Again, I have to retort with STALKER. It’s so fucking broken and stupid, and if it had widespread hype like FC2 then people would be ripping it all over the Internets, but I adore it.
Sometimes you just have to try for yourself, but I’ve also learned that mindset going in makes a big difference, so I don’t want to let the early complainers affect me too much.
I’ve purchased both STALKER games, but only made significant progress in the first, which I really enjoyed to the point I played it. I’m reserving judgment on Far Cry 2 until I spend some hours with it, but the frustrations being reported don’t sound like the sort of things that can be dismissed as mere whining, ya know?
If you could tolerate STALKER you’ll be fine with Far Cry 2. It isn’t nearly as obnoxiously buggy/broken/badly designed, and I say that as someone who really, really likes STALKER.
Cool. I just tend not to be very patient with what I regard to be bad design decisions in games. As a confirmed moron that yells at his TV, I can say that most often my yelling involves questions as to how some particularly obnoxious/annoying/broken element ever made it past QA. This sort of thing was somewhat alleviated in STALKER, for example, by the ability to quicksave constantly. As Far Cry 2 (360) does not have that option, the frustration for me with the above described problems is likely to mount much more quickly than it did in STALKER. You guys will definitely hear one way or the other by Saturday. I’m sure you’ll be waiting with bated breath!
I want to thank this thread for saving me $50. Seriously. This game sounds like a huge exercise in frustration.
I’m actually more interested in trying the game myself…I hate lead you along the corridor games like Doom3…that game was the worst…so something like Far Cry with African elements, Malaria, bad driving model (cmon, all the cars are beat up in Africa), and who cares about tutorials…get past that and enjoy it.
I don’t understand the complaints about the driving model at all. It’s not spectacular I guess, but I don’t get what problem people are having with it. It’s basically the same as Far Cry Instincts.
I don’t get the complaints, I think this game is sensational. The driving is fine - it’s pretty much the same as first-person driving in any Battlefield game.
The voice acting is very good, and there’s always a crystal clear objective that tells you what you need to do next. Don’t hate on the game because Wumpus appears to be illiterate.
I wanted to like this game. I really really did. I have non-refundable $50 to vouch for me on this. Previews looked good, Far Cry 1 was a stellar FPS, why wouldn’t I expect FC2 to be a stellar FPS as well?
But it is, IMO, seriously broken in the fundamentals of its gameplay (and by that I mean FPS mechanics).
I guess the people who like it aren’t really playing it as a FPS, but as a drivin’ and cryin’ GTA4 sandbox sort of affair.
And for the record I liked STALKER.
I think Tom’s review sums up what’s different about this game; the pace. It’s got a very different pace than most FPS games, and the more people expect that, the better off they’ll be.
Even in the ad copy in my recent PC Gamer they’re touting the open world and the freedom of choice rather than ‘wall to wall action’. In the same way that Bioshock was ‘just a shooter’; this game is about the world AND shooting. The more you understand that going in, the better off you’ll be.
The tutorial section (the first 20 minutes of the game) isn’t very promising, but after that? Whoo. It opens right up. I was ramming gun runner convoys out in the deep desert, finding out of the way safe houses and liberating them, discovering golden weapons in lonely shacks on the edge of the world, and scouting out guard posts that had NOTHING to do with my current objective. Now I’m poor and need some better weapons, so I think I’ll be heading out on some ‘main’ missions soon to earn some cash.
I think the gunplay is pretty good, though I’m dying for some better weapons. I’m on Normal difficulty, and the enemies can’t see too far or shoot too straight, but they’re good enough to be convincing and challenging. It’s no small thing to run up to a guard post with four dudes in it, especially if I’m low on grenades or firebombs. I love the way enemies crumple to the ground, and the blood is part of gruesome, gritty world (and is a welcome hit indicator, too).
My main wish for the game at this point is to have more friendlies or neutrals in the game. I wish I had to be more careful about driving up to a guard post and laying waste to everyone, or could occasionally see a civilian car tooling around. It would fill out the world and complicate the tactical situation in an interesting way.
