Ubisoft recently held a press event to show off Far Cry, the upcomingshooter they are publishing for German developer Crytek. I got the chance toask Ubisoft’s Tim Ernst a few questions about the game as the party raged on.

The game takes place on a series of tropical islands, and it does an awesomejob of shows you Crytek’s game world on a huge scale. While the action is fastand furious,you can also play the game in your own way. Tim told me that at ECTS, people would come back and play the game over and over, doing the same demo level in very different ways. Indeed I saw this even at this Ubi event, as people wouldtry out all kinds of stuff in order to get past, or kill, enemies. You couldknock down a barrel to run over an enemy, run up and pop him, snipe him, usea vehicle to run him over, or avoid the guy in a number of ways.

Tim talked a bit about the editor, and said they are putting a huge effort intostreamlining the whole editing process. I watched a demonstration put on by oneof the Crytek guys, and it’s simply amazing just how quickly he could create asimple island, add a bit of detail, throw some enemies in, and then hit a buttonto pop directly into the game in order to try out his level and actually killthe enemies he placed. Everything was so easy and fast – or at the very least,they sure made it look easy. Either way, there are a few features herethat might change the way map editors work at a fundamental level – at leastfor the large, outdoor areas.

The weapon balance seemed a bit off in multiplayer, and Tim confirmed that theystill had some work to do in playtesting. It was still quite a bit of fun, soI’m looking forward to a more streamlined package. We talked a bit about thegame’s frame rate, and with a little demonstration, I learned quickly that thegame has a very effective Level of Detail system. This combined with some great“low”-quality artwork means that objects way off in the distance still look nice.

It may not make such a big difference what a tree looks like half a mile away,but the overall effect means awesome visuals at reasonable frame rates.Moving on to detail settings, it is looking like the game will have three majorsettings for detail while players can use the console to tweak specific variableshow they want them.

Tim guided me through the training area of the game’s first level and on downthrough a portion of the game, and the enemies do a decent job of being smartwithout frustrating the player into quitting. They’ll split up, concentrate fire,and find some unique ways to get cover, but of course their aim stinks – this isa necessary evil to stop them from killing you in seconds flat.

From what I’ve heard from the Ubi guys, the company is ready to support the FarCry community with whateveris needed to keep the game popular. They are aiming this game directly atthe hardcore gamer crowd, and it really shows – especially with how much effortthey are putting into the multiplayer mode. Unlike this year’s Chrome(which also did the huge outdoor areas in a shooter), Far Cry shows huge outdoor areas with little slowdown, has a down-to-earthphysics system, and delivers some exciting gunplay.