LMN8R
1661
Absolutely nothing happens. It’s when the tedium started to kick in for me that continued for the next 10-15 hours it took me to finish the game, sadly hoping that something would change.
Yeah, usually a game like this will puss out after that much time and dump you into some corridors.
Pogue, there’s no need to defend or explain your take on it. I’m unfairly applying a lot of the past to your harmless post and launching into an enormous tangent.
This post makes me wonder if you’ve even pressed the start button.
Come on, Tom, work with me here since I don’t know the correct design terms. It’s not literally and strictly collectables but I assert that the X out of 17 completed buddy missions and whatnot may be a subtle reason why the game did not click with people and I think it’s important to qualify that instead of whitewashing it. The reason:
Far Cry 2 is one of the handful of games I pick at precisely because I liked it but can step back and observe that it’s not for everyone. It upsets me when I see high praise for a game from someone hooked by it, followed by disappointment from someone that hated it.
Happens in every game? Of course, but like I said I get a bug up my butt about some of them and feel like taking the time to work through and explain why because I want others to enjoy it. Doom 3 is a good example that I’ve try to defend by talking about what makes it good and bad and how one can still have fun with it. The best example would be STALKER, where I’ve figuratively yelled at people to slow down when they want to dive in after hearing how amazing it is, because it’s also buggy and challenging. Once they know that, however, they can go in with the right mindset and in that example literally everyone I’ve interacted with beforehand was able enjoy the game. Not because of me but I’d like to think I saved a few people some frustration!
It bums me out when I see someone disappointed about a fun game and almost act like they have been tricked. Take LMN8R. He probably read about the game and stuck with it “hoping something would change” because he heard all the cool kids raving about it. I can just picture him getting more annoyed each passing hour because collecting diamonds was immersive for Joe Gamer but stupid to him. I think we as gamers could do a better job qualifying these things instead of falling back into two flamin’ fanboy camps. (Apologies for the long, meandering rant.)
BTW Tom, I may have killed myself if reading all the audio journals in System Shock 2 unlocked an achievement in the end. :) You’re too far into the trees of the mechanics and can’t see how certain subtle things can grate on some people. And that’s okay, but don’t be afraid to let someone mention it so the next guy can go in knowing what to expect.
Tim, I am totally cool with that, and am in fact trying to carry on a discussion with you. Albeit in my own half-assed kind of way.
It’s probably so obvious to everyone that this doesn’t bear putting into words, but my argument rests on this: the more open-ended and open-world a game is, the more the game’s makers shift the burden onto the player to drive the game forward. It’s probably also painfully obvious that this can pay huge dividends or unfortunately crash and burn painfully. I’m still pretty early into Far Cry 2 but I’m really into the game so far. I am slightly annoyed at the checkpoints; this may sound funny but I’m not really into combat. It’s a necessary evil in my book, in that I recognize that a game without conflict is probably pretty boring. I wish there were a little more creativity than having the entire continent of Africa say ‘Look there’s a guy! Shoot him!’ but making a shooter without having things to shoot might be a really good way to make no money whatsoever.
No, what I am enjoying right now is the world, and what it has to offer. Mainly what it offers are audiotapes, diamonds (jesus at the diamonds) and random missions. And it’s a kick! And I have to wonder, without those, what do we have? Just wide open spaces and things to shoot. And I’ve played Trespasser, no thank you on that last option. So, there’s where I am on the whole gameplay/open world spectrum issue. I think I need to get back into it right about … now
If I keep posting in this thread I’m going to have to reinstall, and I’ve got a backlog to work on. The diamond divination minigame makes me giddy just thinking about it – this game and Clear Sky showed me how much I love turning 360 degrees until an indicator tells me that treasure lies that-a-way.
You say the checkpoints annoy you and I’m curious how you deal with that admittedly obnoxious design feature (which again is the easy thing the flamers complain about but there’s ways to turn it into a positive). As I’ve mentioned numerous times in this thread, I got around it by playing the game in short 30 minute bursts, actively seeking out situations like that during those sessions. The gunplay becomes a real hoot if you don’t see it as a burden to your objective or open world task you’ve given yourself. When I had a job to do I just gamed it and tried to drive by or kill everyone as quickly as possible in the most boring way (like a truck gun). It may be stupid, but it was actually pretty effective toward the endgame and I was able to enjoy 2-3 hour long sessions at times as I worked to finish it.
