1841

Bummer. :( To be fair, there’s some things that aren’t, the voice acting is stilted, like everyone’s talking a bit too fast, checkpoints and aggro in the field could be more dynamic, etc. Still, it gets a lot of stuff right in ways other games don’t as far as creating a great gameplay experience.

It’s too bad to hear reputation doesn’t affect much. Reputation might be another way to handle checkpoints as it could be inversely proportional to their aggro radius. So a higher reputation might let you drive through check points while you hear stuff like, “Don’t mess with him!” or something like that.

1842

I would have liked some form of bribery, too. It wouldn’t have to be foolproof, either, as I can easily see them take your diamonds and then try to shoot you in the back.

1843

Ooooh, bribery with diamonds? Such a precious resource! Hmmm. They’d have to make the effects of bribery pretty darn special for me to use diamonds on it. Either that or change the economy a little so that diamonds are less rare in the game.

1844

I don’t know if you heard, but just this month in PC Gamer or something they mention that Ubisoft is working on it. But all the sites reporting it acted like it was the first mention of it, so I hope they didn’t just start on it.

I want it now!

And I think Ubisoft already abandoned that DRM for Steamworks.

1845

I just got to the second map and I’m pretty flush with diamonds, though I did all the secondary missions I could before proceeding with the main story. I also haven’t unlocked everything I can, though…

Spoilers

I’m bummed they took away my gold AK (should have saved it). A quick question, if you choose your buddies over the villagers, is there a way to get them to survive that mission?

I ended up going with the villagers, because hey, they are my lifeline to my pills and I only used a buddy rescue twice so far. It’s also interesting that you’ll be at something like 30% complete before that mission and after it kicks you to 42%. It felt like a pretty wide jump. Can you go back to the northern map to look for diamonds if you want?

End Spoilers!

1846

Spoiler reply*****

You can find a gold AK in the Southern map too. I can’t remember where I found mine, North or South. But to answer your other question: yes, you can go back to the North any time you want. So you can even go back for the golden AK if you remember where one is in the North.

As for being flush with Diamonds, well, that just means you haven’t been spending the diamonds at the shop. I know a lot of those things don’t sound appealing, but just for the sake of exploration, I had to check it all out. I found all the diamonds in the game, and I couldn’t afford everything at the shop. I bought all the weapons, to try them out, and I bought quite a few vehicle upgrades and other things, but I couldn’t afford everything in the game, even with all the assassination missions done, and every stray diamond found on both maps. So when you go on a spending spree, spend carefully.

Oh, and also, if you haven’t switched off the music, try that out too. Music is great, but it drowns out some awesome atmospheric sounds. Just a reminder, since you never mentioned whether or not you tried that out. :)

1847

Wait, I just realized… you’ve only been saved by a buddy twice? Holy shit! That’s amazing. I lost count on the number of times I got my ass out of the fire because of a buddy.

I’m guessing this is because you’re using the PC’s ability to save anywhere and not using the safehouses, and hence probably also using a quickload, perhaps. Either that or playing on a difficulty level lower than your skill level dictates. :)

1848

Lead Developer for Far Cry 3 is Josh Mosqueira, previously lead of Company of Heroes in Relic.

http://news.bigdownload.com/2010/08/19/rumor-far-cry-3-in-full-development/

1849

Yeah, I’ve only been saved maybe 3x total, and thus mostly missed out on the whole buddy concept/mechanic. They’ve mostly seemed to be superfluous to me - don’t you have to “reset” them after every save by visiting a safehouse?

Playing the game again. It’s amazing what a great “open world shooter” this is after playing RDR. Sigh.

1850

I’ve been half cheating you could say. I allow myself to save at safehouses and whenever I find a diamond. That actually turns the diamonds mostly into checkpoints because how they are stashed (at least in the north). It’s been helpful, but still not like saving right next to an objective before I go in.

Though at normal difficulty, you can take a lot before you need to use a syringe and then you have a lot of syringes too. It’s pretty hard to die unless you’re swarmed near instantly. It’s actually much safer to go in firing than sneaking in, as you can take the enemies in waves. I’ve had an objective where I successfully sneaked into a base of guys during the day to complete it but then have a hard time getting out and then you have the entire camp (circled around you) coming at you at once.

1851

Yes you do. So the safehouses were super important to me, since I had to make sure my buddy was ready to save me again before I undertook anything too risky. I do remember starting over when I figured out that on Normal you do get too many syringes and could soak up a little too much damage. When you have the right difficulty, things seem under control most of the time and then suddenly something goes wrong and shit hits the fan fast. Suddenly you’re staring up at the sky as your buddy gets you up and behind cover.

