The story behind Far Cry is you play Jack Carver, someone who left his past behind to pursue a much less violent career chartering boats in Micronesia. You’re supposed to escort an ambitious journalist named Valerie Cortez to the Island of Cabatu. The boat your on gets blown up by heavily armed soldiers and after escaping through an underwater cave, your adventure begins.

The version of Far Cry I was able to play consists of two levels from the final game; the island level from the recently released single player demo, with more tantalizing goodness, and a different level from the game showing off the inside of a mountainous fortification.

This engine provides bumping mapping, dynamic lighting, per pixel lighting, stencil shadows, a physics system on just about everything, AI, and a bunch of other quality visual and audible goodness that come together blissfully, creating truly immersive environments. If you were able to cut down trees with machinegun fire, it would be perfect. I know, nit picking! Anyway, the draw distance is amazing. The lack of a visually unappealing draw dome, used to keep ones video card from exploding, is appreciated.

Far Cry will give players a good choice of weapons to use. So far I’ve been able to play with a SAW, a silenced MP5, M4 Carbine, M82 Sniper rifle, an OIC Assault Rifle, a P90 SMG and a Jack Hammer shotgun. All the weapons look and sound great. Oh, let’s not forget the frag and tear gas grenades as well as the ability to throw rocks.