I think for anyone that hasn’t yet played this game, the critical thing is figuring out early a variety of ways to deal with the aspects of it where you can see the man behind the curtain (poking a stick at you). Then they no longer present a roadblock to the handful of things you can do in the game that are a lot of fun, one of which ought to hook just about anyone. Just playing it straight up is likely a bad thing for many people, though some will have a great time without needing to think about all this.
Not only is it not literally or strictly collectibles, it’s isn’t even figuratively collectibles. If you have a complaint about Far Cry 2 and you’re interested in discussing it, you’re going to have to articulate it better than hyperbole about “console collect-'em-all” and “counting zebras in clown costumes”. There is none of that in Far Cry 2.
If the game wasn’t “fun” for you or whatever, that’s cool. But don’t expect to show up, dump a few spurious complaints, and then saunter away as if you’d made a point. Especially when you’re going to pretend that you don’t want the discussion to dissolve into “two flamin’ fanboy camps”.
-Tom
You have a point, and I’m going to have to sort this one out for myself if I’m going to see this game through to the end. And I intend to.
As I’ve mentioned, I am not a combat fiend. I accept it as a given that games will involve combat, and make my own peace with it. Generally speaking, first person shooters are all (or at least let’s say, oh, 90%) combat. It is their reason for existence, after all. And most people are ok with this, if you’ll pardon my understatement.
But I’m not most people, hell who is? We all have our motivations diving into these worlds created by others. We give ourselves over. So, I’m hanging out in hostile Africa. Everyone hates me except people who need me to do their dirty work. At least this is consistent with merc work, so not much cognitive dissonance, if that matters when facing heavy artillery. The checkpoints should be seen as opportunities, and I want to work myself up to that point. But I’m one of those strange guys who would have far rather wandered the back alleys of Rapture than go in opposition against Ryan – it’s just how I’m wired. How do I make that work? So far, it’s been in avoiding unnecessary combat, i.e. checkpoints. I either barrel-ass through in my Gremlin or walk slowly around through the brush. Neither may end up being a viable long-term option, but going back to my last post, I’m trying to impose my will on the game. We’ll see where that gets me.
Not trying to pick on you, but I always chuckle when people say that I’m not making a point, and selectively quote away the very next sentence where it all begins.
What precise game design I am taking the piss out of in Far Cry 2 is not the important part. The deeper point is how we talk about games and how we get disappointed by them. At least the handful of ones that interest me enough to look at them this way. I realize that after 20 years of flamewars I probably sound like your average wumpus or LMN8R, sorry. And I understand that you came to the conclusion 20 years ago that some games aren’t for everyone, and this is no earth shattering revelation. I’m still going to take the time to explain why about these select titles, just so a few people can go into the games I enjoy with the correct mindset. It’s like I don’t want to lose them to the cynical, disappointed camp.
I just clicked on a random page in the thread (number 51 with default posts per page) and see that people are superbly qualifying it to the curious, all without me needing to come out swinging to raise the issue. YAY! My work here is done, now to fly off and rescue the young geek who plans to jump head first into that Temple of Elemental Evil game he recently heard was super duper awesome.
I should do a GI Joe style PSA about how to enjoy Crysis.
Besides all this ground already being covered in this thread (which you just realized), I don’t know why you would trend so gingerly on a forum like this Tim. In person, when recommending games to my friends, I tend to do the same. I explain the downsides, and why they might not enjoy the game, and set expectations to the right level. But on a games forum? I don’t see the need. Even for truly amazing games, for every two people who are enthusiastic about a game, you’re going to get at least one person who is either going to hate it, or at the very least come on to nitpick it.
And anyone who has been around long enough will know this, and adjust their filters appropriately. I mean, seriously, do you really think you’re more likely to setup appropriate expectations by saying “Well, there’s these good points, and there’s these bad points, so you might like, you might not, everyone’s different, everyone’s got different tastes, everyone’s annoyed and excited by different things”. Or is it better to really express your passion about a game. Be fucking passionate! Tell us the aspects you love. Tell us why it really strikes the right cord with you. Forget about why it might not strike the right cord with other people. That’s not only more interesting, it might get people interested who have similar interests and are looking for similar things in their games.
