Far Cry 2

[Jake]

I'm only a tiny bit in to Far Cry 2 but I wanted to see how many other Thumbites were playing it, and what they thought?

A stupid thing to point out as my sole example in this thread, but I really like the map in this game. The map and cell phone and other UI things your guy holds are done really well. I like pulling out the map while running around - the way it shakes around as the guy runs does a great job of making me feel like I'm actually trying to check directions while late for something and being an idiot for not just standing still for a second.

I'm enjoying the actual game as well, but I haven't played enough to say much about it yet.

[toblix]

The respawning enemies sounds like crap, but I still want to try it.

[brkl]

I just read the Eurogamer review. I don't get why this game is called Far Cry 2. Where's the hyper-cliched sci-fi plot?

[Cigol]

T'is a good game, could have been great though...

You'll go through a phase, or at least I did, of finding the setup completely infuriating. Here's this picturesque sandbox of fun *but* (and here's the kicker) drained of life and intrigue! All of the 'locations' in the game are fairly mundane and the paths between them littered with (the now infamous) checkpoints. The sole purpose of these is to annoy you as you pass them by, one by one - each and every time. But it's ridiculous because there's no difficulty involved. You stop the car, gun them down and after this 30 second interval you're on your merry way (at least until the next checkpoint).

Lots of travelling, combined with lots of these checkpoints is a baaaad combination. Who thought it would be good? I mean, seriously. I actually enjoy driving around (especially off road) and the beautiful scenery makes it worthwhile but having to stop and start to kill people willy-nilly and so effortlessly does grate after a while. I can only play one or two missions before finding the desire to continue waning. It's not the distance, I've played (and, enjoyed) truck simulators (!) it's the annoyingly pointless checkpoints.

There's no reason or rhyme to the combat - I think that makes it worse. It's like a hoop you have to jump through, but nobody has told you why and nobody is around to ask. I'd much rather get into a fight with these people for a reason. It just seems to me you walk around, stumble upon some people, get shot at and then shoot back. Okay it's a war zone but what do I have, a big fucking neon sign hovering above my head saying 'SHOOT ME'?

It's a good game and I think it'll go down better on the console where that kind of straight laced gameplay is more acceptable, but I was expecting something like STALKER crossed with Crysis and hell it could have been - I mean, why not? It has all the fancy boxes checked, but did they not have any time to flesh it out or something? Whereas Crysis wasted it's sandbox engine with a linear format, and was a boring by the numbers affair, FarCry has a touch of the Assassins Creed about it - repetitive, but oh so fun to just trudge around in for half-an-hour. On all three counts I lament the way they failed to live up to my lofty expectations

Still, I think it's fun. That's the main thing.

I liked Mercenaries 2 though, and Euro Truck Simulator so your mileage may vary.

[vimes]

I only managed to play a few hours since getting my PC copy last week, but so far, even though there are a few great ideas, it seems mediocre on too many level for me to gather the courage to finish it

1. GRAPHICS
   • I'm not a big fan of the artistic direction, particularly the character design : that might be because I'm on "average" settings, but most of the character look like they are made of wax.
   • Lots of unreadable space : not enough landmarks in the wild (jungle and desert) makes traveling around boring and can't trigger my thirst of exploration. In the urban areas, there's a lot of confusion : I find it hard to distinguish between the characters and the background.
   • Atmospheric ... but only at dusk or dawn : 80% of the time, the lighting is a bit crude to my taste (had to put a lot more contrast and lower the lightness), and there's a horrendous bloom effect on every other object, including dead meat ... and overall, the textures are pretty flat (most seen in the desert). But yeah, at dusk and dawn, it looks pretty awesome, and the environment suddenly grows character.
2. GAMEPLAY
   • A horrible AI : in Legend, the opponents can't notice you when you're in their freakin' face and they're impervious to bullet. They decide to drive to you, when you're two meters away and most of them don't have any initiative.
   • ... but an enjoyable talking component : it's pretty good, and always hilarious, mostly when they keep on talking and talking like they are in a café or something
   • Bad exploration game design : walking or driving around is uninteresting, the diamonds are scattered artificially (in freakin' suitcase and in 'random' location) and gathering them feels like grinding; it's a shame since the GPS/map/highlighted road sign system is a complete success.
   • Poor FPS design : the AI is bad and the weapons are too weak to make up for it : the firing feeling is non-existent, and if the jam and explosion event are awesome ideas in themselves, they're being triggered too randomly to have a real dramatic effect. So, it's very close from being good, but it's not.
   • Awesome buddy system : finally an awesome alternative to quickload. It's good, really good.
3. STORY, CHARACTERS & UNIVERSE : for now, I can't really give any opinion : the first encounter with the nemesis is pretty laughable (arm dealer AND English major?) and seeing the AFL give you money before you do anything is weird , but the rest seems to give a good depiction of the dynamics of the African conflicts. I can see how it could turn out to be really good, but there's also a lot of hints that it won't matter which 'side' you choose. It's like in Deus Ex 2 : they get pissed for 2 seconds, then give you money for another mission. Also, I'd be curious to see what is the impact of the character the player choose before beginning the story.

