Far Cry: The ORIGINAL CryEngine Tested on 2005 PC Hardware: Athlon X2 3800+/GeForce 6800GT!

With the upcoming release of Crysis Remastered, we decided to go back and revisit the original CryEngine running the very first Far Cry game, operating on period-appropriate PC hardware! Yes, before Ubisoft bought out the franchise, Crytek developed and updated the first game, giving us our first look at CryEngine technology and delivering an almost work-in-progress take on the behemoth that would become Crysis.
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[@playcloudpluspc]

The graphics and physics were simply mind blowing for the time, I'd never seen anything like it before. All other games looked very basic by comparison.

[@bestledisthe]

well you know, half life 2?😗

[@HAMEDSniperS]

And now look at assassins creed valhalla with its proprietary next gen ps2 animation physics writing and gameplay.

[@playcloudpluspc]

@@bestledisthe Far Cry came out months before Half Life 2, I'm talking about playing Far Cry in March 2004 in comparison to games that had come out before. Of course Half Life 2 then surpassed it in some ways. 2004 was one of best years in gaming and game engine technology.

[@AntiTrollable]

@@bestledisthe farcry was sandbox, half life 2 was not so no comparison imo. Farcry started fps open world and was the first game that didn't feel like running through a tunnel and had a sense of freedom.

[@fcukugimmeausername]

All these n00bs thinking HL2 came out before FarCry 1.

[@evo7836]

Such a classic, HL2, Doom 3, FEAR, and FC...this to me was pinnacle of my PC gaming days....great video and can't wait to see more of these 05' PC hardware videos.

[@bestledisthe]

San Andreas?😗

[@evo7836]

@@bestledisthe Didn't play that on PC, played on PS2

[@agustindanielgimenez9483]

@@bestledisthe Ps2 version is better

[@awave1]

Deus Ex belongs up there too!

[@bestledisthe]

@@awave1 that was 2000 though, still a great game 😀

[@mathdeep]

This was totally mind-blowing for the time. Before Far Cry, this kind of visual quality was only possible in pre-rendered cut scenes.

[@balaam_7087]

Alex’s improvement in his voice overs is just awesome. When he first joined the DF team I could hardly understand him. He was what seinfeld would call a low-talker. But now his narration is clear and audible and very professional. Nice job!

[@southpaw117]

I ended up receiving a puffy shirt in the mail the first time I listened to one of Alex's early narrations.

[@pkpckls]

I played the demo of this for so many hours, mostly just pissing about with the physics objects on the piers. I'd never seen anything like it. Blew my mind, and almost blew up my PC.

[@layzie45]

one of the patches actually broke the AI which is why they can see you through the tents. There are some user made patches that fix it IIRC.

[@RussianZOmBieATTACK]

they not only can see you through tents, but through walls and any surfaces in general, and they can shoot through walls too

[@RussianZOmBieATTACK]

@@doltBmB don't you worry, it's the latest one and steam has it, with no way to downgrade. So if you're going to buy it on steam, search for fixes first

[@jakedill1304]

@@RussianZOmBieATTACK yep that's the very thing that ended up keeping me from playing Half-Life 2 for 17 years.. just one fateful night I even had it steam in offline mode LOL, I connected accidentally I didn't even mean to.. I had no idea that something was going to happen, so I didn't think too hard about it but.. I connected once and I was never able to play my mods that I've been working on for a year again.. not even the base game LOL.. finally got around to trying to get back what I lost and play those episodes.. the first one was good, not so much on the second one.. and now I can't go back to playing modern games cuz LOL I went too far, I crisis ed gave myself too many things to do too many cool ways to do things.. shit, most games don't even let you lean anymore.

[@BradPitBrasileiro]

​@@RussianZOmBieATTACK you don't buy, buy gog version has fix included

[@sebastianvangen]

Remember this in 2004, the graphics was wow.

[@MrX-rk9or]

Yea, it was crazy. So glad I played this game, back in the day.

[@edskt_]

@@MrX-rk9or Me too man.

[@BazinGarrey]

Half Life 2 looked better back then

[@MrX-rk9or]

@@BazinGarrey Nope, even though it was a much later game, that year. In 2005 (or maybe 2006) HL2 got HDR'd. That changed things up a bit, though.

[@BJN87M]

i played this on celeron 2ghz and gforce mx 440 4gb of ram...and this was the best lookign game of that time. Graphics were beautiful. And i really liked the story and gameplay. It is one of my favorite shooters to this day..

[@main_stream_media_is_a_joke]

The gog 1.4 version of this game has all the patches applied and water reflections work perfect​ on Win7 64 bit. Just apply the fov patch and you are in heaven. This game is literally The Island of Dr. Moreu video game adaptation.

[@DimitriosChannel]

Runs well on windows 10? I bit the bullet and made a new build with W10.

[@GanNing221]

Does the GOG version include the fov patch?

[@jakedill1304]

@@DimitriosChannel most things oddly enough run more stable on Windows 10 than they ever did on Vista or Windows 7.. don't ask me why, and that's you know certainly no reason for why Windows 10 functions the way it does cuz it does a lot of things that are problematic.. but for what it's worth a lot of older titles are surprisingly, where you wouldn't be able to even get to try and like you can usually figure out a way to make it work. just make sure you download the user mods that fix all the broken things that Ubisoft did with the updates that most of the current versions of the game ship with.. and also if you're going to fix the fov.. make sure you fix the view model fov because as you expand the fov.. the weapon model fov is not on the same layer, and has to be expanded as well otherwise it cuts it off and it looks really bad. Those are a lot easier to fix though, but you just have to make sure that you're addressing both at the same time.. the widescreen fov patch which is really cool and rescales the HUD and everything does not change the view model fob which needs to be done separately but it's not hard to do and I think it can be done in the console.. as far as the AI goes, like there's a couple of things that say they address it I just don't know how well.. I would look into it though and make sure that you address it before playing like these guys did and then coming out all bitter and whiny.

[@DimitriosChannel]

@@jakedill1304 I built the rig by the way, I have a Ryzen 5 3600, RX580, 16GB of 3200mhz, W10, Sandisk SSD & Western SSD as well. Let me tell you it runs flawlessly. W10 has a POWER SAVER MODE specifically for Ryzen's and locks it at a low 0.944 voltage perfectly.