Mitigating every compliment you give to a game on the off chance that you don’t want to set expectations too high? As others have said before on this forum: that’s weak sauce. There will be enough detractors for any game that the negative flavor will get mixed in, don’t worry about that.
Well, except for certain games like Demon’s Souls, I guess. No one has crapped all over that game yet. And it needs to eat a little humble pie soon. I’m not going to be the one to do it though, because I love it. Let that task fall onto someone who genuinely doesn’t like the game. It’s much more interesting to discuss the hobby you love when you don’t have to tread so carefully.
Well, no one who spent $80 and waited two weeks to import it. Because who’s going to let himself hate a game he went to so much bother to get? At least that’s the theory I’m harboring to manage my expectations.
-Tom
sinfony
1672
I’m having a hard time understanding the “why oh why are there so many collectables” business. Certainly, there are things in the game that you can collect, or achieve, or whatever. But you don’t have to do any of it. Take the diamonds. The only use for diamonds is to buy guns and things to go with your guns. If you don’t have some bizarre need to try out each and every pistol, sub-machine gun, rifle, and explosive device, you can get by with hardly any diamonds at all. I’ve settled down with one SMG, one sniper rifle, and the flamethrower as my weapons of choice, and I’m perfectly happy to play with those and only those. I seriously doubt I’m missing out on a lot by not bothering with the heat-seeking rockets or whatever there is in that store that didn’t sound any more interesting than what I already have.
sinfony, I envy your ability to see that there are options available to you, and then turn your back on them and say, ‘No, I don’t really need that.’ As for me, if there is a button, I will push it. If there is a collectible, I will pursue it.
sinfony
1674
Well, I do break off whatever I’m doing when I see that green light start to blink. But I don’t feel any desire to search out all 220 or however many of those damn things; just the occasional pursuit of one that’s more or less near the beaten path is a nice change of pace.
As I’ve mentioned multiple times, this is what I’m doing for these handful of games that I approach like this. Except that I’ll go beyond just mentioning what I like, and take the extra step to try to talk new gamers through some of the stumbling blocks in the experience. The reason I do it is because I want people to like the game! If STALKER has been so good to me, for example, don’t I owe it a little extra effort to make sure it’s not misunderstood and quickly dismissed by someone that doesn’t grasp its flaws? They’ll completely miss out on an experience I’m wildly enthusiastic about.
I ought to tell YOU to be passionate! :) Except you already are in the way I’m hinting at, even if this quote doesn’t seem like a whole lot of excitement:
Ta-da. One thing to note here that I’ve been trying to bring to the table, and that you hint at in this quote, is that some of these games aren’t merely for one group of people and not another. Too cut and dry. I think just making some gamers aware of what they’re getting into is enough to let them enjoy what would have otherwise been a miserable experience.
Hahaha. Foiled by my own words. Well done. :)
I’m not trying to make fun, you are doing exactly what I am weakly and ineffectively stabbing at and trying to put in more concrete terms. Passionate about a game means more than just high praise and fun stories to me, which are still nice. It’s going the extra mile to make sure everyone else enjoys it. Save the normal Internet thread style for lesser games.
Well, going the extra mile by pointing out a game’s potential faults still seems like a strange way to go about being passionate about a game to me. Especially if the end result is that you end up sounding like you’re not all that passionate about the game to begin with. Which is the case here. I mean, aside from this discussion we’ve just had, I wouldn’t have guessed that you liked Far Cry 2 all that much, but thought it was an okay game with some interesting things going for it. But not a game you loved playing, for sure. So there is that danger in your methodology.
That is certainly the funny thing that I haven’t quite figured out. I’m not in love with Far Cry 2, but I really enjoyed it and almost feel like reinstalling to go have a blast the rest of the night. Perhaps part of my passion is breaking up boring consensus so that a game at least moves from mediocre to flawed gem territory.
dermot
1680
So I’ve just picked this up again after a long hiatus (we moved house and I haven’t had the wherewithal to get back into it til now) and it immediately struck me what it is about this game. It’s like one of those movies - say, Brazil or Stardust - that has some really rough edges and many ways is hopelessly flawed but you still love it because at its core is something fundamentally brilliant that somehow holds the whole thing together.
Course, I’ve only just rescued my second buddy and haven’t unlocked the southern map so take what I say with a pinch of salt…