My current feeling is that for all the things it tries to do and to be, FC2 lacks a unique direction that would unify all of these into a coherent whole; worse even, I feel that the designers underestimated the importance of getting the fundamentals of FPS and exploration gameplay right before attempting anything risky in terms of narration and experience. Thus, it can be pretty ugly, mostly in combat.
But that being said, I'm only a few hours in, and I can still conceive how this game can become awesome; but I'm planning to give up if nothing noteworthy appear in my next three game sessions.

Edit : , the ends of several sentences were missing, I must have been tired.

[twmac]

Well that's a shame, the feedback overall seems to be pretty negative. I sort of had my hopes pinned on this one as there are very few games that have got me hyped over the Christmas period.

Is there a demo available for 360? I mean the exploration is a bit shallow but I'd like to see how fundamentally the core (shooting) game play is broken.

[Cigol]

Ignoring the hyperbole regarding how good it is this review sort of echoes my feelings on the game; http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=198874

It takes a special kind of sadist to equip the vehicles in a game with a machinegun, but not give you a friend to use it. Instead you have to swap between the driver's and the back seat. Worse: I wish I could fire a pistol or drop grenades out of the windows of my car. Combat between vehicles is probably the weakest point. More often than not, you'll just have to stop, get out and fight on foot, and risk being run over.

And some will feel frustrated that the AI baddies respawn after you've taken them down. Checkpoints are refilled with men perhaps a little too quickly. It frustrated me, too, but I stopped caring after the first couple of hours. Some will feel frustrated at the repetition: every mission boils down to killing a lot of men in a single area. Again, that frustrated me to begin with. But again, I stopped caring after the first couple of hours.

All of Vimes complaints I would concur with, except I think the lighting during daytime is to be expected and found it consistently pretty to look at any time of the day (at least on the very highest settings).

[Wrestlevania]

The game seems broken for me...

I've freed my first "buddy" and been told to meet him at a set location, and also buy a/some gun(s) while I'm there. But every time I go to the rendezvous, everything's shut -- the gun shop I'm supposed to be buying stuff at, the bar where my newly-freed contact should be. Every single time, and I've been trying now for the equivalent of 3 days in-game.

Doesn't seem to matter what time I go there, how I get there or where I go before I come back and try again. All the buildings are closed up, no-one's in the gun shop and so I simply can't progress the game.

Really annoyed.

[MonkeyWrench]

Bugs in a Ubisoft game? Now there's a first...

Although you don't need anyone at the gun shop to buy guns, you just sit down at the PC. The only time the gun shop will be manned is when there's a mission to do.

[elmuerte]

Well... it's not like it's a Bethesda game.

[timaste]

Wrestlevania:

The game seems broken for me...

I've freed my first "buddy" and been told to meet him at a set location, and also buy a/some gun(s) while I'm there. But every time I go to the rendezvous, everything's shut -- the gun shop I'm supposed to be buying stuff at, the bar where my newly-freed contact should be. Every single time, and I've been trying now for the equivalent of 3 days in-game.

Doesn't seem to matter what time I go there, how I get there or where I go before I come back and try again. All the buildings are closed up, no-one's in the gun shop and so I simply can't progress the game.

Really annoyed.

I had this same thing happen to me when I tried to play. I forget what I had to do, I think there was an objective on my map that I had to walk into and trigger an event first, then it "finished" my buddy saving mission and made it so I could go into all that stuff. I think I had to go into town? Or maybe it was the logging camp where I got the original mission that brought me to the hut where the buddy just happened to be locked up. It was annoying.

I though this game sucked at first, but in the end I ended up sinking probably 20 hours into it somehow! Yikes. It's getting a little stale finally now, I think I have like 80% of the game completed.

[Scratch]

See I was playing it when it came out. Played it non-stop for weeks and even enjoyed it. But then a bunch of other games came out (Fallout 3) and I immediately put FC2 on the backburner. FC2 has been an on/off experience for me. I play it for hours on end, but then some ridiculously frustrating things happen and I don't touch it for weeks. Until the day, when there's nothing to play and I remember that I still have FC2 to finish.

To this day, I still have to finish FC2 and Fallout 3. I seem to have completely forgotten about it, since I started playing DOW2 and Empire: Total War.

[Wrestlevania]

timaste:

I think there was an objective on my map that I had to walk into and trigger an event first, then it "finished" my buddy saving mission and made it so I could go into all that stuff. I think I had to go into town? Or maybe it was the logging camp where I got the original mission that brought me to the hut where the buddy just happened to be locked up. It was annoying.