[@jakedill1304]

​@@DimitriosChannel man you pretty much have my buddy's computer spec for spec.. I will say I wouldn't use windows power regulation for CPU stepping especially with older games.. I don't think it's as much of an issue anymore, but speaking of 32-bit applications I know there was a bunch of issues, causing things like stuttering.. CPU parking excuse me.. Also, fun fact about Windows 10 it wants to be a cell phone.. so take your paging file make sure it's on a separate drive from your OS.. this is just as simple as making a paging file on a different nvme drive you want it to be a fast drive.. then making sure that the paging file for yours your OS hard drive is non-existent if not as small as minimally possible... Microsoft will get mad at you but it's going to help you out in the long run and the short run and all the runs LOL. Then you want to look up the registry directory for memory so that Windows is not compressing your memory.. if you have enough RAM no need to compress it and it just eats up CPU cycles, cuz it's constantly throwing things from your paging file into RAM to your hard drive back into RAM back to your hard drive because it thinks it's being sneaky LOL and it wants to run everything all at once like a cell phone. From there you want to turn off in the services, well you want to turn off a lot of things LOL definitely things regarding any of the Xbox anything that says Xbox you want to disable that, unless you absolutely need it.. the one in particular is the DVR one, that's Xbox live recording BS that has no business being anywhere, and has a habit of cutting your performance in half when there's no reason it should be running at all LOL. Most importantly though aside from you know just disabling telemetry which is, more symbolic of course.. there's a function called SYSMAIN... You want to disable that entirely.. What it does is it tries to anticipate the programs that you're going to run.. so, even if you're not worried about telemetry right there.. more importantly it's trying to assume that it knows what you want it to do, it's going to basically try to get things ready based on your usage patterns which is just creepy in general but more importantly.. your computer's notably fast enough that you don't actually need to do this in any way cuz it's a desktop not a cell phone. And then, next thing after that would be to make sure that you have nothing touching your paging file that doesn't need to be touched you want everything to go into your RAM.. absolutely no reason it should have to touch your paging file but you do have to have a paging file otherwise a lot of programs just won't run or will crash, that's not because they need the paging file it's because they think they might need the paging file and they freak out.. but once Windows stops constantly shifting things from the hard drive to the ram to the paging file back and forth wasting CPU cycles etc.. it's basically a glorified condom, and a novelty one at Best LOL. From there, you want to go into applications, which are different from programs I guess because they're they're run exclusively through Microsoft's system so again cell phone technology LOL.. these want to run at all times you want to disable all of them that you're not actually using, and go into each one individually and tell it not to run in the background.. cuz they all run in the background at all times lol.. these are different from services, some of them are useful most of them are not a lot of them come preloaded because they pay to be preloaded.. it's like somehow Dell reaching out from beyond the warp to make sure that you know that.. Candy crush is here, don't you want to crush it? LOL. Just go through that whole list uninstall anything that looks stupid, but turn everything off more importantly, and tell everything not to run in the background unless it looks like something that you want to run in the background.. there's about 25 or 50 of them.. I'd say about 25 of them can just be a uninstall uninstall uninstall, it changes dynamically because Microsoft is constantly dynamically being paid by different things and it will reinstall them on certain updates.. Next and you probably already know this one cuz you've already been in the power settings.. this one threw me for a loop as well, apparently Microsoft does not allow you to have full power for your video card or graphics unless you tell it to have high performance mode, you can't even make your own custom high performance mode it has to be the labeled high performance mode.. literally cut my GPU power in half and I couldn't figure out what was going on, cuz I had just come from Windows 7 with the same GPU..

[@90lancaster]

I am still impressed by a good forest - as it's something that even now some developers can screw up.

[@90lancaster]

@SKEKMAL I do get impressed though when a body break twigs or bends leaves - it's like playing an FPS and looking down and seeing you have a body for your character - it's a little thing but the care and attention still pleases me regardless.

[@arszene4129]

@SKEKMAL gotta say forest in rdr2 looks pretty dense and bad at the same time and it reduce a lot of fps

[@ivyssauro123]

@SKEKMAL Yeah even realtively "new" games like the last few Dark Souls games got some horrid puke inducing "forests"

[@90lancaster]

@SKEKMAL It does if you can remember a time - before plants were impressive... Why am I suddenly thinking of Tryffids.

[@arszene4129]

@SKEKMAL especially when u turn on TAA

[@surject]

I will NEVER forget my first experience with this game - prolly interessting for (young) people to understand how much of an impact this game was: When the game started and shown the main menu, the background was playing either a real-time or recorded in-game showcase of the beach with the water and palms etc. BUT to me it looked like a RENDERED video and, I remember like it was yesterday, I told to myself "Yeah right, I hope games will look like this one day" ...10 minutes later my jaw dropped to the floor.

[@feedeevit]

People who complain FarCry is too difficult: - Not using the binocs to explore the area & tag the enemies - Charging head on without any strategy - Wasting the precious sniper ammo for regular enemies / short range kills - Not eliminating the snipers / rocketeers first - Not hiding in the foliage - Not throwing the rocks to lure the enemies - Not using the MP5SD to silently headshot the mercenaries - Using the MP5SD against the Trigens - Not using the semi-auto mode for better accuracy - Not using any secondary-fire mode with any weapon - Not aiming for the head when the enemies wear body armor - Unfamiliar with the concept of cover and leaning during firefights

[@killchicken123]

Basically understand every mechanic and exploit(I'm talking about you foliage) and execute with better than average reflex, in the absence of the latter with large number repetitions to overcome the low probability of success, that in my opinion is the definition "difficult".

[@arnox4554]

> Sprays full auto at an enemy sniper on the tower while the sniper is also firing. "How do all the enemies know where I am?" C'mon, Digital Foundry. I expected a lot better of you.

[@Milky094]

Before you get the first sniper, I used to use the bino to zoom to farther enemies, exit bino, and shoot M4 without moving the mouse. Took a couple more ammos, but worked like a charm.

