Far Cry 2

[Rhaena]

It's very nice.

The combat/AI is very similar to Far Cry. Lots of sneaking around in long Crysis-like foliage, scouting out camps and then blowing the crap out of them.

Missions are set up a little like GTA - you get certain places/contacts to pick up missions, and you have to complete missions to unlock other contacts etc. New guns work in a similar way, you have to unlock new and better guns by progressing through the story.

What I particularly like is the lack of mini-map or compass. You have a map, but to look at it you have to put your gun away. It gives a real sense of confusion and danger when you're being chased through the woodland by a bunch of crazy africans in 4x4s spraying machinegun fire.

The voice-acting is on a similar standard to Crysis (i.e.: dire) and I'm not sure the storyline is going anywhere (kill this guy, but first do a bunch of unrelated mission until we tell you where he is).

BUT: It is like the good bits of Crysis (before the aliens turn up) mixed with the good bits of Far Cry (before the monsters turn up).

Oh, and you get to throw molotovs at people and watch them run around burning.

[Jaera]

kind of torn as to whether to buy it :S

[Zarhan]

What I've heard that there's only *illusion* of freedom, e.g. even if it's supposed to be wide open African savannah, you have these canyons everywhere, and "choice" is basically whether you come in from canyon #1 or canyon #2...also, some have complained about the fact that you can only access binoculars via the map. Also, the AI is getting complaints about over-perpectiveness (ie. if you are in bushes at midnight, you'll still get spotted).

Haven't tried it yet though..

[Alikh]

GTA was real free movement, once all the islands were open, so was NFS underground 2 and just cause. I'm getting a feeling that this one is more like free movement as in AoC (from area to area).

So, is this worth buying or just downloading?

[Rhaena]

There is no zoning or anything - you can roam over the whole island (until some bastards blow up your nice black jeep - then you have to double back to their town and murder every single mofo there in a bloody revenge attack).

I'd say it was well worth £25 or whatever it is in that funny european toy money.

[Jaera]

ah you got it on steam?

[Alikh]

ah you got it on steam?

Price on steam: $54.99
Which boils down to £35.65. A lot more than 25 .

Play.com has it for £24.99 at http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/3435313 ... oduct.html .
Only downside is that with steam you can download right away.
I'm gonna check the price at my local store first though.

[Alikh]

A random review on play.com:

First impressions of this game were underwhelming to say the least. For a lot of easy going gamers the graphics are usually enough to impress, but is it me or were the graphics lacking that 'WOW" factor that Crysis had? Ok, so we're used to next-gen graphics and the benchmark had been set pretty high by said game, but the only thing that really impressed graphics-wise was that the Dunia engine is clearly better optimised than CryEngine 2 i.e. the framerate is more like 60+ FPS as opposed to the 30 something I got in Crysis at max settings.
Now for my main gripe, the gameplay. What happened? I can understand the developers' desire to evolve FPS gaming into something more, but this clearly isn't the direction it should be taking. It seems as though for a lot of people including myself, this sandbox thing leaves you feeling listless and frustrated very quickly, not to mention the various AI bugs. Personally I found Crysis a little too easy after a while and was expecting an elevated challenge from NPCs what with all the hype of the AI improvements, but they're totally unfounded. AI couldn't be more underwhelming. Even when outnumbered, opponents were stupidly predictable and woefully inaccurate. Collision detection is also off, with shotguns hitting you a mile off and assault rifles miraculously missing you from a few feet away, the same applying in reverse quite often.
I could go on, but to sum it up, this game is confused. It entertains for a while until the repetitive nature of gameplay and complete lack of any challenge begin to undermine the graphical feelgood factor. It feels unfinished and quite frankly, it needed far more direction and immersion and has obviously focused too much on eye candy.
Its like my worst nightmare where I wake up and EA have bought out the Far Cry franchise The irony here of course is that Dead Space looks to be a viable alternative to this, and probably something that people like myself who like a good immersive FPS experience would find more appealing.
All I can say is roll on Crysis 2!

And the others didn't rank it higher. Is Rhianne one of the few that actually likes it?
So far I only know of Rhianne who is enthusiastic about FC2.

[Jaera]

average 88%

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platfor ... %20cry%202

[Rhaena]

No, I didn't buy on Steam. I did it the old fashioned way by walking into a shop and exchanging it for real physical currency.