1852

Yeah, I think it comes down to finding the right difficulty for you so you can see how all the various systems interact. Tonight while playing I was thinking about how much my convoy tactics would change in a truly deadly game.

Initially I was using an rocket launcher of some sort (one you find early on). But then, I realized it’s just as easy to ram my jeep into the convoy truck hop out and throw a grenade while running for cover.

I usually have to clean up a few stragglers, but it’s easy even though it should be suicidal. It can be fun looking at the aftermath, especially when you start lots of fires, but not all that strategic.

Speaking of fire, another tactic that seems like it would be well used on harder difficulty is using fire to flush out enemies or surround your target to keep it from escaping (something I did recently).

Part of this I’m seeing though is because the southern map seems like a pretty dramatic increase in difficulty on its own, but on hard I could see myself being more thoughtful in my approach and purposely using the cover of night, etc, way more often.

1853

The difficulty increases massively in the South, and the game is better for it. Being zeroed by enemy mortars is a regular and awesome occurance.

I absolutely loved FC2, actually. I might have to play it again soon, backlog be damned.

1854

Not at night though.

I must have died numerous times at the brewery next to Mike’s (New) Bar because some guy with a mortar was hidden away on a small island just off the shore.

I got him good every time after I found him.

1855

The one time I’ve encountered mortar fire, it felt like it was broken. They should still have to aim and on an escort mission, well out of any line of sight surrounded by things which should have made it impossible to follow me, I still heard the clink of the mortar and then it land just where I was. Heck I heard the clink well after I was so far away that I shouldn’t be able to hear it unless it was the dead of night.

Maybe its implementation is better later on, but during that mission it felt like the game was cheating.

1856

So I found the mortar trails which helped, and you pretty rarely come across them, which is good. I still feel like they have an uncanny ability to target you through obstacles.

SPOILERS

Anyway, I finished Far Cry 2, oddly with 3 main missions left undone? That’s kind of perplexing. I also felt they could have easily integrated more choice into the ending, but leaving it open is nice as well… at least for the sequence I chose to follow.

If I could fix one gameplay element about Far Cry 2 (or overhaul one aspect) it’d probably be the buddy system. Was there a way to actually choose your two buddies? I could have used fewer buddies (maybe 6-7 instead of what, 10?) to choose from, but have them written with more personality and maybe sharing a few war stories with you. The designs overall were pretty good.

I’d also try to make the AI good enough so that you took a buddy along the whole time (with a 3rd rescue buddy) for those of us that want a co-op experience without another person. Gun mounted vehicles felt wasted in single player.

I ended the game with 340 diamonds, with a minimum of 80 or so diamonds still to be found and 45 more diamonds from assassination missions. I could have bought every weapon and likely every manual to go with them. I had every equipment upgrade (ammo satchels, camo) The repair upgrades for vehicles is the only thing I avoided completely. On normal they felt completely unnecessary.

I’m surprised there was no body armor upgrades.

The music I actually like and I think adds a lot, especially when all you have is regular headphones. I played it extensively both with and without music and I could see on a big screen, in 5.1, w/o music being a completely awesome immersive experience. It was still fine w/o music on headphones, but the music adds a bit a umph. That said, it’s a shame there isn’t a music volume slider rather than just an on/off toggle. The music does drown out the game world at times and if you’re using sounds as cues for where people are or when you’re in danger, it can be annoying. Though, that can also disorient you ratcheting up the tension a few notches.

Anyway, I very much enjoyed my time in Far Cry 2. I ended doing 2-4 missions, taking a break (usually a day) and then another 2-4 missions. If I had been grinding out all the missions, it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun, though better writing and pacing may have sustained prolonged play sessions if that’s what they wanted. I also felt they could have handled mission variety a bit better.

Fun things I liked to do just for the hell of it included crashing jeeps over cliffs. It’s fun to experience the fall from the inside the cab in a virtual world. It’s like a theme park ride. :)

1857

O…okay. Well, Far Cry 3 news for those of us who have been hopefully clicking on this thread each time it updates, but it’s nothing massive.

Basically, listings for it have appeared (and then disappeared) on some swedish retailer’s sites, with it down for a 2010 release.

There was also a collectors edition dated, costing 999KR, or about £90.

Over to Eurogamer for the details: http://bit.ly/a1WRWH

1858

Here’s hoping it’s true and a worthwhile game.

1859

True to my word upthread, I reinstalled and started playing it again (PC of course). The 3 added vehicles add some much needed variety, and having the 3 bonus weapons from the get-go smooths out the initial OMG my weapons suck gameplay without being too unbalancing. Currently having a great time unlocking some basics; once I get to the suppressed MP5 it’s time to go to work :D

I hope FC3 is worthy indeed.

1860

It comes packaged with a real supply of quinine.