[@MattCarter1999]

As a veteran Far Cry player I just... thank you.

[@A_Lazy_Mutt]

None of this actually means anything if the game doesn't convey it properly, and Far Cry is the polar opposite of games like Mega Man and Contra when it comes to conveyance.

[@uubrmanx]

The biggest thing I remember about this game: [returns to the title screen after dying].

[@emulation2369]

mutant monkeys says "hi"

[@floppyseizure8615]

28:18 Does John spit out whatever he was drinking? Haha.

[@Si-Al-Ti]

I remember playing the demo that I got off of my subscription of PC Gamer. I kind of miss having a CD with game demos and videos bundled with magazines. The demo was great fun though! Watching this video makes me feel like we are closing in on a Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory vid from you guys soon.

[@chop46878]

kungmat Chaos Theory came out a full year after the first Far Cry, Pandora Tomorrow actually launched the same day as Far Cry on PC.

[@xaero212]

Totally! Chaos Theory vid from DF would be amazing!

[@nathaniliescu4597]

I miss the time before you started talking. Good times.

[@Z31Turbo]

I remember the water was really revolutionary for the time as well. Most games were using just a flat texture, but farcry used pixel shaders and made it look like actual water.

[@Ryuujin1078]

Wave Race on the N64 had impressive water effects with rendered waves at a distance which was impressive in gaming. FarCry took it to another level

[@roland11110010101]

@@Ryuujin1078 I looked at it and its impressive for n64!

[@Joshua_N-A]

Watch the X-Isle demo.

[@chrishexx3360]

This game blew my mind with the open space it offered. The Glider part alone was one of those gaming "woah!" moments. The last few levels were daft and GPU crushing, but I still loved this game.

[@cd-rommasterclass19]

Since you guys love physics much, you should do a DF Retro for Dreamcast's Toy Commander; the game is not a looker, graphically speaking; but it had an absurdly advanced physics system for 1999. Game had tons of dynamic objects all over the place, and some gameplay revolved around that.

[@Astrophizz]

The end of that game with the kid as an adult airline pilot is hilarious.

[@cd-rommasterclass19]

@@Astrophizz , yeah, I had a good laugh; man was that game fun; it was so much more dynamic and interactive than anything at that time... so sad it's such an unknown gem... DF could help shed some light on it.

[@DigitalDesires87]

Yes, that would be awesome. I remember getting the demo for Toy Commander back in the day on the Dreamcast Magazine disc and I played the demo for weeks, because I enjoyed playing around with all the physics in the game. You could also set things on fire! Months later there was another demo on another discs with christmas levels and I played that for weeks aswell :D Good memories! The game hasn't aged well though :P

[@pferreira1983]

You always ask for that game don't you?

[@cd-rommasterclass19]

@@DigitalDesires87 , ahahah, same here! I personally don't think that it really aged, it's just that, not only is it a product of it's time, modern tech has evolved way past it; graphically it certainly wasn't a looker, but... but the phisiscs engine in the other hand, I think that for a game this old, they're still very respectful and hold their own somewhat. Gameplay... Can be a bit hit or miss I'd say, but it could also be that I replayed the thing so many times over back on its day, that I got burned out. I still enjoy going back to the game, every now and then.

[@kodemasterx]

2004 was the year I switched to PC, HALF LIFE2, DOOM 3, UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2K4, FAR CRY and PAINKILLER were the reason for me build my own rig...

[@MJ-uk6lu]

You forgot one more title. Colin McRae Rally 2005.

[@HuGiv5]

Cryengine was ahead of its time.

[@yup9451]

Ubisoft games feel so incredibly lackluster and lifeless nowadays. No proper physics, world interaction or grounded/ weighted gameplay. It's all fluff now. Oh well, saves me money :)

[@arszene4129]

@@yup9451 watch dogs 2 are actually still holds up today,but i agree the physics are suckdick

[@WindWolf28]

It was streets ahead, definitely.

[@ihx4111]

always has been.

[@pvtcmyers87]

Always was

[@Camdavis11]

Around 29:00 I think John was talking about Far Cry Classic, the xbla port of the original Far Cry. Different from Instincts

[@EricMalette]

I remember when this game out, the banner titles were Half Life 2 and Doom 3 and I got this game for shits and giggles and it floored me. Best surprise ever. I had built my first PC that year.

[@Tommixist]

This game was basically the beginning of the new era of videogame graphics, followed by Doom 3, Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R, Oblivion.. which used dynamic lightning and real time shadows.

[@JamalDolleyGames]

This was my favourite old school FPS, the AI, physics and overall gameplay was amazing for the time.

[@yan3066]

This and Goldeneye on the 64 are the best old school fps as you said ;)

[@Meisuko]

This was crazy good looking when this came out.

[@nomercy8989]

Yeah I remember being totally blown away by the moving shadows from the lights and the self shadowing on jack in that first animation when he picks up the radio.

[@Joshua_N-A]

Back in the day rigs with the specs to play this game would be insanely expensive.

[@MrSpineduke]

i beat this on the hardest difficulty level - i just remember cursing my way through the last few stages. it was horribly balanced, particularly one area which was just a long tunnel. You had snipers and rocket launchers flying right at you the moment the level started.

[@moosemaimer]

I sought out the quicksave hack by the time I was about halfway through, and ended up enabling god mode for the last area in the volcano. The particular god hack I used showed the total damage you were taking, and by the time I had sprinted across the level I had been "killed" something like 17 times over. It makes you wonder if that was something that slipped through in testing, like the Hades level in God of War, where QA didn't focus on that particular section.

[@cbarger2327]

I remember watching my friend play through the end of it. A big area he had to make it across with tons of enemies, killing him over and over. Eventually he just decided to run instead of fighting. Ran down to a dock and then... cut scene, end of the game. No boss fight or anything. What a letdown.

[@xaero212]

LOOL same here - with the cursing.

[@xaero212]

in the tunnel I almost broke my keyboard... my gosh!

[@kerenton5897]

The game is bugged on latest patch, you need mod to fix A.I.

[@skrai4413]

I remember when me and my friends played 'how far can you go' with the glider.

