First-person shooters are usually fast-paced games that bring the action right in front of you by putting you in a first-person perspective to blast your nearby enemies, and they have also, in recent years, become showcases for new technology. German developer Crytek's new engine powers Far Cry, the upcoming first-person shooter that has a number of impressive technical features, including the ability to render an entire kilometer of actual terrain in real time. Publisher Ubisoft recently afforded us a chance to try out the game, and we have new details to report.

　　This island would be a nice place to visit, if it weren't for the burning and the enemy soldiers, and all that.

　　Far Cry's single-player game begins on a gorgeous tropical island that would have made a great vacation spot for the game's hero, Jack Carver, if he hadn't been double-crossed. Carver, whose past is something of a mystery, has retired from whatever work he previously did to run a charter-boat business with a single boat, on which all of his possessions are housed. Carver is approached by Valerie, a female reporter attempting to break an exciting story about some mysterious military activity on the island, who wants to charter his boat. He grudgingly accepts after Valerie offers him a tidy sum of money.

　　Unfortunately, the next thing Carver knows, he's flat on his back in a bombed-out warehouse. It seems that the mysterious soldiers that he and Valerie had been following have blown up Carver and his boat (and with that, everything he owned in the world), kidnapped Valerie, and left him for dead. Carver is less than pleased with the situation and sets out to rescue Valerie and get back at the soldiers who destroyed everything he had. Crytek president Cevat Yerli concedes that this setup may seem "like a bad B movie, but it gets much more complex, and much better, later on in the game."

　　The beginning of the game acts as a brief hands-on tutorial in which you learn how to jump and crawl by climbing out of the wreckage, then learn how to use binoculars, which you can use to scrutinize far-off areas. The binoculars have the somewhat unrealistic but extremely handy property of picking up audio in and around their zoomed-in field of vision, including any dialogue and orders that far-off enemy soldiers may be swapping. You then pick up a tracking tool from a fallen soldier that gives you a handy radar display in the lower-left corner of your screen. The display shows you not only the direction of your next objective (and the location of it, when you get close enough), but also any nearby enemies, and it indicates how "alert" they are. Far Cry has a simple, easy-to-understand stealth system that lets you move quietly as long as you crouch. Making noise by running, getting spotted, or firing a shot will rouse any patrolling enemies, which appear as green dots by default on your radar view but will change to yellow and then red as they become more suspicious.

　　Unfortunately, your enemies are smart enough to use group tactics and cover each other's backs.

　　As we've mentioned in our previous coverage of Far Cry, Crytek has programmed advanced artificial intelligence for its enemies. Soldiers have preprogrammed routines, like patrolling a specific area or repairing a damaged truck, but once they've been alerted to your presence, they won't always come barreling toward you. Some of Far Cry's enemies, like the soldiers you encounter in the early levels, have a morale system as well as a command structure. This means that they call for help if they have backup nearby, as we saw, and they're led by lieutenant soldiers who give them orders to fan out and lay down covering fire while other soldiers move in for the kill. Far Cry's soldiers seem challenging to fight, since they do move in on your last known position, though you can use cover and a few tossed rocks to divert your enemies, since they follow only your last known position, like real soldiers, rather than magically homing in on your current location each time.

　　We also had an opportunity to try out a few multiplayer sessions. Far Cry's multiplayer modes include such game types as deathmatch, team deathmatch, and a capture-the-flag variant known as "assault." These seem about as fast-paced as the single-player game. We were able to try out a free-for-all deathmatch session on a tropical island at night lit by torches, and the huge level seemed a bit big, even for a dozen players. Still, we had no trouble staying on the move and picking up armor, health packs, and weapons. Far Cry lets you carry a melee knife, a pistol, and two different firearms in multiplayer. We tried out the game's sniper rifle, P90 submachine gun, Jackhammer shotgun, M4 Carbine assault rifle, and the OICW hybrid rifle/grenade launcher (objective individual combat weapon), and each weapon seemed powerful and useful enough in head-to-head play, even if they weren't especially realistic.

　　Yerli describes Far Cry's level of realism as being "between [the fast-paced tactical shooter] Counter-Strike and [the arcade-style shooters] Unreal Tournament and Quake." Fans of highly realistic action games may find it strange to unload an entire 30-round clip from an M4 with hardly any kickback, but presumably, this ease-of-use will help make the game accessible for newcomers. The same seems true of Far Cry's vehicles, which include a small, four-wheeled buggy with high top speeds and rather slippery handling. Though this was the only vehicle we were able to try out, it seemed rather easy to get the hang of, and within minutes, we were using it to flatten enemy soldiers on the road.

　　Far Cry will ship with a powerful level editor.

　　As we saw, Far Cry will ship with both a single-player game and multiplayer options, but its most important feature may be something else entirely: its level editor. The powerful tool has an interface that resembles Microsoft Windows or Adobe Photoshop, yet it apparently lets you put together a huge indoor and outdoor level by doing little more than clicking and dragging, and dragging and dropping. We watched a huge island map get constructed over the course of about 45 minutes, complete with varying height (the editor includes a terrain extruder tool that can be used to drag terrain up or down to create hills or valleys).

　　The editor also lets you adjust the starting time of day in the map, as well as wind speed and direction (which governs the extent to which foliage will sway), and it lets you drag and drop plenty of different objects into a map, including trees, enemy soldiers, and vehicles. The current version of the editor contains hundreds of different such assets, and it lets you make maps that are at least two square kilometers in size, though that number may change. The editor also lets you string together different maps to make your own minicampaign, and it even allows for cinematic sequences. Devoted fans who want to make sure their cutscenes and dramatic set pieces are perfect will appreciate the ability to jump into the map from a first-person view and play it while editing it so that they can tweak every last little detail by continuously jumping into the map to see how their latest additions will look in the game.

　　Though it has an unusual tropical setting at first, Far Cry also includes indoor areas, as well as a story that will apparently pit Carver against enemies that are far worse than simple soldiers. As we've seen so far, the game's single-player and multiplayer modes seem to have plenty to offer, and its powerful editing tools--and some help from a devoted fan community--could very well ensure that Far Cry has even more to offer long after it's released. Though the game was originally scheduled to ship this year, it was unfortunately delayed until the first quarter of next year. For now, you can watch our exclusive video interview with Crytek president Cevat Yerli.