ve also given examples off how you have completely failed to understand the point being made. You also don’t get to call people unpleasant when you’ve resorted to insults immediately. Olympic level mental gymnastics
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u/ZS1664 Oct 06 '24
It's perfectly fine on its own. The mod doesn't add anything that massively rebalances everything but it does include some nice things like resolution options and a few gameplay tweaks here and there.
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u/snowflakepatrol99 Oct 06 '24
It doesn't. Unless you are into clunky movement and gameplay and don't mind early 2000s graphics. Far cry 2 and 3 are much better games to revisit. They are far more touched up and "modern". Like someone else said their first really successful game was far cry 3. So even back in the day 1 didn't hold up. Most people recommended to start straight from the 2nd.
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u/HeavilyArmoredFish Oct 06 '24
You might know Far Cry as the franchise most responsible for making Ubisoft the way it is today.
Ubisoft didnt see a major impact from farcry until the thrid game, 4-5 years after they skyrocketed into their prime.
The games that made ubisoft were rainbow six 2 and assassins creed.
That being said farcry is a very good series.
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u/BodgeJob Oct 06 '24
rainbow six 2
Wait, what? R6 Vegas 2? Was it big on consoles or something? Cos on PC Vegas and Vegas 2 were just kinda shit.
The way i remember it, Ubi were well established all throughout the 2000s. I remember loads of major franchises under the Ubi name: Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Rayman, R6. But either way, what he meant was the copy-paste formula -- which realistically came from AC2 in 2009.
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Oct 06 '24
I did clan battles and played daily on R6:V2 on Xbox. It had a very healthy community with tons of clans to compete against. You could play game after game all night with very little wait time. It also had awesome features like your characters mouth moving when you used comms irl.
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u/HeavilyArmoredFish Oct 07 '24
Look at their financial reports. The cause of their success were those two games. It shows right there.
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u/ZS1664 Oct 06 '24
As far as the lasting impact of the formula Ubisoft strongly adheres to today - even Assassin's Creed has moved to the "open world checklist with RPG mechanics" - I'd argue that the way Far Cry was made is bigger than you think.
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u/HeavilyArmoredFish Oct 07 '24
Im going off of market history, stock price, and what product they used to shape their business model. These are facts. Farcry had much less to do with their success until primal came out. Numbers do not lie. You can believe farcry was the shaper of ubisoft. It doesnt make it true though.
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u/Lowelll Oct 07 '24
The OP was very clearly not talking about the finances of the company but the game design formula people famously associate with them.
You not understanding context doesn't mean they are wrong.
Or should some nerd reply to your comment with "Well actually Ubisoft is a company so actually it was founded by humans and not made by games huhuhu"
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u/HeavilyArmoredFish Oct 07 '24
You mean the design formula that was tested and implemented on assassins creed 3, black flag, and rogue?
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u/TheRaceWar Oct 06 '24
I have so much love for this game, but holy moly it is FUCKED UP. The back half of this game spikes in difficulty so severely as to be harder on normal mode than most any other shooters hardest difficulty.
The late game trigens are bullet sponges with guns in a game where hit trading is not a viable strategy. Checkpoints are incredibly inconsistent and lock you in with whatever health you have when the checkpoint activates (usually not much lol).
And oh my god the rocket stunlock. If an explosion occurs in the same ZIP code as you, you're locked in place, the screen goes gray, and shakes violently. In a game where one of the enemy types is a giant bullet sponge mutant with a semi auto rocket launcher.
The final gauntlet feels like a borderline shitpost. Like Crytek is daring you to try and make it to the credits.
I love challenging myself, but the original Far Cry is genuinely the most ball busting game I've ever played. Still really like it though.
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u/MrTeespoon Oct 06 '24
What I like about the game to this day is the character design. The main villain was basically dressed in clothes normal people in that region would wear. All the warlords and such had various Nazi, biker, and military-like uniforms. Character design was a crucial part of the exposition for each faction I met in-game.
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u/Titouf26 Oct 06 '24
It's a really good game. I've replayed it during COVID, was awesome. Not as hard as I remembered it, but still pretty tough hehe.
By far the best entry in the series.
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u/Pekonilkki Oct 07 '24
Im probably the only person in the world who likes the monsters in Far Cry 1. The level where you lose your weapons and you have to run in the woods without protection, used to scare the crap out of me as a kid.
I hate myself for saying this bc I prefer new games over the endless remakes and remasters, but if they remade the first Far Cry as a modern FC open world game, I would probably buy it the second it's on a -50% sale, which is a lot better than my usual mindset of "I may or may not buy it if it's ever on a -75% sale idk"
Edit: altho ideally I would prefer a totally new game but with the same/similar premise. But remakes seem to be the thing everyone is doing these days so I'll take it.
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u/Ghostbuster_119 Oct 06 '24
Far cry 2 is still one of my favorites.
The detail in the AI and the overall gameplay elements are just so damn good.
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u/jdsquint Oct 06 '24
Such good memories with this game. I remember it came out the same year as Half-Life 2, and I was blown away by the technology and open gameplay. 2004 was my personal high point year for PC games (me being 15 at the time definitely wasn't the reason).