[@ebridgewater]

The first game I bought with my own money (first job), back in 2004 when I was 17. I believe I was running it on an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. In 2005, I upgraded to an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ with a NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT.

[@yan3066]

You surely must have been really happy with that upgrade ! On a 7800 GT, Far Cry 1 surely was maxed out and well over 30 fps as average. I waited a couple years, until my father bought a core 2 duo and the 7950 GT. The game was astonishing for me as a teenager. One of the best game I had played since Goldeneye on the nintendo 64. Great times 😁

[@ebridgewater]

@@yan3066 It was a hefty upgrade. Then, in 2007, I upgraded to an Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 and NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS. Another good speed boost and ran Windows Vista like a dream. Such speed boosts do not seem to happen as much, these days.

[@yan3066]

@@ebridgewater in 2007 you upgraded again ? Was it for Crysis ? ;) There will be a good upgrade coming soon. Early benchmark of the RTX 3080 shows it will outperform the RTX 2080 Ti by 20%. It means that the RTX 3080 Ti will be around 30-40% faster. Not bad in my opinion. Take care mate !

[@DeanCalaway]

I remember when this game came out it was heavily described as being "photo realistic" to the point that "it's hard to tell these images are not real photographs."

[@waveplay3978]

haha this often was said of games with graphics tech that was new. It's always "Oooh look at this one new effect, now graphics are basically indistinguishable from real life!"

[@elijah4168]

@@waveplay3978 now we really are at that point

[@waveplay3978]

@@elijah4168 hmm definitely getting close but there's still a significant gap

[@ozzyp97]

@@waveplay3978 In terms of detail were getting close, but physics and lighting could still use a lot of work. Ray tracing and the vastly increased CPU performance of next gen consoles could bring solid improvements though.

[@danat4914]

@@elijah4168 nope, we are not. Though we can can make photo-realistic graphics, but just not in real-time.

[@mcrazza]

I remember playing Far Cry for the first time at a department store back in 2004 and being blown away at the water rendering. For the time it looked realistic.

[@wissamphysics3417]

When i saw the thumbnail I thought i have back to 2004 !! , amazing game at that time.

[@MrDoomGrey]

Hell yeah, Far Cry! This game was and still is truly something to behold.

[@Pethers]

This game blew me away the first time I walked out into that brightly coloured jungle and swam in that amazing looking water. I took screen shots and used them for my work desktop background. However it was so difficult that I hardly made any progress through the campaign. Spoilt the game.

[@zender3122]

And then there's me playing on realistic while messing around and tryna confuse the enemies, lol.

[@flyingplantwhale545]

Dude, the screenshots! You totally brought up a memory I didn’t know I had lol. I made like dozens of wallpapers of different jungle shots!

[@mrnelsonius5631]

I was there PC gaming when this released and it was mind blowing. Absolutely crazy effects work for that moment. I thought it was good fun too. Gets ridiculously hard though haha

[@memphis_ut]

Totally game changer for a whole new generation of games. I was beating this game on "hard" that days... I must have been insane! I can still remember how hard the monster running level was at the near end. That was just insane! 😳😂

[@SavageProfessor14]

I'll never forget looking down a scope and seeing NPCs walking around a distant island. It was mind blowing to see so far away and actually be able to take a shot at them. And honestly this game looks like some new games on low settings 😂

[@ParsianTV]

Thank you so much. Was looking forward to this and you folks delivered a very detailed DF take :)

[@duncanself5111]

This takes me back to my first PC, playing this and Half Life 2 and then after a while getting Company of Heroes which I got totally addicted to the multiplayer in that. The sound design of a big battlefield in Company of Heroes was especially good

[@jl.7739]

All this and half life 2. played all those games on my first own gaming pc. Edit: and unreal tournament 2004. I loved this game

[@Nik-ff3tu]

Far Cry: instincts was one of the best looking games on OG Xbox. The map editor was awesome too.

[@TboneTenEighties]

Chronicles of Riddick: escape from butchers bay on Xbox was a damn good looker. Loved that game

[@UnForgivenFury]

Bro so many awesome custom games and maps the jump maps were fun

[@MrChomiq]

28:20 Oh Far Cry you almost made John spill his drink.

[@kingjoe3rd]

I remember this game ran well even on a mediocre laptop that I had bought a year previously.

[@aeris2001]

Surely any 16 year old game will run great on a 2019 laptop?

[@kingjoe3rd]

@@aeris2001 I bought the laptop in 2003 which is a year before Far Cry (2004) came out. See where I said "I remember" and "had bought"? Am I going crazy here? I don't see where I wrote anywhere that would make you think that I was talking about last year.

[@aeris2001]

@@kingjoe3rd 'a year previously', is vague. Without further clarification, English fluent people will assume you are talking about the year previous to the year you are writing in. You are writing in 2020 so the assumption is 2019. So the flaw is your grammar, not my interpretation. Grammar is sometimes important in the English language.

[@SilverSai]

@@aeris2001 non-native speaker here and I understood that he was writing about 2004 since he wrote "I remember".

[@AJ-xv7oh]

@@aeris2001 Nope, he was pretty clear.

[@n0rpp4]

- climbs to a guard tower which is in the middle of the enemy base - starts shooting - complains about the AI knowing where the player is

[@blueorange9067]

Exactly lol, wtf. AI is fine they are just bad players.

[@elijah4168]

@@blueorange9067 actually in the 1.4 update which is on most storefronts, the AI can shoot you through literally everything, even tents and that's what they mean. The AI shouldn't be able to instantly figure out that he's on the tower and not anywhere else

[@blueorange9067]

@@elijah4168 nah I played it few days ago, and one of the modders I know fixed it. It's canvas only that they can shoot through.

[@abhisekmukherjee8621]

This is why Digital Foundry is my favourite channel on KZbin!

[@merritt2014]

One game I'd love to see a DF Retro on is Thief Deadly Shadows. Even to this day, that game's dynamic lighting and especially it's dynamic shadows systems still look incredible.

[@219SilverChoc]

28:18 did john just take a drink at the worst time?

[@DJBV]

John quote about "pc animation" and doom 3 being the first one having proper animations What about max payne 1 and 2?!

