1801

Those were really silly most of the time. I always thought of that as the comic relief of Far Cry 2. You’re driving around in a vehicle with a big mounted weapon and a dude in a little gremlin sees you and instead of running away, he decides to come ram you. So switch to your mounted weapon or get out of your car briefly and blow the poor guy away and drive around his little gremlin.

1802

Well, I guess the thing would be to have the world re-populate when you trigger a mission, no matter what. Given that you generally have to go talk to someone to get your mission, I don’t think that would break the illusion. I see what you are saying about not backtracking, but for me making that conscious decision outside the game world still breaks the illusion.

I suppose that it’s a good solution though, given that we are not going to see a patch.

Now I wish my xbox wasn’t on the other side of the country, I kinda want to play some Far Cry.

1803

I want to, too!

And the respawning thing was an unfortunate side-effect of the engine limitations. Whenever an area is unloaded from memory (it gets far enough away), when it’s reloaded it comes back in the original state, with guards repopulated. And yeah, it’s totally just part of the game.

I think the reviews all harped on it because hell, if you’re trying to run through the game in three days and then write a review, of course the respawning is going to feel like an annoyance. But if you’re taking your time, engaging the game on its terms (slow and measured) you’ll see the respawning is just what someone mentioned a minute ago. The game itself. :)

1804

I think the problem with the checkpoints is that there are occasions when you don’t want to fight this particular set of guys, but are forced to. I’d have been happier if the guards were mostly peaceful until alerted.

Just Cause 2 feels better to me at letting me wander around and do my own thing if I want, while always having some gunplay near at hand. I think Far Cry 2 could have used a bit of that. Of course, Just Cause 2 has a much larger world and more random stuff to do, which makes uninterrupted travel more important there.

1805

So is it only on the PC version that you can save anywhere? Those safe houses are starting to seem useless.

1806

I played both versions, and I use the safe houses in both versions. It just requires more self-control in the PC version, but makes for a better game experience, so it’s worth it.

1807

Well, saving on the PC isn’t save anywhere, right? I recall that it just shot you back to the nearest safehouse when you loaded, so if you haven’t “secured” a nearby safehouse, you could potentially lose a lot of travel time.

1808

No, PC has proper save anywhere.
You still need to use the safehouses to reset your rescue buddy, though.

I’d quite like to load this up again and just carry on journeying around the map, switching weapons whenever I pass a weapon shop. But I don’t really want to have to play through the early game to get all the different weapons again.
I’m looking forward to the day when every PC game is using SteamCloud saving.

1809

I don’t have my old save game anymore. If I re-installed, I wish I could start on the southern map instead of having to play through the Northern map again. Northern map is fine, but the Southern region is so much more fun.

1810

My roommate is playing through a bunch of my old games, so when he started on Far Cry 2 last month I tried to remember why I stopped playing. And why on earth had I stopped playing after finding every collectable and doing every side mission in the northern sector but before heading south? And–wow, is that right? Have I really not touched this game in eighteen months?

So I’m back in, and man, it’s so good. I just liberated and drove the truck full of nitrous oxide to blow up my buddy’s target, and I don’t want to oversell the merits of this particular mission because it’s not that different from any other, but between the style of truck, driving through the jungle, and explosives in the back, for just a moment it was like I was playing Sorcerer.

As soon as I finish this post, I’m going back to finally turn off the music. Somehow in reading about it before–maybe I was only skimming the thread, I don’t remember–I thought you guys just didn’t like the music. I kinda enjoy it, so I figured I’d leave it on, but now I realize you’re telling me it’s drowning out the world, so I’ll give that a shot.

And I know we’ve beaten this horse to death, driven away so it respawns, then come back and beaten this horse to death again, but put me in the “checkpoints could be a lot better” camp. It’s not ruining the game for me, but it feels like it could have so easily been improving the game instead. I’m fine with the idea that they respawn, but I would love some variety to it. For all the chaos and unpredictability of the actual missions, the checkpoints get pretty routine pretty quickly, and you have to sort of try to make things go wrong.

I think you should be able to speed through a checkpoint more often than you can (usually only a shot or two to your vehicle slows you enough that a jeep can catch you and you’ve got no choice but to stop and engage), I think every now and then a checkpoint should just be empty for no good reason, and I think every now and then a checkpoint should offer a lot more resistance than you’re expecting, keep you on your toes. It might feel cheap to spring a super difficult checkpoint on you with no warning, so maybe set it up where it’s the APR and UFL fighting for a checkpoint. Two or three times more guards and craziness to deal with, but you’ll hear the gunfire and combat in progress as you approach so you don’t go speeding blindly into it.

But enough arm-chair developing, I’m really glad my roommate got me sucked back in.

1811

Are your side jobs supposed to give you diamonds? Paul’s like, “Let’s make some money!” And I’m like, “Yeah, let’s rock.” I complete the mission, nadda, jack shit, no dinero.

I hate you Paul. If he turns out to be the Jackal or something, I’m going to send the developer a very nasty letter.

1812

Side jobs for buddies don’t give you diamonds. Not sure what their direct benefit actually is, just “reputation increased.” Subverting the main missions with your buddies gets you upgrades to your safe houses. Convoy side missions unlock more weapons to purchase, and assassination side missions pay in diamonds.

1813

Assassination? Was that the guy who called early on with the altered voice on your phone? I think I blew off the first one of those because I wasn’t going to trust some random dude who’s calling my number and not meeting me face to face. Maybe I didn’t, I don’t remember right now.

But ya, they probably should have changed the dialog to better reflect you aren’t getting cash for your efforts when doing buddy side missions.

1814

Holy shit. I can’t believe this never occurred to me before. I’ve never NOT subverted the main missions with my buddies. I wanted to upgrade the safehouses, so I did what my buddy (Flora) wanted. I also understand that Flora was one of the few buddies who wasn’t asking me to do truly despicable evil things.

I need to replay the game again, and this time not subvert any of the missions.

1815

I think so. Been a while since I accepted an assassination, but they’re the missions you get from interacting with the cell towers and then someone calls you with a mission to take someone out.

You know now that I’ve said that, I can’t remember where I read it, so I can’t verify it. I might have made it up. I’ve also subverted every mission so far, so I don’t know what happens if you don’t, but I’ve been playing under the assumption that doing the mission by itself just gets you diamonds and some reputation, but subverting the mission also adds a safe house upgrade and possible extra reputation boost.

1816

Yeah, I think you’re right about the safe house upgrades. I don’t know about the reputation boost. Reputation is a system that wasn’t really obvious to the player, so it wasn’t exactly a game system I cared about.

1817

Agreed on reputation effects being vague. Allegedly the enemies are more scared and defensive as you increase, but I don’t remember ever noticing a difference when I moved up a level.

1818

The only place I really noticed the reputation increase was in the cease fire zones. You walk up to a dude and point a gun in his face at the start of the game, he’s going to laugh and threaten you.

You do it at the end of the game, and he’s terrified.

I never went through the cease fire towns without sticking a gun in everyone’s face. They have such believable reactions. I do wish the whole world was like that.

I remember hearing two guys who were clearly talking about me. I walked up behind one of them, and raised my gun. They stopped talking.
“What? What is it?”
“Don’t… don’t look behind you.”
“Aw shit.”

1819

Hahaha. They did have some awesome interactions and behaviors that really gave a sense of awareness and context. Wish there’d been more possibilities for interaction.

1820

You get some nice perks at the safehouses by doing the buddy mission extras. Ammo crates and the upgraded trucks being at every safehouse being the ones I remember most. Really handy when you need to reload or get a new ride.