Far Cry 2 was a personal favorite, but I think the franchise peaked at 3. Been downhill ever since.
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Oct 06 '24
FC2 was the first open world game I ever played and even today I am impressed by its visuals and how big the map seems. Unlike everyone who seem to love FC3, I am among those rare who still likes FC2 more(maybe due to nostalgia ig)
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u/Skarth Oct 06 '24
Having played them back in the day as they released;
Farcry 2 was technically very impressive, but it wasn't fun, you spent too much time driving to and from missions, and the combat encounters on the way had no benefits (There wasn't a reason to fight most fights), unlike in Farcry 3 where you got collectables and unlocks from each location.
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u/DriftMantis Oct 06 '24
This game was a big deal when it came out. I mean it was one of the first open world shooters. The graphics were like a generation ahead of what others were achieving.
Back then PC gaming was pretty niche, but I was there day 1 blowing people away by this game.
The best thing was this was clearly a passion project from crytek, no dlc, no politics (except for being against big government viral research), no microtransactions, no BS. Just a game you could play and you owned the disc forever.
The open world stealth and tactical action was done better in this game than a lot of modern games funny enough. The atmosphere of the monster sections was also creepy and well done.
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u/Used-Apartment-5627 Oct 06 '24
3 was sooo good. Except the 20 degree FOV. I swear I got motion sick on my ultrwide playing it.
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u/hvanderw Oct 06 '24
I remember liking the bump mapping and the cool jungle shadows. My brother beat it on the hardest difficulty really had to sneak around etc. It came out between painkiller and doom3 so really filled that void waiting for doom3.
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u/CarcosaJuggalo Oct 06 '24
I never played the first Far Cry, but I loved Crysis (even if it was kinda buggy sometimes). I wasn't able to build a computer that could run it until about ten years after release (and it still couldn't quite max out all the graphics settings, one of the few games I couldn't max out on that system back then).
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u/nofreelaunch Oct 06 '24
Crazy to think this used to be a innovative franchise. Now it’s one of the most conservative in gaming.
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u/EVMad Oct 07 '24
My Athlon XP with Geforce 2 MX was basically minimum requirements for this. I played it in 640x480 low settings and that left things like water effects looking pretty bad. I still had a hoot playing it and I recently installed on my current PC (5800X with 6600XT) and was able to set everthing to max. It looks fantastic and is still a hoot to play. The game changes quite suddenly from a fairly standard jungle FPS to a much more half-life like monsters and all game. So good.
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u/Germangunman Xbox Oct 07 '24
I don’t remember it very well. Played it upon release and I do know it was a lot of fun. Following the scent trails of the enemies and setting traps in the jungle was great. Nothing like the far cry’s we have now.
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u/Jarms48 Oct 07 '24
I’m still amazed they don’t remaster these games. Instead they’re remastering games from the previous generation and selling them at full price.
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u/Bushpylot Oct 06 '24
I tried installing FC2 yesterday. It was so sad that it doesn't run on this new machine.
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u/micho510900 Oct 06 '24
Personally I loved Far Cry 2 the most, fire effects and enemies AI are ironically something I'm lookig forward to in todays Ubisoft games but they seems to go backwards. Far Cry 2 was the peak for me.
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u/ZS1664 Oct 06 '24
FC2's great but rough around the edges. Polish it up some and rerelease it and people would appreciate it a lot more.
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u/OafleyJones Oct 06 '24
One thing that sticks out about this game, was the promise of the physics engine; and how environmental based destruction would be the future. It wasn’t the only one of course, but it’s kinda amazing that there’s stuff in this game that none of the sequels could replicate.
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u/EarbudsLikeAPro Oct 07 '24
Far Cry one was cool until the Aliens imo.
Played Far Cry 2 with the Redux mod recently and it’s great. Seeing the chaos of an African village engulfed in flames from what I’ve done was a 10/10 moment
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u/Nisktoun Oct 06 '24
It's just... meh?
I mean yeah, visuals are great for it's time but all other stuff are just alright at best. There are lots of prehistoric era games that are really holding up today gameplay wise, but Far Cry is not in this list
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u/Titouf26 Oct 06 '24
Alright at best?
The gunplay feels so good it shits on half the modern FPS we get all the time.
Story is nothing to write home about, but then again that's usually not the strong suit of FPS.
And it's got a pretty decently long campaign with a fairly tough (some might say super damn f***ing hard) spike in difficulty towards the end.
Honestly go ahead and name one other FPS from the same era that's better than FarCry. The only one that comes even a little close is CoD: Modern Warfare, and that was released 3 years later. And looked far worse.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 Oct 07 '24
Honestly go ahead and name one other FPS from the same era that's better than FarCry
Half-Life 2?
2004 wasn't shy on legendary shooters, between UT2004, this, HL2 and Doom 3
And looked far worse
Mate
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u/Simple_Throat_6523 Oct 06 '24
It was mind blowingly gorgeous on release. I loved the open jungle fighting then down underground in creepy tunnels and the gunfight on the aircraft carrier was epic! Far Cry is one of my top 5 classic games.