[@smaller_cathedrals]

Well, maybe he's referring to 1st person shooters? Which Doom 3 is, and Max Payne isn't.

[@schtive81]

Max Payne 1 has much more limited character model animation than Max Payne 2. The first Max Payne game had animation issues with a "flotaing arms" glitch, and textured character faces. The developers at Remedy were really impressed by the animation systems in Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PS2, and they studied that game for Max Payne 2. Max Payne 2 added facial animation, uses cinematic models for in-game cinematics, and model swaping for very specific situations. Also Max Payne 2's engine (Max-FX 2) added Havok physics.

[@herremilkanter]

@@schtive81 Also, MGS2 had some damn impresssive physics. Glass objects breaking realistically, watermelons exploding and so on. Probably the first game where I was impressed by physics. Next one was Max Payne 2, so it makes sense Remedy were inspired by MGS2.

[@SLE3PR]

This makes me feel old. I liked Far Cry more than any other game that year. I wish I remembered what my specs were.

[@swordsman1137]

Remember guys, the OG Far Cry right still on Crytek's hand. So there's hope they will remaster it with Crysis level graphic, and technology on new Cryengine.

[@Raivo_K]

Im not sure on the terms of sale but i believe Ubisoft now holds the rights to the Far Cry name so Crytek could not release this as a Far Cry game. If at all.

[@swordsman1137]

@@Raivo_K that's a bummer. I knew the Crytek still have the right of the OG Far Cry because they mentioned it somewhere (twitter i believe). But with knowing what you said, i agree its hard for Crytek to release a remake with new cryengine without an arrangement with Ubisoft

[@Rodox2k10]

Nice vid. It brings back old memories. I'm looking forward to watching DF's deep analysis on Crysis for Switch!

[@fearlessjoebanzai]

"to those who are struggling to understand HDR......." - proceeds to speak in fluent techno-babble!

[@flexydex8754]

techno-babble bullshit, only to display their own ignorance

[@purpasmart_4831]

That's your fault for being dumb.

[@edmundkempin3653]

I simply couldn't believe the physics interactions, the beautiful shadows and and lighting, and also decals of bullets left on bodies. Incredible game!

[@teacherfromthejungles6671]

10:10 when you're not interacting, you can listen to their dialogues using a binoculars!

[@kwedl]

I absolutely loved the game, but i gotta admit i never fully played through it. I probably put hundreds of hours on the island section just admiring the visuals and bullet holes in enemies and fish etc. Just stepping out of the door at the start was unbelievable.

[@simulify8726]

I tried using CryEngine, now I know why it's called CryEngine.

[@bestledisthe]

oof, what about RAGE engine?😂

[@Ncc-tt3gh]

its so complex compared to engines like Epic games unreal engine

[@bestledisthe]

@BlindBison y'all missed the joke, lol. Well while RAGE is proprietary to R* game, modding on RAGE is difficult, which is much more complicated than let's say Bethesda's Creation engine

[@robertdunlop5247]

@@bestledisthe Joke??? No

[@yan3066]

😆🤣

[@ion-shivs]

I used to love coming home after a Friday or Saturday night out drinking with my buddies and playing this game in the wee hours of the morning. I must've played through it 3 or 4 times...

[@koilkondaraviteja9945]

Those were the days when games were all about physics and gameplay, nowadays it's just about graphics

[@Valhura77]

Those where the days when they were about both

[@Dr.WhetFarts]

what are you talking about, far cry and crysis were literally a playable tech demo. google crytek x-isle.. gameplay was mediocre at best even tho i spent hours in both games. gameplay was an afterthought.

[@nomercy8989]

I remember drooling over the graphics in this and Doom 3 back in the day. The physics were cool and all but the new effects and shit were what I found most appealing. Physics were impressive in Max Payne 2 but after that I didn't find them that interesting. Not even in Half Life 2.

[@duksi86]

Thanks so much for this...aww the memories....

[@jacobsoper4708]

Far Cry 1 was a revolutionary title. Crytek had to fight really hard against Ubisoft management who wanted them to focus on graphical "wow moments", when Crytek wanted Far Cry to be about systems-driven design where different systems like AI and physics and so on interacted and the island itself was like a character. There is a tech/immersion focus in Crytek's OG Far Cry that is largely missing from the Ubisoft games. Little things like how explosives in FC1 blow actual dents in the ground. A lot of that passion for reactivity and immersion carried over to Crysis, but evaporated with Ubi Far Cry 2 onwards. It has some issues as a game, and the difficulty spikes in the late game are insane, but Far Cry 1 is a truly special game. And I'd love to see a proper remaster that takes the good ideas from Ubisoft's 2014 Classic version such as rebalancing the trigen, while reverting the downgrades that version made to physics and such.

[@Liberty_Prime_Is_Online]

Far Cry 2 is the best game in the series.

[@TOBI10795]

do you have a source for this ? LOL

[@system-error]

Interesting. It was probably because the studio didn't really get the appeal of a sandbox-type game at that time. I was replaying this and HL2 recently, and initially I thought the game design was so much better in HL2. But it's really a completely different game. HL2 is completely 'staged' in the sense of being effectively a long linear obstacle course. Whereas Far Cry has this open world, open plan design that can be frustrating but has so much more depth. I think of Far Cry a bit like GTA, an amazing revolutionary game engine with a badly-designed, annoying linear mission-objective game bolted on top, which it doesn't really need.

[@Mr.Honest247]

SSJ Finally someone who believes this! I’m tired of most people thinking “Far Cry 3” is the “best”. Trash game. Far Cry 1 was way better. I’m so freaking tired of people overlooking the gem that is Far Cry 1!

[@mkreku]

Another thing that Far Cry revolutionized was view distance. Very few games could render worlds kilometers out from the player. I remember for me, that was what was the most impressive when I went out of the bunker at the beginning for the first time. I still think it's pretty impressive, actually..

[@5persondude]

John and Alex: “Man this game is pretty bad; poor AI, mediocre gunplay...” Me: *_incredible urge to reinstall with 64 bit & fixes_*

[@nomercy8989]

Yeah. It's not that bad. You can even stealth past a lot of the enemies. I remember even sneaking past that one mutant with a rocket launcher that was indoors in a room filled with water by throwing stones. I was so proud of that I remember it to this day lol

[@transfo47]

@Rob Yagenmyer They have done more for gaming with DF than you will do in your life.

