Marcin
1561
Yep. I recently restarted this when I found out it runs on my work laptop (yay for shooting people on lunch break!) and was once again struck at how engrossing the basic mechanics of moving, driving and shooting are.
It’s so strange that the best moments in Far Cry 2 are not when everything goes according to plan. The amount of fun to be had in the game is directly proportional to the amount of shit that goes wrong. And the game design is built around this idea. Hence the malaria attacks, the weapon jamming, and other things, all there to facilitate things going terribly wrong. Only it doesn’t happen all the time. But when all the shit starts going wrong at the same time, and you still manage to survive. That’s when the game is truly awesome.
And yes, those mortar guys near the lake: they are a huge part of the Southern map feeling bat-shit insane sometimes. I loved it. I never found that mortar guy either. So any time I was in the area, I was just trying my damnedest just to not get blown to bits.
I don’t know how successful Far Cry 2 was, but if they do a sequel, I hope they find some more ways of having spontaneous and random events leading your plans astray. Because the only boring moments in Far Cry 2 were when you get up on a hill side, scout out the base you’re about to take down, … and it all goes according to plan.
One of my favorite Far Cry 2 moments was when I was in this tense firefight and there were about 3 guys closing in on me. I was shooting at them when my gun jammed. I ducked behind a rock and tried desperate to unjam it as I knew they were trying to flank me/moving closer. I fix it and jump out from behind the rock and pull the trigger.
That’s when the gun exploded in my hand.
Dammit, you cheap arms dealer!
I like it when stuff goes to plan. I definately play as the silent assassin type. The cool night breeze blowing through the grass as I shuffle around the perimeter of a seemignly well defended encampment. The foolish rebels peer into the darkness in vain as one by one they drop to my dart gun. Sometimes they send out a few troops to find me, but I have already moved to a new location and the poor bastards get picked off as they search in vain for thier killer.
Good stuff. :)
(Rock8, you were so right this game is worlds better with the music off!)
Not having finished the game yet, here’s my first stab at a wish list for Far Cry 3:
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Checkpoints with long respawn timers. Two in-game days? Three?
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Actual faction dynamics. Have some faction members be your friend every now and then. Part of this is another peeve of mine: Have some interactions with NPCs be non-violent. The current world is just too damn violent ALL THE TIME.
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Opportunity to not be a bastard. Actually HELP the situation from time to time.
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More viable stealth mechanics. I’ve never been able to effectively stealth kill guys at close range. This should be easier. Hitting from a distance and then repositioning is okay, but I want to be a ninja, too.
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Little niggles: identify the weapons more clearly (label the picture with the name, or get a better name; AR-16 is confusingly non-specific); more to come, I’m sure… :)
Awesome game, overall. One that makes me long for one that’s even BETTER!
The main thing I keep coming back to is wishing there were more RPG elements in the game; more conversations, quest lines, moral choices, hell, even stat growth. I realize this is not the kind of game they were making (and that the purity of “Shooter” makes it MUCH easier to sell/market), but that’s what playing this makes me lust after.
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Better (not on speed) voiceovers
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Better use of buddies
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If you offer me 9 different avatars to choose from, MAKE THEM DIFFERENT from each other or something, not completely irrelevant who I choose
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If you set the game in Africa, make it more ALIVE - more animals, civilians, etc…
10)If you offer me sidequest, do not design every single sidequest to be completely identical as the fifty before it (assassinations, ambushes)
- If you are so invested in IMMERSHUN, why the frack can’t I see MY OWN LEGS?Not to mention omition of prone, leaning, toggle aiming, nightvision, flashlight…
There would be probably even more.I too want more RPG centered game from Clint in the future.
And even with all my peeves with the game, I would still give it 95 and it was simply my second favourite game of 2008 after Fallout 3.But it was thanks to beautiful africa and great weapons and their feel, rather than thanks to some awesome game design.
Absolutely agree with these points. I hate the long drives with nothing but fight after fight with hostile enemies. It made me think of Mercenaries where if you are in a faction car for a certain amount of time, you are disguised and enemies wont always attack you. I know that would be unrealistic but I personally would have preferred it.
Also agree on the stealth point, I read someone else complaining about how not even the knife is really stealthy, because when you stab someone in the back it normally still alerts people.
Two really annoying things, but I still like the game.
