Far Cry Vengeance

"Dissapointing - Rent it first"

Introduction
Far Cry is the third shooter out for the Wii and I had high hopes that this was going to be the "Must Have" FPS shooter, at least for a while. Basically, you control a mutant guy who gets a boost from hacking people or getting headshots. Your mutant ability (which is explained by an adrenaline like substance which is measured with bars in a circle) can help you track enemies, see in the dark, knock guys a mile away, heal, run fast, etc.

Game play 3/10
Much of the game is quite frustrating, climbing up ladders, jumping onto zip lines, turning in circles, the AI is pretty bad and direct firefights are not what they should be. Climbing up and down takes a bit to line your character up directly and is a bit finicky and getting onto a zip line can be just as finicky in some areas. Turning in circles is by using the wiimote, which doesn't seem like it is the ideal way. When you are able to shoot an enemy your target reticule goes red, if it isn't red you cannot hit them, there is no gray area either no chance to hit or can hit. This may not seem like such a big deal if you haven't played the game, but sometimes you can plainly see the enemy and have to walk quite a bit closer than you feel you need to before you are able to kill them. The AI is quite bad, you can usually get at least one kill from a group of enemies by running up to them, which can be quite noisy, and hacking them before they react, sometimes enemies will refuse to react at all.

Graphics 2/10
The graphics are bad, plain and simple bad. The textures do look very last gen, the cut scenes are horrible, and big firefights can drop the frames per second to zero or near zero, and pop in is quite noticeable. Predator mode was horrible, there was a fisheye effect and much blurring which was quite nauseating. I'm all for the game play over graphics so besides the FPS problems and predator mode I didn't overly care about this.

Sound 3/10
The sound cuts out, especially in multiplayer. Music isn't a constant but it seems appropriate for when it is being played. I can't recall the speaker on the wiimote ever making a noise.

Controls 5/10
The aiming is fine in this game, you can lock your view by holding down the A button so you can freely strafe. Throwing grenades is quite awkward, you hold down the Z button on the nunchuk when you have grenades and are only using one gun, then mimic the action of throwing a grenade, but the difference between throwing as hard as you can and gently tossing is quite small. Driving was rather well done, you control which way you go with the nunchuk's analog stick and then freely aim with the wiimote. After your predator bar is full you can turn on your predator mode with the A button, the same A button you use for locking your view, I wasted a full gauge more than once because of this. Zooming in is horrible, you thrust the wiimote forward to accomplish this, but you'll likely have to do it more than once. Zooming in with a sniper scope is infuriating, if you see an enemy walking by and want to zoom in it is quite likely that you will lose track of him and have your scope pointed at some random piece of ground after your second or third thrust towards the T.V.

Multiplayer 1/10
The multiplayer in this game is horrible. First of all there is only two players split screen. Secondly there are only two game types - Predator and Chaos. Chaos is a standard fragfest while Predator will turn one person into a melee only character who is always in predator mode after they get a kill- they can't heal though. Thirdly, the map selection is rather limited, this is especially disappointing after hearing about the mapmaker available for other Far Cry games.

Replay Value 2/10
The multiplayer is seriously lacking the only replay you have is doing the single player mission again on a harder difficulty level.

Overall 2/10
The single player isn't amazing, the multiplayer is lacking, the graphics aren't great, and the controls aren't ideal. Overall this game isn't worth buying. If you rent it you may find that you play Wii sports more than Far Cry and you may return it early. Truly disappointing.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 12/20/06