Sounds to me like the guy Kolos quoted didn't want to like it. No, it doesn't look any better than Crysis (what does?). Collision detection is not off - your opponents are not robots and sometimes miss, sometimes they get lucky. The AI is predictable at times - but so are people - you'll still get surprised by the guy they sent off to flank you while laying down supressing fire to keep you in place.

Take note that a lot of people have been taking marks off their review scores when reviewing this because of their dislike of DRM - which doesn't make it any less of a game.

[Zarhan]

Yep - the DRM there is ridicilous. Activation AND required to keep CD in drive.

That's pretty much alone keeping me away from it.

[Rhaena]

I got a flamethrower. <3

I set fire to a chicken and it died. Then I shot the dead chicken and it had strangely turned into a solid statue of a chicken.

But the flamethrower rocks.

[Jaera]

chicken fetish!

what possesed you to burn it THEN shoot it!

[Rhaena]

I shot it because it was lying strangely. Like it had frozen in the pose it had before it burnt to death. I just wondered if it would splat or not.

[Jaera]

reasonable assumption. ok i wont report you to the rspca. this time

[Zarhan]

Ok, I've now played couple of missions...and, well, this thing sucks at a bit too wrong places.

I'm playing with highest difficulty of course for the realism.

Anyway...First of all, the super-solder doesn't know how to crawl! In Crysis, Flashpoint, etc, hitting the dirt is something you just *do*..

Fine, I can live with that, but..ok, Checkpoints are EVERYWHERE. Try driving anywhere, and you are blocked by checkpoint. And ALWAYS you have to shoot your way through. WTF is this? Folks just start shooting at whoever comes in? From miles away? Before even checking the identity (so far I haven't seen any "checkpoint passes"). Also, clear a checkpoint. Drive through. Drive back 5 mins later...Checkpoint is restocked and fully manned again! I could live with them getting remanned after e.g. sleep, but whenever you look away?!

I guess I could live with these things (you can bypass checkpoints with bus etc). However...the mission design...

The tutorial et al was ok.

Anyway, first side mission from weapons dealer: "Intercept a convoy". This "convoy" drives back and forth about 300 m strip...never going anywhere. One rocket in the middle and that was done...but cannot say it feels immersive.

Ok, and what totally whacked me with "This is a freaking game!". Second mission from the UFLL (the one with the African continent logo. I'm supposed to go to some oasis and grab some gold which the other faction also wants. A buddy suggests a sidetrack where I kill another guy and he'll help me out...I'll do this (driving back and forth through same checkpoint three times, always re-manned...). Then I meet the buddy at the Oasis.

Mind you, the place is surrounded by kilometer of desert to every direction. No place to hide.

He tells me to go find the gold while he guards. I go down to a bunker, find the gold. The *moment* I click "use" button to report my finding, I gunfire upstairs. I climb up and see TEN mobs coming in from all sides, they apparently just teleported in...I head to cover my buddy. After I kill two mobs I get "Mission completed" and my buddy teleports away...leaving me to handle the rest of the mobs alone.

Oh. And you can only do one quest at time. If you take a new one, the old one ceases to exist.

After the previous mission I returned to town and decided to grab some malaria-medicine-questing from Pala's church...the priest gives a Fed-Ex...RIGHT NEXT TO THE OASIS in previous mission! As if I couldn't have delivered the stuff at the same time!

Sheesh!

Hopefully they patch this to something workable (or the mod community steps up). Comparing this to Crysis...Crysis (and :Warhead) beats this hands down.

[Alikh]

Hehe, seems like they could've learned something from gta (4). I was a bit surprised too when I reached a crossroads and they started shooting. I shot from my jeep and one was almost down and kneeling down wounded. I walked to him because I didn't know whether he was friend or foe and he didn't shoot, so I proceeded to loot the ammo from the others. After a while he stumbles towards me and suddenly starts to shoot, ofcourse, one shot is enough to kill him off so I freed the mofo of his suffering.
The AI seems quite off though. The enemy, being wounded and on the ground didn't seem to fear nor hate me. He just randomly started shooting again even though I was right next to him before and he didn't do anything.

A big patch is needed to fix all this I'm afraid. Hope they'll see the shortcomings and do something about it.

On a related note, fallout 3 is great.

[Jaera]

the graphics are awesome though. real smooth @ 1920x1200 with max and 8qAA

[Alikh]

Yep, runs real smooth even with max detail settings, even with my old graphics card (8800 gts). And looks sharp as hell, e.g. trees in the distance.

I have a dog now by the way .

[Zarhan]

Finally!

Got to say I agree

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... -Far-Cry-2