Far Cry: Hands-on with full preview code!

By now, you'll know that we rather like Crytek's first-person shooter Far Cry. It's the first game to come from the German development studio, and has all the hallmarks of being a resounding hit with FPS fanboys around the world.

A recent single-player demo has presented all and sundry with the opportunity to lick Crytek's lolly of delight, but the arrival of preview code from the title has given us the chance to dip further into its offerings...

Anyone who's played the recently released single-player demo of Far Cry can attest to the first-person shooter's graphical prowess. The idyllic tropical paradise that plays stage for the majority of the action is rendered in stunning detail, with the likes of foliage lazily moving in the wind, leaves rustling and ambient sound effects lending an important immersive quality.

And the lighting! Phew, it's jaw-dropping. The way palm fronds create dappled shade on the player character's arms and hands and on weapons held is particular stunning.

We could talk about Far Cry's visual niceties for hours on end, but what we all really want to know about is how levels outside the one featured in the demo play, right? One tangle with the latest code later and we have some answers - and let's just say that, if what we've played of the first-person shooter in total so far is indicative of the entire game, then Crytek's incredible effort is going to steal the crown from under the nose of your current FPS top dog. Like the location in which it's set, this title is hot.

It appears that the latest Far Cry code Ubisoft has sent our way is actually sliced right from the start of the game, as, loading it up, the first level we were greeted with is your basic training mission - creeping around tunnels with an occasional glimpse of the outside world.

Press this key to do this, press that key to do that and so on. Gawp at the graphics for a few seconds. But cleverly, the training mission blends seamlessly into the first real level, which naturally is where the fun begins.

We don't want to give too much of the plot away and spoil things - right near the start you receive some vital pieces of information - but when you overhear some muscle-bound bad-ass in a Stetson saying to an gun-toting underling: "Listen dirt-bag, keep and eye out for some punk in a red Hawaiian shirt [i.e. you]", you know things aren't going to well.

(And we should mention that a mysterious person going by the name of Doyle provides you with certain pieces of advice, info and mission objectives via a communications link - he babbles in your ear a lot, basically).

Anyway, emerging from a tunnel entrance into the beautiful outdoors with gun in hand, the early stages for us were like training in the art of warfare. Our objective was to get to a helicopter pad (handily, a radar in the bottom left of the screen indicated objective direction) and then infiltrate a ship.

Well, that sounds pretty easy, but due to Far Cry's non-linear design we were immediately tasked with making a decision - should we creep around and play it stealthily and avoid the enemy, or charge in like Rambo spraying bullets?

Well, having had the pleasure of playing against the AI in the demo and knowing how rock hard it can be, naturally we charged.

Surprisingly, at the beginning, enemies proved disappointingly easy to take out, but this may be because they were grunts acting under their own steam. Encounter an enemy group with a leader, identifiable by the radio he carries on his back, and it's a whole different ball game.

One of our favourite moments came when dealing with an enemy squad. Sneaking up to a guard tower and eliminating the lookout, suddenly the radar came alive with incoming hostiles (enemies can be "tagged" by using the game's binoculars and then appear on the radar as dots). Opting to stick in the same spot, we foolishly assumed that the enemies would simply run in more or less a straight line, slap bang into our gun sights.

But oh no, keeping an eye on the radar to observe enemy movements, we suddenly realised that, while one was heading straight toward us, two others had split off from the group and were attempting an out-flanking maneuver. Our situation was looking ever so slightly precarious, so rather than stay and fight we legged it like chickens to the helicopter pad and secured ourselves a jeep, hit the gas pedal and zoomed off.

And there we were, tyres raking up dust as we hot-tailed it along jungle trails and ran over some disreputables with large guns, and all seemed to be going swimmingly - until we came to the beach.

Instantly, all hell broke loose, with a gunboat just off the shore lobbing explosive rounds on our heads and two enemy jeeps chasing us across the dunes and letting rip with mounted machine guns. Control of our vehicle going to pot, we careered into the jungle and crashed spectacularly into a tree - and then leaped out the driving seat as smoke started to pour out the engine...

Only to come smack bang, face to face with two enemy foot soldiers. With guns spraying, we had a few seconds to notice some really cool, rusted Japanese World War II fighter planes making up part of the scenery before we had to duck behind a palm tree for cover.

Incoming grenades had to be dodged, bullets thudded alarmingly all around us; but through a bit of speedy footwork and some incredibly flukey shots we managed to take down our opponents.

A sniper rifle nabbed from one of the corpses proved extremely useful later on when attempting to board the ship - part of our objective. What we were expecting with "ship" we don't know, but when we finally saw our destination our jaws hit the floor, rebounded back up again and then hit the floor once more.

"Ship" turned out to be the massive, rusting hulk of a World War II battleship grounded on the beach, and it looked utterly, utterly awesome.

Going to high ground and then going prone to steady our aim, we whipped out the sniper rifle, held our breath (you hold your breath by holding down a key, and this further steadies your aim), and then had huge mounts of fun shooting enemies patrolling topside on the ship in the head.

Unluckily for us, we ran out of ammo before we could kill all of them, and one turned out to be in possession of a rocket launcher. Because of our distance away, it was easy to dodge, but incoming rockets trailing smoke looked really, really cool.

Then it was simply a case of sprinting up the beach, weaving to avoid fire from a gunboat and diving through a hole in the ship's hull to progress onto the next level.

The ship interior is in stark contrast to the previous paradise setting, dark, brooding and rusting. In fact, with a voice coming through an intercom system and echoing through the hollow shell and subtle, foreboding music playing, it kind of felt like being in a rather run-down version of the Death Star and without the stormtroopers.

After the expanse of the outdoors, here it was a return to the corridor/room first-person shooter, with enemies lurking around corners and investigating the sound of gunfire.

Sadly, time was short and so we only had the opportunity for a brief encounter with this level, but it was equally as captivating as the one previous.

For a first game, Far Cry is quite incredible, and hats must come off to developer Crytek for its efforts. Visually it's astounding, action is extremely satisfying, clever level design - considering the massive playing environments - means that firefights are always lurking just around the bend and enemy AI can be quite astonishing.

But perhaps the one thing that really sticks out from our hands-on is the feeling of freshness, which should definitely be applauded.

Sure, there are some quibbles, with the AI sometimes getting stuck on ladders of all things, but this is presumably down to the state of the code and should be ironed out in time for release. Far Cry arrives on March 26, published by Ubisoft.

Stuart Bishop