[@CerberusGX]

@Rob Yagenmyer Rob, this game is only 16 years old, quit simping for her you weirdo

[@Rumteldat]

Years ago I beat this on the hardest difficulty. It was straight torture. I felt so accomplished, but now I don't know how I had the patience. It's such a punishing game.

[@Atrahasis7]

I remember being caught by surprise by the first Farcry much more than Crysis. Sure story and gameplay meh but damn I didn't expect my crappy pentium 2 to run it well. I mean in terms of expansive maps what was there? novalogic Delta Force? I guess flashpoint but they were always jank.

[@Dumlen]

Kind of wish they would check out Operation Flashpoint on a 2001 PC.

[@doozer2726]

This is one of those games I played so much, I dreamt I was in it.

[@andyp123456]

My favourite Far Cry game. Back from simpler times, when FPS game stories were just uncomplicated excuses to go around shooting things. Never really spent more than 3-5 hours playing the Ubi sequels before getting fed up of one thing or another.

[@brunomiiguel]

It still baffles me how Crytek managed to go from this in 2004 to Cryis in only 3 years. It's one of the biggest leaps in gaming history. While it's not a direct sequel, in terms of vision it is. I consider Crysis to be the biggest and best unofficial sequel ever made.

[@system-error]

Definitely impressive but id's development of Quake to Quake 3 from 1996-1999 is truly insane, and definitely a momentous paradigm shift in games history. In 1995 the Playstation was super impressive with its arcade-level graphics, like Wipeout would be running in shop windows to bring kids into the shop, but by 1999 all the consoles looked like crappy toys because of what had happened on PC with 3D accelerator cards and Quake. And id were the first to license their 3D game engine, Unreal and UE came in the wake of Quake and its engine.

[@brunomiiguel]

@SYSTEM ERROR I agree with those. That is why I said 'one of the biggest leaps'. It's definitely up there with the best and has aged really well in every aspect. While Id games and early Playstation titles said "we can go full 3D now", Crytek said "we can start going photorealistic". Landmark moments in gaming industry - as I light incense sticks around my Crysis shrine near my bedside.

[@system-error]

@@brunomiiguel yep and I agree, FC to Crysis is very comparable. I definitely remember FC as one of the most mind-blowing game demos I ever played, and that was on a not very powerful 2002 system, so another aspect of the achievement was how it ran so well on very standard systems. In that way it was more impressive than Quake 3 Arena's demo, which came out in 1999 and didn't run well on my 1998 system.

[@system-error]

@@brunomiiguel you know I've got my own shrine going for Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, it's such an awesome game, and incredible-looking for 2004. Arguably the best game of 2004 over HL2 and Far Cry even. I feel like you can see the influence of EFBB in the evolution of Far Cry to Crysis, where Far Cry in 2004 was very bright, like HL2, almost cartoony, but Crysis was styled as more cinematic and gritty/photoreal, like EFBB's dark sci-fi cinema aesthetic. And the COR games show just how fast things moved in those years, with the 2004 game being mind-blowing, but the 2009 game Assault on Dark Athena with the same engine having much less of an impact, because things had leapt ahead so much in those five years, and we had stuff like Crysis and Arkham Asylum by then. But I feel like those games definitely took some inspiration from EFBB! The sad thing is, the COR games are no longer available to buy because of some licensing issue. The 2-pack was on GOG, and I grabbed it, but they don't sell it any more.

[@jason96]

Such a underrated game. I still have the CD for this

[@tylerxd6311]

19:49 common misconceptions ...enemies don't shoot u until they see u -whenever u shoot enemies just focus towards the sound source -u can even check if a enemy hears u or not in the map..if u did tag enemy with binoculars -u can shoot enemies with mp5sd and totally be unnoticed ,each gun has its own audible range and u can check in map -if u snipe someone from far ,the guards just get alerted they wont shoot until they see u ( except for other snipers ..they can easily spot cause they have scopes)...literally u can even snipe enemies from miles away -u can always use smoke grenades and be in cover ..smoke grenades work perfectly fine in game( most ppl never use it and never knew it existed) and game has stun grenades which too works perfectly fine -there is peak fire in game which prevents u from getting shots (only few games had peak ,prone ,crouch ,smoke,frag&stun nades and many drivable vehicles back then in 2004)..game had almost all facilities from PUBG -armor kinda behave likes a ghillie suit ,if u take proper cover in foliage your stealth meter drops to zero -enemies (mercenaries) eventually get better armor any way they all die in 1 head shot(with any assault rifle ) trigens(mutant) take like 7 shots -eventually u get better guns like OICW,AG36,m249,jackhammer(works great against mutants),sniper with 18x ,bazooka ...the gun mechanics in game is so satisfying and feels real . -And yes the AI behaves odd at times (mosty in lvl1 training and lvl15 catacombs ) its a bit aggressive .. to be honest the AI was not as hard and odd as doom3 -the game requires some strategy and planning,u cant go run n gun for the most part .....if u plan and play the game can be beaten in realistic mode(hardest mode ) within 10 hrs and AI is justifiable for the most part if u don't nitpick :). only major disadvantages which i felt are : -check points are soo lengthy -u cant sprint for more than few seconds which was a bad decision and slowed the games pace -story telling was kinda sloppy(story and concept was kinda good tho). best tip: use burst fire (enemies stun when they get shots),aim for the head, never waste sniper ammo and use night vision and binoculars wisely :) And yes back when i was a kid it was soo tough and frustrating then it all made sense when u plan and play badass game ,one of the few challenging games ever made and soo underrated...:( bye have a great time GG

[@anonymoussupertramp8878]

uh

[@enricofermi3471]

This game holds the first place for me among "next-gen early 2000s" era. Sure, DooM 3 and HL2 were impressive in their own rights, but FarCry takes the gold. Later it was dethroned by FEAR of course, and after that - obviously Crysis, but it still holds a place in my memories.