Quitch
1568
Dear FPS games. Please let stats die. DIE! I get more money, I get better guns and more importantly, I get better AT PLAYING THE GAME. Stats are the implementation of my skill, one completely irrelevant to there FPS where I am in direct control.
More buddies, more faction stuff, thanks… I thought stealth was fine though. Very tricky, but certainly possibly and wonderfully rewarding. Knife could be improved though, why I insisted on stabbing everyone directly in the back so they could scream I’ll never know.
Have we heard anything at all about Far Cry 3 besides that they’re making it?
Every time I’ve snuck up on a guy and seen his unprotected jugular just aching for a kiss from my machete, only to see my character decide it would be better to rake him across the back with it so he screams and alerts everyone in the vicinity, I’ve cursed Far Cry 2’s need for a throat-cutting animation.
… That’s fucked up, isn’t it?
Oh well. Other requests:
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I’d have preferred more than two different boats. Something like a kayak or canoe for more stealthy travel across water would be awesome.
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Yes, I know you can just swim. Which brings up another point: what crazy-ass motherfucker would decide it was a good idea to swim across an unknown body of water in goddamn Africa? There are such things as crocodiles, and I want to see them in-game.
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To further that point: zebras and gazelles are nice and all… where are the lions? The rhinos? The herds of cape buffalo that could crush your jeep like so much cheap plywood? Imagine being in a firefight when all of a sudden an enraged bull elephant comes crashing out of the forest to protect his nearby herd? Holy shit run for your lives!
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Actually, I’d be interested to see a Far Cry game set in the Australian outback, where everything can kill you.
This would be awesome. I never really thought about it, but a silent platform to shoot from in the water would be huge.
Want to tape a sign to the UBI Montreal doors when I’m up there next with a list of our demands for Far Cry 3?
Actually, I don’t think we’ve even heard that much. At least, I don’t remember hearing anywhere that anyone is working on Far Cry 3. Not even a rumor.
These are some great suggestions though. The wild animals were reportedly taken out of Far Cry 2 after play-testing, but I figure it would have fit right in with the theme of “the game is best when things go FUBAR”. Having wild animals that are dangerous would have added one more element to the game, another on the list of things that can go wrong.
Wild animals would be cool as long as they attacked both you and the NPC’s. It would drive me bat-shit crazy if it seemed like I ran around with a steak tied around my kneck while mercs took pot shots at me.
spiffy
1574
yeah, but aren’t all those things little poisonous animals, or in the water? So you’re just ambling along the parched earth of the outback and suddenly you die. Pan down to spider, squirrelling back into his hole. Reload to checkpoint?
SPOILERS AHOY
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Well, I just finished the game and, um, what? The Jackal wanted THAT all along? Why was there never any other real indication that he felt that way? Was I supposed to be listening to those audio journals? Did THEY give me some hint that the Jackal cared?
It felt like a last-ditch effort by the designers to redeem themselves. I certainly felt better than if I had killed the Jackal and run off with some diamonds, but what a weird and inconsistent final act.
I did like what went down with the Buddies, though.
Yeah, the final act didn’t have any emotional resonance with me either. But then neither did the rest of the game. What with the voice-acting being so poor and the story delivered the way it was, I didn’t think the performed narrative was ever above mediocre at best in Far Cry 2. The emergent narrative that came from chaos on the battlefield was obviously the focus of the game, and it’s strong point.
It was right before it shipped.
Far Cry 3 Confirmed, Still in Africa
August 27, 2008
Though Far Cry 2 (pictured above) has yet to see store shelves, Ubisoft Montreal is already at work on an unnamed sequel to be set in the same African wilderness as its predecessor, reports videogaming247.
“There are still things we want to do with the African setting, and I think it’s safe to say we’ll continue to explore it,” said Far Cry 2 narrative designer Patrick Redding.
“That said, we might find something new and compelling about the
Antarctic setting that wants us to make the next game there, but honestly, we’re still at the preliminary stages.”
Ah, before FC2 even shipped. That actually makes sense. We found out about Red Faction 4 the same way, before the release of RF: Guerrilla.
Cobra
1579
A dev on the Ubisoft forums said that aggressive animal were too distracting so they took it out.
Malaria and gun jams could be characterized as distracting as well. And yeah, I remember that statement and am not nitpicking the messenger, but I think it reflects a bit of confusion as to what made the game awesome (which is not uncommon among developers).
