(2 / 4)
Also on: Windows, Xbox 360
PORN STAR MISSING IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
Researching this game, I found that people tend to call it a remake rather than a straight port. And as far as remakes go, Far Cry Classic is as redundant as they come. Why did Ubisoft decide to release it? Well, for the sake of money of course. With 2014 came the ten year anniversary of the franchise, but the state this is in makes it seem like the occasion snuck up on the company and took them completely by surprise.Ubisoft extracted the original 2004 Far Cry campaign out of its Crytek engine, and put it into the Dunia 2 engine suited for consoles. This meant they had to make sacrifices because of limitations to the amount of RAM. Now who the hell needs a scaled-down remake of a ten year old game that hardly looks any different than the original, and plays much worse? I realised I once again got the short end of the stick, playing an FPS that ostensibly looks and sounds like the real deal, but certainly doesn't feel like it.
MEET JACK CARVER
The story is a lighthearted b-action movie spoof: Our chauvinist hero is Jack Carver, voiced by Peter Thias, who (probably intentionally) delivers his lines like a porn star. Jack is a former Special Forces agent who now runs a boat rental service in the South Pacific. The opening cinematic shows his boat being blown to smithereens by a torpedo, whilst cruising the waters of Micronesia.Jack narrowly escapes the blast and swims to a nearby island. His passenger, the mysterious Valerie Constantine (Adriana Anderson), had just left the boat on a jet ski and is nowhere to be found. It's up to you to find out what the heck is going on by sneaking, running, driving and boating across a chain of islands. A stranger called Doyle (Cornell Womack) will guide you via radio, and embroil you in a cautionary tale about a mad German playing God in a remote location, where creation was seemingly left unfinished...
ALTERATIONS GALORE
Beforehand, I had only played one other Far Cry: the prehistoric spin-off called Far Cry Primal (2016). As for Far Cry Classic, I expected the same free-roaming open world structure, and was surprised to find it level-based, although a lot of the maps resemble small open worlds with a certain degree of freedom. There are 20 missions overall, constantly shifting from exterior to interior locations, and with it a supposed radical shift in gameplay.So with my Dualshock 3 in hand, I tried running around the lush tropical setting, but something felt off right away. I quickly realised Ubisoft hadn't implemented the one advantage controllers have over mouse and keyboard - 360 degree movement. That's correct, the left analogue stick instead emulates the eight-directional movement you get with a keyboard. Slightly altering the angle on the left stick accomplishes nothing, until it reaches a certain threshold where Jack will completely change direction.
I couldn't get used to this throughout my entire playthrough. They might as well have assigned character movement to the d-pad. Luckily, the game rarely relies on precision movement, but the few times it does, it just reeks of what a nightmare Far Cry Classic very well could have been.
Also, due to the console's lack of RAM, the drawing distance is shorter than the original's, making it possible for the enemy to spot and shoot you before you can even see them. This would've mattered less had the game kept the original 250 meter radar, but in Far Cry Classic -- possibly for game engine reasons -- the radar is limited to 30 meters, making it practically useless. Ubisoft has also removed the ability to peek around corners, making the interiors more of a run-and-gun affair.
ANOTHER GAME EMERGES
To compensate for its shortcomings, the overall difficulty has been lowered (the original Far Cry is infamous for its high difficulty). The enemies' aim has significantly worsened, particularly from a distance, and they can take fewer hits while you can soak up more. Aiming your gun automatically centers view on any enemy close to the aiming reticule. Also, once you tag enemies with your binoculars, an arrow pinpoints their exact location on the screen. In the original version, tagging them only meant they popped up on the radar, giving you nothing but their approximate location and often turning the situation into an exciting game of hide-and-seek.These alterations essentially changes the gameplay experience. "Stealth is a viable option", one loading screen hints, but in Far Cry Classic full-on combat is much more viable. Only the initial approach to each situation should be made cautiously. After that your wisest choice is to shoot freely as you can easily track the enemy's movement and snipe him from afar with only a few shots. Trying to sneak in closer only puts you in harm's way.
Removing the hide-and-seek elements transforms the game into a rote FPS experience that cannot support the length of the campaign. The intentions of the original game still shine through, and is confirmed by watching a good YouTube playthrough. But that is not what I played, so I really cannot take that into consideration.
PLAY THE ORIGINAL INSTEAD
This has been a scathing review so far. However, I have to admit I had some fun with Far Cry Classic, probably due to the fact that I never played the original version, and used my Dualshock 4 instead of the 3. With all the changes in gameplay, I've got to hand it to Ubisoft - they altered the difficulty just right to make it a playable mess. And the audio content seems unaltered. I love the use of sound as gameplay, and how it manifests in the scope and its built-in sound amplifyer. Listening in on the enemy dialogue is really fun, and in the tense interior levels you can use it to identify the dangers lurking everywhere.I'll give it a passing grade, but whatever good you may get out of Far Cry Classic stems from the original game designed by Crytek. So I'll save the praise for the possibility that I review that version of the game - as I should have right from the start - because this remake just doesn't deserve any of it.
For fans and veterans of the original 2004 Far Cry this version must seem like a far cry from what to expect. That game evolved from a tech demo into the full-blown action piece it became, and while not wholly successful, Crytek made some pretty innovative gameplay decisions to support the promises of their engine. To see their heritage handled in this way by Ubisoft must feel like sacrilege. For the sake of FPS shooters everywhere, I can finally, in a sense, understand the "PC Master Race" mentality.
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