[@danwarb1]

Far Cry is still the best Far Cry. Still looks good.

[@denisn8336]

Original and 3 are the best for me

[@jonRock]

This game blew my mind when I saw it running on a PC back in the day.

[@darkowl9]

I still feel the openness of Far Cry was somewhat restricted down into more "directed" areas in Crysis. Routes in Far Cry were dramatically different where Crysis was more "you can go left or you can go right and they both end up at the same place". The difficulty of Far Cry, no regenerating health, was actually something that made the game so much more rewarding when you did well - or had to skulk about and scrounge for medkits whilst avoiding guards. The human enemies were amazing and the game was in its element when you were in the jungle fighting humans. Scoping out a base to mark the enemies, using the foliage as cover (actually possible!), sneaking around and more. So many amazing gameplay opportunities. The trigen on the other hand were absolute garbage, of course.

[@Jurigag]

Wait, what? The way that enemy behaves is awful? I always considered far cry to be far more complex in AI terms than HL2 and Doome 3, when i was playing all those 3 Far Cry had most complex AI and reactions on what player was doing, like flanking etc. Of course when fear was released it was like nothing, but still.

[@waveplay3978]

Back in 2004, being a teen in Germany, my memory of Far Cry is hugely positive. It came out before Doom 3 and HL2 and introduced a ton of new tech that was quite new. Normal mapping, dynamic lights, physics and huge levels. Sure they'd been done before, but Far Cry did them really well (for the time). Also, it had great looking water that I was just transfixed by. It was the first game from a new studio nobody really had heard of before, there were no real expectations. The best thing was that it actually ran acceptably on my computer which Doom 3 and HL2 absolutely didn't

[@HondaAccordPerformance]

Those guys praise Crysis way too much the aliens in Crysis are a joke when it comes to art direction.

[@bencheshire]

I didnt have Crysis, I had Far Cry, and I loved it. Im only now discovering what made Crysis unique, back in the day I just thought it looked exactly the same as Far Cry, so I didnt give it the time of day.

[@Ncc-tt3gh]

old school nostalgia back again, going to play this game again as GoG version on win10 ^_^

[@cheshirekershaw]

I think guys at DF underestimate the AI. It is more fair than they claim. You shoot -- if that's not from a silenced weapon, enemies know the general area of your location (which is realistic -- sound gives out direction) -- but if they don't have an eye on you, they are guessing. They can't see you through most bushes, if you sneakily jump in a big one you're hidden as long as you also don't make a sound. One of my favorite things in the game is playing hide and seek with human enemies. If you listen carefully, you can hear them shuffle the grass as they walk. If you're in the jungle, there are layers of foliage between you and them. And I absolutely love finding them before they find me.

[@ThisBirdHasFlown]

"Friend and colleague." Glad to see you've made up.

[@romank9166]

You can run this game even on win10 with all the water reflections showing correctly using the SilentPatchFarCry. There's somewhere a lengthy and very interesting text from the creator of the patch describing how he solved it without any performance penalties.

[@Roboterpunk]

I think Far Cry was superior to crysis from a gameplay standpoint. And I liked the mutants too. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@Mr.Honest247]

I MASSIVELY agree. These Digital Foundry guys seem to not appreciate why it’s so good. Crysis was great but it got boring fast. Far Cry was actually FUN and it’s ridiculous AI and funny one liners made the game so much fun. Also the way the levels were set up were top tier. Now that I look back at this game, it’s almost like they intentionally made the AI ridiculous just to make the game more fun oddly enough.. Goldeneye comes to mind as well, funny ass enemy AI and somehow that made the game better versus this ultra realistic version on Crysis which felt more bland in comparison.

[@flyingplantwhale545]

Damn I can still remember walking out of that sewer for the first time and being absolutely blown away by how lush and thick that jungle was in the distance.

[@andywolf100]

I was playing this on an Nvidia 6800 Ultra, and that was one of the few cards that could play this game maxed out. Wish Crytec would make a modern sequel to this the original Farcry!

[@redwaldcuthberting7195]

Good luck with that.

[@Mr.Honest247]

These guys shooting down Far Cry 1 is just sad. The games stupid AI was part of its charm and made it funnier just to kill them. These guys seem to think that realistic is “always” better which is not true. Sometimes the quirkiness gives it charm where realism usually removes that completely.

[@laszlodajka9914]

The first Far Cry could keep me interested until the very end of the game. After that the sequel would be announced, so I got hyped. But... they have been making these open worlds with an almost endless loop of repetitive side missions. I could not finish any of the following titles, no matter what. Thanks Ubisoft.

[@StreetComp]

Thanks for the flashback video :) loved this game and didn’t care at all if story was silly or any other drawbacks as it was so much fun to have this enormous open world sandbox to play in - in 2004 this was amazing!

[@CJ_Williams]

I remember playing this on release and it blew my kind. I kind of feel younger/newer gamers might be missing out on the feeling of true technological jumps. Those of us around from NES and DOS days know the feeling of when N64 showed us 3D with full 360 movement. The same with this and half life 2 and a few others that on release were just something truley new. The last time I felt that feeling was when I put on my Vive for the first time. Do any of you newer/early 20's gamers feel massives jumps like this? Or does it feel like just bumps up from what already is?

[@yan3066]

From a kid playing marios bros on the first nintendo to nowadays, the biggest improvements I've seen is when the nintendo 64 came out with mario 64 as you said. Goldeneye was incredible and a blast to play. On a story side, final fantasy 7 on the playstation 1 really had a deep emotional impact on me. I still don't own the playstation 4 so I didn't played final fantasy 7 remake... yet lol But yeah, Far Cry 1 was nice. Fear, half life 2. Crysis really was the biggest jump in the future of gaming I'll ever seen. Nowadays, I haven't played it yet, but Red Dead Redemption 2 looks amazing ! For the future, maybe Cyberpunk 2077 ?

[@jl.7739]

I know what you mean. Three times I was blown away by graphics improvement. First time was tomb raider. Even though I played quake at the time, the size of the level architecture was amazing. Second time: doom 3 ( and somewhat far cry with its open world) however the lower polygon count compared to other games from that era (that didn’t use bumpmapping) was noticeable. Third time: UE3. I remember seeing a demo video (they used creatures from gears of war) and thinking, this looks too real. Graphics can’t get any better :D Since then, I was never blown away by graphics like that again. Impressed but not jawdropping.

