Far Cry 2 review

[e-freak]

C'mon it's civil war there. Watch Lord of War or Blood Diamond - you actually get shot by everyone if you go there.

[st0lve]

Except that the checkpoint dudes are freelancers, mercs. Why would they fire at you?

It's ok that the faction you aren't working for fire at you, but considering that you do work for both, it's a mess. Imagine if EVERYONE in Stalker would fire at you, this is what FC2 is like...

This game is VERY repeating, if you care to drive\walk\swim around for 10 minutes and then do 1 min of combat for each mission, then you'd love this game.

The idea is great, but the game isn't entertaining enough.

I just entered the 2nd map, maybe things speed up?

Mino; I agree with dux, evey weapon does damage to the world, except for the machete. It only adds marks to a few things, but that's it.

[Erratic]

Except that the checkpoint dudes are freelancers, mercs. Why would they fire at you?

It's ok that the faction you aren't working for fire at you, but considering that you do work for both, it's a mess. Imagine if EVERYONE in Stalker would fire at you, this is what FC2 is like...

This game is VERY repeating, if you care to drive\walk\swim around for 10 minutes and then do 1 min of combat for each mission, then you'd love this game.

The idea is great, but the game isn't entertaining enough.

This is close to how I felt after a few hours in the game but after playing a bit more I think the game does work, in a weird way.

On the surface it does seem to follow some of the pit falls of Assassins Creed (go from A to B doing the same mission with very little inbetween) but once you sort of get a feel for how the game is setup it really does lean towards more of a survival shooter than anything else. Learning to bypass roadblocks to minimize encounters, staying off the beaten path to avoid jeep ambushes, stealthily searching through enemy camps for ammo/health/weapons/vehicles and going with the rhythm of the game instead of forcing yourself through the missions really exposes the 'good' in the design.

I am playing it on Hardcore however, so this may be a lot of the reason any of the above is even considered fun. And after all it is an open world game and is sort of victim of that genre like most games are, so my experience is that much more different from anyone else's so nothing is really absolute. But I am having a great time with the game, tons of cool unqiue little moments that happen from the randomness and other mechanics. I think it's easy to overlook or speed by what really works in the game. There's a really great game in there if you just give it the time I think.

Though I do agree, in general, with some of the bigger complaints of the world being rather empty and 95% of the AI being hostile is kind of dumb. I mean, the wildlife is there in the game, it just doesn't pop up that much, not sure what the reason for that is, whether technical or what, but it certainly isn't a content issue, there's at least 4 or 5 different animals I've seen which I think is more than enough, just pop up more damn it. The game doesn't really live up to its intro scene, and though the lack of neutral AI is sort of explained (everyone's getting out of the country etc.) it's still a bit of a let down.

[jaboo224]

So far i think its very good

[Zyn]

I can't help but get annoyed at the ratchet wrench, how it turns the bolt back and forth, rather than just locking in one turning direction only.

[e-freak]

it doesn't turn the bolt in both directions. that's the trick of a ratchet - one side it "ratches" through and the other direction it locks.

[-HP-]

lol Zyndrome, phail!

[⌐■_■]

hehe

[Thrik]

Haha.

Too much WoW and not learning real world skills like using a ratchet!

[Zyn]

Ok, so I guess it's completely normal that a ratchet wrench behaves like this:

Notice how the small pin just keeps turning back and forth.

YES I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT A SIMPLE ANIMATION ERROR. NOW BE GONE,

I HAVE A SCRIPTED EVENT TO KILL TONIGHT IN THE WORLD OF AZEROTH.

[Erratic]

Undeniable gif proof.

[dux]

Shit man don't complain about that or Mino will come here and cry at you.

[twiz]

Ok, so I guess it's completely normal that a ratchet wrench behaves like this:

Notice how the small pin just keeps turning back and forth.

YES I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT A SIMPLE ANIMATION ERROR. NOW BE GONE,

I HAVE A SCRIPTED EVENT TO KILL TONIGHT IN THE WORLD OF AZEROTH.

I noticed that too Zyn, and it does bother me a bit... Not only does it not ratchet, but he grabs the extension at the wrong time! Usually a person would grab/hold the extension stationary during the ratcheting portion of the motion, not during the driving/torquing portion.

But what bothers me even more is.. if your car gets shot a bunch of times, all that happens is the big bolt(!?!) on the top of your radiator comes loose? Crank that bitch back down and bam! Car's fixed! But I understand that there really isn't a good way to represent the gameplay mechanism they're trying to create, because it isn't realistic at all. It is a good idea though, and a I wouldn't want them to take it out.. maybe make the cars a *bit* tougher but other than that its fine. Thats what the upgrades are for I suppose.

A lot of the game is driving, but hey, the driving is fun, at least I think so. Especially with the dune buggy off road! Trying to avoid rocks and such(and zebras, damn things are always trying to get run over!! And side note on the wildlife, you hardly ever see an animal by an established road, go cruising out in the jungle and you'll see much more of the wildlife.. I know its africa, but its not like africa is packed coast to coast with lions and zebra).

The missions do get a bit repetitive, mostly go here, get this/blow this up/kill this guy; but hey, thats what I expected. The story is okay, I get kinda lost with it all, sometimes I don't really know why I'm doing something.

I also agree with Erratic.. The fun in the game is trying different approaches.

A few things that I really dislike about the game:

the AI seems to vary wildly. Sometimes I'll be walking about and a guy won't see me until I'm ten feet away from him.. but once he sees me, he can shoot me at a hundred yards when I'm crouching in neck-high grass and shrubs. This hurts the whole hide-n-snipe approach. When you start running into enemy snipers, it gets even more absurd. Their range and accuracy is mindblowing. Sometimes I'll be entirely obscured by trees, bushes, grass, etc and sniper shots will just be flying out at me through the trees, I'll have to run towards them for 20 seconds before I can even see the shooter. This promotes the "screw this, run the fuck away!" approach. To their credit, they did place all the snipers so far in pretty obvious spots, so the "if I were a sniper, where would I be right now?" type of logic generally works pretty well. Of course when you can't even see the structure the sniper is on, doesn't work so hot.

The giant easter egg, I mean diamond, hunt. Not to say I don't like the idea, just some of it is a bit annoying. There seems to be an epidemic in Africa of people hiding diamonds on top of large structures.. trains, buildings, boulders, etc, leading to some rather annoying jumping puzzles. The jumping mechanics are kinda shitty(just your standard 1.5 foot vertical leap - no jump/crouch or climbing). Other than diamond finding, jumping is really pretty unneccesary to the game. Whenever I'm engaged in one of these diamond searches, I just imagine my guy, holding a gigantic sniper rifle, machete, and machine gun, jumping up and down vertically, humping and sliding off small rocks endlessly. To get 1 measly diamond. Or I could do a job where I get paid 15 diamonds in roughly the same time it takes me to find 3 diamonds outside.

Anyways thats all for now. In general I really like the game.

[Jetsetlemming]

Ok, so I guess it's completely normal that a ratchet wrench behaves like this:

Notice how the small pin just keeps turning back and forth.

YES I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT A SIMPLE ANIMATION ERROR. NOW BE GONE,

I HAVE A SCRIPTED EVENT TO KILL TONIGHT IN THE WORLD OF AZEROTH.

I can't stop staring at that shadow in the bottom right corner and how shitty it looks close up.

[-HP-]

It's a fucking game... what does it matter anyways?!