By The Stratos Group
Design by Marty Smith

To be blunt: Far Cry is the best first-person shooter to come along in years. Its chief claim to fame lies in the area of technological excellence: it boasts massive draw distances, allowing the protaganist, Jack Carver, to see enemies over a kilometer away while he traverses the game’s beautiful island levels. This wouldn’t mean much if the game had to sacrifice attractive graphics to implement this feature, but somehow it doesn’t, as every bit of the game pushes the envelope graphically, from the enemies to the explosion effects. You won’t soon forget the first time you accidentally blind yourself with a flashbang.

But while many developers would be content to ship a game that acted as a mere tech demo for their engine, Crytek has managed to put together a single-player title so complete in every way that it can’t help but exceed most gamers’ expectations. We’ve all bought games that last for a mere ten hours (or less), and perhaps don’t even have a multiplayer component, but Far Cry isn’t one of these: you can easily expect to spend an hour or two on each of the game’s 20 levels on your first play-through, and perhaps longer if you go through again on one of the game’s harder difficulty settings. And what’s more, the game is just fun, with challenging AI, plenty of vehicles, a well-designed menagerie of enemies, and an interesting plot. And even after you complete the single-player portion of the game, there’s a thorough multiplayer component, containing a very fun objective-based mode called Assault, in addition to the standard deathmatch and team deathmatch game modes.

Luckily for you, GameSpot’s unofficial guide to Far Cry has details on everything! Within these pages, you’ll find a complete walk-through for the entire single-player campaign, with details on each of the weapons, enemies, and vehicles that you’ll run across, along with a bevy of tips on each of the multiplayer modes and maps. With the information in this guide, you’ll be dropping Fat Boys in no time. Enjoy!

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