[@CJ_Williams]

@@yan3066 I know right. I remember going into Golden eye and actually feeling a bit confused at first as to how to traverse a 3D environment. I played Doom and Wolfenstein as a kid but the fact you could look up and down to me was huge and at the time very immersive.

[@CJ_Williams]

@@jl.7739 Dude, yes. Doom 3 was also one of those 'Holy shit' moments. Those lighting effects and interactive panels were nuts.

[@JOHNY0]

I wish the picture around the video was just black or at least dimmed... The way it is, all blurred but with the same brightness as the main video is really distracting.

[@WhiteHawk740]

Got this game for free with my old GeForce 6600. So many memories and feels like an eternity ago now!

[@fafski1199]

Same here, I'm pretty sure It was bundled free when I bought my 6600GT.

[@Vsevolod3788]

Athlon X2 3800+/GeForce 6800GT?? Athlon XP 2500+/Radeon 9600 Pro was more than enough for this.

[@malomkarom]

No, no it was not. Maybe for 800x600 lowest settings 30fps.

[@nomercy8989]

I really don't understand how I managed to play this back in the day. I had a Geforce Ti 4400 and a AMD Duron or Barton or something like that. I don't remember it running badly but I do remember getting something that looked like a 3 fps slideshow when trying to run Doom 3

[@Vsevolod3788]

@@malomkarom Yes, it was. 1024x768 on highest settings with high framerates. Even 1280x1024 was very playable. Athlon X2 was not even a thing back in 2004 when this game came out. Also, high framerates weren't that of a fetish like it's nowadays.

[@Vsevolod3788]

@@nomercy8989 I managed to play these games and also HL2 on Athlon1900+ 256Mb Radeon9000Pro64Mb quite nicely. It was nothing like my friend's Athlon2500+ 512Mb Radeon9600Pro but still it was enjoyable even on high settings. Radeon9000Pro didn't support PS2.0 though, so graphics weren't that good either.

[@malomkarom]

@@nomercy8989 It was very well optimised, on lower settings a nokia 3310 could run it pretty much. I played it on an athlon 1100+ and a non pro radeon 9600. It wasn't exactly a beastly performance, but it was playable-ish, especially thanks to the good old crt-s being smooth as hell, and sharp on lower res.

[@pierrehorak2167]

i started this really expensive hobby with unreal and still playing it... original far cry is another one that blows my mind for the age... what a great engine

[@vinsta76]

Don't get the point of running old games on old hardware, all the testing was done back in the day. Why not use new hardware and see just how high you can get the resolution/fps? Anyway, great game even if it does falls apart towards the end . . like a lot of Crytek games come to think of it.

[@jmtrad1906]

It's cool to see how they run in their time in high quality, not on some 240p early youtube video or a simple text article. And usually there is advantages on running for hardware/software they were designed for, like this game water reflections that only works well on XP. Having to hack in future versions of Windows.

[@IonoTheFanatics]

the one thing i can think of is to let ppl here who are younger or just didn't get the chance back then (because you know, some of us back then didn't have money nor have someone willing to shell out the money needed to ACTUALLY run the game) to see how the game looks and play like BACK then when it came out. I mean that's kinda half the point of seeing retro games... to see them as how they were played back then.

[@WindWolf28]

It's a way to show/remind people how games were running at the time on contemporary hardware. It's also a great way to show how Ultra/60+fps gaming wasn't a given back then because some games (like Crysis, Doom 3, Farcry, etc.) would push the boundaries even on high-end hardware. Today very few games try to push these boundaries on PC (I'm thinking of Star Citizen and maybe the upcoming Flight Simulator X, and of course games using raytracing).

[@JayJapanB]

I like seeing games running on old hardware. Feels like a more honest retrospective.

[@Pilotgeek]

As far as video game stealth AI goes, I'm the odd guy who thought Far Cry honestly quite quite realistic. They're all trained mercenaries, who are specifically on guard with radios, with knowledge of a guy with an obvious Hawaiian shirt is on the island. Let's face it, you kill a guy, with a loud gun, and guys are gonna know where you shot from, or point and shout or radio to their buddies. I found it a fun challenge in comparison to the "huh, must have been the wind!" type of guards. Gameplay wise, it was frustrating, but I don't find it to be a flaw.

[@lasersauceretroarchives6544]

I always appreciate old game engine than newer engines. It's just mindblowing that we can run these games today w/o any hustle compare to when it was released.

[@FeeLtheHertZ]

I was just, looking into Far Cry game(s) as of not 15 hours ago, yesterday... the timing, what. And yeah, I was just on Wikipedia researching Dunia as well reading about how it was forked off of CryEngine for Far Cry 2 and so on, but the current iteration has very little original Crytek code in it. This video being uploaded now is kind of uncanny though. One of those moments.... wow.

[@kuronosan]

9:25 For sure, one of the most memorable video game moments I've experienced.

[@alarak2159]

Far Cry was and still is incredible. My Grandad started playing computer games at the age of 72 years old. This was amid the age of F.E.A.R, Doom 3, Far Cry.. he adored all 3 and completed them over & over. Far Cry was his favourite - I have many fond memories of playing this game with him.

[@MaheshWalatara]

This was like living an action movie. You could launch jeeps straight into hovering choppers.

[@lildano232323]

Love this series of videos with Alex and John, Always a pleasure to watch them talk about old tech, Could you possibly put this series in its own playlist on DF? I watch DF Retro all the time and like using the playlist for a marathon session. Keep up the great work guys

[@antestardedukenukem549]

F.E.A.R deserves a video like This!

[@spyrg]

Hey guys, can you review Severance : Blade of Darkness? It was revolutionary for its time. You could burn and destroy items, there was active physic engine, there was dynamic shadow and light animation. You could chop parts of body. NPC was brutal and they could fight with each other if they injure each other trying attack you. The game was the best Damon soul game, even it came our decade before. I am shocked that you haven’t talked about that game.