I think there’s a lot of interesting, awesome stuff in this game, and hope anyone hung up on the nitpicks can put them aside for an hour and just explore.
In the PC version, you can.
This isn’t a “just get out of my way and let me kill everything” game. It is made to be immersive, and sandboxy. The feel of the guns is much more real - you aren’t a superhero, except that you can save and morphine heals your wounds instead of just letting you ignore them temporarily.
In the PC version, mercifully, you can. I don’t believe the same is true of the 360 version.
I got it on Steam yesterday, and I like it so far. My biggest problem is that DX10 is flat out broken, at least on my system (E6850, HD 4850, 2GB RAM). It simply chug-a-chug-chugs in DX10 but DX9 is smooth and fast at 1600x1200. Once I figured out not to use DX10 (“hey, why is this car not moving?”) I found it a bit different than other shooters but very appealing. I like the gunplay, I’ve found the enemy to be not quite omniscient, really, and the visuals are good.
I particularly like having to use audio cues to track where the enemy is rustling about in the brush, and I find that I can indeed hide ok, though I do suspect the bad guys have a bit more “ESP” than might be warranted. On normal difficulty I am finding it pretty decent, challenge-wise. The plot is not too shabby, and the hunt the diamonds mechanic, while gamey, is actually kinda neat.
The malaria bit seems contrived but not necessarily in a bad way. I lived with System Shock and Stalker and their oddities, so this isn’t that weird really.
Overall the biggest challenge is figuring out which to play, this or WAR.
The commotion over the lack of save anywhere in the console versions is completely overblown as far as I’m concerned. Oh noes, you actually have to pay attention instead of running in guns blazing!
Oh noes, you actually have to pay attention instead of running in guns blazing!
That’s totally what it’s about. You nailed it!
I know, I’m totally smart like that.
I’m not real picky about how driving work in these types of games, it seems fine to me. I’m sure it will get old eventually, but I find driving back and forth a little tedious in all games like this.
omniscient/cheap AI,
I don’t think this is a valid complaint. I’ve been able to sneak up on enemies. You can’t, of course, sneak up on them in a vehicle (I got a chuckle out of that line above). You can crouch and carefully sneak up behind a position. You do seem to make a lot of noise plowing through underbrush, so I’m not surprised some people’s attempts to creep through the foliage haven’t been too successful. It’s also an absolute must to scout out positions before attacking. I had a lot of trouble picking out enemies at times, so it is very nice to know before you engage what they look like and about where they are.
Last night before I quit for the evening I scouted a safe house out, creeped very wide around the side none of the enemies seemed to be paying attention to, got up behind the house and only then engaged the enemies from behind at close range.
Granted, I haven’t played that much yet, but the AI did not seem omniscient. The AI does seem better at spotting me than I am at spotting enemies (though I was getting a lot better at it after a couple of hours, compared to, say, stalker where enemies were hard to miss, the enemies in this game are much harder to spot since they don’t have distinctive uniforms and there is a lot of foliage).
and the constant threat of malaria fits aren’t really subjective complaints.
They are subjective complaints. Bad driving, that’s a subjective opinion. All knowing AI, that’s a subjective impression, an assumption really. The malaria thing hasn’t annoyed me much yet, but perhaps it will with more play. So far it seems like a simple mechanic to get you on a certain necessary plot path. The game is very open ended so if they have to have some device to get you on the story path now and then I’m glad they did something that fits into the world instead of a completely artificial mechanic, or just forcing you down a path at a certain point.
It’s more like “Oh noes, I have to go take care of something and I’m nowhere near a save point so I have to either lose my progress of leave the game paused indefinitely.”
It is annoying to have to quit playing on the game’s schedule or face a penalty.
Give me an “ironman” type quick save that I can only load once and I’d be happy. Just don’t prevent me from saving and quitting when I damn well please.
To some extent everything is subjective I suppose. I guess what I meant to say is that if all of those are true (the driving is bad, the AI is cheap, and the malaria fits are obnoxious) then I think most would agree that the game would be, to some degree at least, worse because of it. Now if everyone doesn’t agree that those things are true, which it seems is the case, then yeah, it’s not accurate to say that any of them is objectively true.