Man, I really hate respawning enemies. It’s a “feature” that’s really crippled my enjoyment of most shooters that incorporated it.
That’s the vibe. That Eurogamer review is more along the lines of what I was expecting. The earlier perfect/near perfectly scored reviews surprised me… not unpleasantly so mind you, but in a way that made me want to wait for EG’s take.
Which seems to be much the same. (man, I really like their reviews! They’re populist AND thoughtful and engaging)
This is the first time I’ve successfully skipped parts of a review because I wanted to avoid spoilers. I find that learning about some of the variety of possibilities in a world will limit my experience of that world to just those possibilities. I can’t wait to play around in that world, but I want it to be NEW, too.
Okay, that’s my last ‘excitement’ post. I’ll see y’all back here after I’ve played the damn thing. Sorry. Whew!
My prediction is that I’ll play it and be impressed with the graphics and some other elements, and spend much of my free time running about exploring the game world. Then, after a week or so I’ll skip it for an evening or two and never return to it again due to an increasing level of general burn out on shooting people to death in video games.
I hope I’m wrong, and the shooting people to death in this video game is somehow more engaging than shooting people to death in countless other examples of the genre.
Are games reviews starting to get more lyrical and verbose or has that always been the European style for reviews?
Tom and others, can you comment on the “annoyances?”
The road blocks sound pretty annoying, especially considering the frequency with which you’re subjected to them according to Euro Gamer.
Speaking of Euro Gamer, I f’ing love their reviews.
I was on the ence about FC2 vs F3 and my need of immediate gratification and the glowing reviews were pushing me towards FC2. Then I heard about the repawns. I really hate respawning.I’m sure I will get around to playing this but I think I can easily wait now. I’m sure F3 might have some repawning as well, but FC2 sounded pretty bad that way.
I haven’t had a chance to read the review yet. When you say ‘respawning enemies’ do you mean total enemy clowncars like in CoD4 and Mercs 2, or do you mean that you clear out an area, leave and come back later to find it respawned?
The first is annoying to the extreme. The second is an understandable, if someone regrettable, necessity to keep the player from utterly depopulating the gameworld.
So Scooter from 1up’s review says enemy weapons do not degrade, and Tom Chicks Top 5 reasons article says they do.
Who is correct?
From above:
I can deal with endless respawns as long as they’re reasonably logical, i.e. the folks spawning appear to actually be coming from somewhere other than the æther or hammerspace or whatever. I can understand the need to have at least some respawning in an open world game, so as long as they don’t do a shitty job with it I don’t mind too much.
I wasn’t asking if picked up weapons are prone to the same issues, but whether the enemies weapons will fail on them in the same way that yours will.
One of those statements is incorrect, just curious which.
Ah. Apologies, I misunderstood.
Tom’s sounds more like speculation - though not witnessing phenomenon is not exactly proof against it.
I’d hope that they would, certainly. I vaguely recall a preview where a dude’s jeep broke down and the people chasing him attempted to use it but couldn’t as well …
I believe Tom’s review is officially up btw: http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/far-cry-2/far-cry-2-review/1257574
Jams definitely happen in multiplayer, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen AI guns jam. Also, your purchased weapons definitely jam if you don’t periodically take them into the armory to replace them (maintenance?).
As for the respawning, I think the reference is to cleared guard outposts. This is, after all, a nation controlled by warring factions. It kind of makes sense that they’d send out new guards when the old ones get killed. I’ve also been noodling around mission locations and seen reinforcements driving up after I’ve cleared the area, but I’ve never seen any suspicious monster closet activity.
-TomCan’t you just drive around these roadblocks?
Also, the respawn timers could be a simple value or two that could be tweaked by a mod soon after the game is released.
Yep. Or just blow through them (whee!). Sometimes the guys at the roadblocks will get in their cars and chase you. Or follow railroads. Or use the rivers instead. Or take the bus.
From a design perspective, the outposts are a way of peppering the map with obstacles and activity. From a narrative perspective, they’re a reminder that you’re in a hostile place.
-TomBut what’s bugging me in all this is simply the idea that these guys open fire on you before they even know who you are (and based on what I heard in other forums, they seem to already see you and start shooting when you’re still half a kilometer away). I liked the approach in Mercenaries 1, where factions would consider you hostile or friendly based on the vehicle you were driving. I just find it a little silly this way, even though from a gameplay perspective, it might bring in more tension.
I wholly welcome this sort of respawning. I don’t really like when places become neutral. I prefer to be able to come back again and again for a good scrap.
Yeah me too-and in the context of the game it works perfectly well and makes sense. It’s a hostile area overrun with warring factions. An outpost gets slaughtered and they just shrug, chuckle, and move on? Doesn’t really follow.
Not to mention the blindingly obvious “game thing”. Since I presume we are going to be traversing at least some of the same territory frequently (hence the respawning roadblocks-again makes sense to me), wouldn’t it sort of really hamper the whole “game” aspect to have the ability to simply wipe out the map the first jaunt you take across it?
For my money, this system seems the best compromise. I have read the slightly more negative Eurogamer and IGN reviews (sorry 1Up), and then read Tom’s review, and my guess is that I am going to look at the game the way he does, so…wallet level thread-CRITICAL.