That's the thing, though; the blip is at one particular gun shop, opposite the bar where my buddy said I should meet him. The bar's locked and empty -- can't even get in the door. The gun shop is open but abandoned.

My original 'base' was an abattoir near the main cease fire town (can't recall the town's name). I went there after freeing my now-buddy from a farm out building at a cock-fighting arena. When I got back to the abattoir, I was shown how to find diamond cases and then told to go buy my first gun at the waypoint location I have now. I've been told I must speak to the owner first before I can buy any guns.

That's where I'm stuck.

[timaste]

Dang I dunno, that sounds wacky.

Buying guns is my favorite part too.

[FoliorumViridum]

You know what would have kept me playing this game for a second playthrough? A stealth mechanic that worked.

If I'm in long grass with a sniper rifle, I want the AI to be confused, not look right at me - sometimes before I've even fired a shot. Totally ruined so many missions for me as I kept just running in with guns blasting.

So many good foundations laid down for a Far Cry 3, though.

[MonkeyWrench]

I found the stealth to be fine. When shooting from the shadow of a tree I'd find they would just run around panicked with no idea where the shot came from. You can only really get away with shooting in the daylight if you have the camo outfit and a silenced weapon.

[FoliorumViridum]

I felt like a lot of times it cheated me. It was like they had x-ray eyes with heat detection when I was on most of my missions.

[timaste]

The stealth was so wacky. At times a dude would run past me and just stand there looking at me in plain day while I frolicked through the grass playing with zebras. Other times, non-snipers would see me miles away while crouched with the camo suit at night in the dense jungle.

In the end there, I upgraded the ammo on the dart rifle and just would use that up first when attacking an objective. After that was gone, I would assume I was most likely "seen" at that point so would just automatic grenade launcher anything left moving. I could of done that first, but I like to give my brain the illusion of being africa sneaky.

[Nachimir]

Heh, pretty much the same here. Dudes in front of me, looking right at me and not reacting, another time snipers shot me at night, while I was concealed by bushes, wearing stealth suit, hadn't fired a shot yet, and they weren't even being rendered yet (I may be mistaken on this, possible that nearby hills were masking their silhouettes, though couldn't see any muzzle flashes either).

Got pretty much addicted to the dart rifle followed by destructive mop up with flamer/explosives.

[Erkki]

I didn't see many of these glitches, they only happened to me once or twice, and fairly early on. I also liked the dart rifle a lot, though.

[timaste]

Yeah I'll definitely say that a lot of the sniper and explosive weapons feel really good to fire and use, they did a good job there I thought.

[drummand]

Wrestlevania:

I've been told I must speak to the owner first before I can buy any guns.

That's where I'm stuck.

Did you get this sorted? You buy guns from the computer on the table there, not from any guy. I was stuck on this for a bit myself. Just buy a gun from the computer, and you should be straight (you may have to pluck it from the wall in the building next door, I can't remember).

I just got this Friday, and I'm really enjoying the atmosphere of it. The respawning thing bothered me for a bit -- and I do still wish the spawn timer was a bit longer -- but I kind of got over it. I frequently sneak past the checkpoints if I'm not in the mood to fight. I wouldn't disagree with any of the gripes others have pointed to. At the same time, I've so many satisfying moments playing, whether they be attacks well executed or ones gone horribly, entertainingly sideways ... enough to say it's one of the better games I've played in a while. We're still in our "honeymoon" phase, so I may regret that statement in a week or so, but for now I say

[Wrestlevania]

drummand:

Did you get this sorted? You buy guns from the computer on the table there, not from any guy. I was stuck on this for a bit myself. Just buy a gun from the computer, and you should be straight (you may have to pluck it from the wall in the building next door, I can't remember).

No, there are no guns unlocked in the computer and nobody behind the cage.

Pretty much resigned to the fact I'll have to start again. It's only an hour or so's gaming, but it destroys the immersion and the sense of newness and character development.

[modeps]

You know, thanks to Idle Thumbs and their incessant talk about FC2, I went and bought it... you know what's stupid? I haven't even fucking played it yet. Its sitting with the rest of my 360 games, unopened... for over a month. Just sitting there.

I'm kind of scared to start playing it because... what if I hate it? Will you hate me?

[Wrestlevania]

OK, so after the problems I had last time I finally got around to starting a new game last night. And this time, things went more smoothly.

I ran into exactly the same problem as I did last time, but solved the missing instruction to trigger meeting my buddy: you must buy a weapon in the gun shop before doing anything else. What I wasn't explicit about when I wrote before was that there were no new guns unlocked in the computer--just the guns I already had on me, plus the model of shotgun many of the NPCs had been toting in-game already.

But you must buy a gun nonetheless--you simply can't progress otherwise. Buy a gun and your buddy - plus a new mission contact - magically warp into the bar over the road and unlock the door for you.

Very considerate of them.