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View Full Version : FC2: Final Review [An Honest Review]



Pvt.Cupcake
11-25-2009, 06:10 AM
The not much story, story mode:

After playing through the story for the second time, I have concluded the following. The story from the old FCIP had a lot more story to it than FC2. The main missions even the side missions that come with your buddies, the malaria meds and the bonus missions; all of them involve you going to a person who tells you to kill some dudes and or deliver something critical to the mission. Which is nice except that I find it difficult to connect with the story especially when my character doesn't say a damn thing to the other characters. After a while between killing the enemy AI and doing the various missions I start wondering where this is going. The ending is the only time you actually figure out what's happening and when you get to it, it's so simple and has no colorful cutscene, you may feel the need to throw your controller at the tv. On top of that, there really isn't a difference in story between the 8 or 9 different characters you can choose from to play the game.

The developers said that FC2 is bigger than Oblivion and more open; that is false, much of the area involves mountains and or cliffs that you can't get up to and only make traveling that much more tedious. And yes you have to do a lot of driving or 10x more walking to get to every where you want to get to. In your spare time if you're not plagued by that damn malaria and thus have to seek meds fast- you are probably wandering around looking for those safe houses and or diamonds in order to get your achievements. The safe houses really don't serve any purpose other than you can save your game in a random portion of the map and really don't need to be unlocked. The secret diamonds that have been scattered all over the map are only helpful to unlock weapons which is nice except you have to do a lot of work for some of the diamonds and when you do you usually end up with only 1-3 diamonds for your troubles. The hang gliders which were so praised by the developers during those teaser trailers are actually very rare and hard to find. There are almost no missions in which you can use one of those hang gliders for an aerial assault plus you can't get any more elevation on a hang glider its all down hill. So you are probably wondering what the purpose of the hang glider is; its purpose is to reach some diamonds that are otherwise inaccessible. The old FCIP hanglider was fantastic, the player could toss grenades, molitoves, and pipe bombs from the glider as well as gain altitude. The enemy AI also gets to be overwhelming after a while as they tend to respawn 5 seconds after you leave the area.

Glitches, glitches and more glitches. The developers made a lot of careless mistakes, its almost like it was a machine that made the whole game down to the last tree. There are a lot of floating objects and vegetation including vegetation that pops in and out of rocks depending on the breeze as well as vegetation in buildings and other areas it should not have been. Also the river banks were not properly smoothed thus the player cannot climb out of the water in a lot of areas. A lot of the paths have too many obstructions in the way and are also very narrow which makes driving hell. There have also been times where my xbox will freeze up in the middle of playing and even times when I have tried to save the game I was rudely interupted by a game freeze. Where were the ubisoft game testers and if the game was tested, how long was it tested- 2min??? I also found it very annoying that I had to pay an extra $5 for some bonus content code that works for every FC2 game in the world.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the game glitched on me and I was unable to get the pulitzer material achievement because the glitch made the other half of the jackel tapes not register.

The map editor and multiplayer are the only really good things worth mentioning, however; the multiplayer shares a resemblance to COD4. The map editor is a vast improvement over the old FCIP and is highly unique and fun to use as all of you know so well.

Story mode: 2 out of 10- for a big WTF story and environment. And another WTF for the game freezes.
Multiplayer: 9 out of 10- for improved graphics and an advanced map editor. Why was the FCIP multiplayer game modes and gameplay taken out for an unoriginal COD4 copy?

Who's ready for Crisis 2?

[UPDATE: 11/23/09] I've been hosting a lot of matches on FC2 for the past several months, and I really do have to say that the gameplay is starting to not be as fun as the FCIP gameplay. I used to play FCIP on a daily basis for nearly two years. In fact I had FCI and FCIE so I technically played FC for about 5 years and I had a new fun and exciting time each time I played. But I'm just not feeling it as much on FC2 as I did the other FC's. The map editor is still the greatest thing since sliced bread and I keep making more magnificent creations all the time as well as the many people I know. But the gameplay is starting to get kind of boring. Maybe if Ubisoft added another game mode or two it might breath more life into the game.

Multiplayer: 5 out of 10- for lack of fun factor.

Also if ubisoft intends on putting a similar style of story gameplay into FC3 they should definitely make it a co-op story because the FC2 story mode is very similar to borderlands except that FC2 is not co-op.

Pvt.Cupcake
11-25-2009, 06:10 AM
The not much story, story mode:

After playing through the story for the second time, I have concluded the following. The story from the old FCIP had a lot more story to it than FC2. The main missions even the side missions that come with your buddies, the malaria meds and the bonus missions; all of them involve you going to a person who tells you to kill some dudes and or deliver something critical to the mission. Which is nice except that I find it difficult to connect with the story especially when my character doesn't say a damn thing to the other characters. After a while between killing the enemy AI and doing the various missions I start wondering where this is going. The ending is the only time you actually figure out what's happening and when you get to it, it's so simple and has no colorful cutscene, you may feel the need to throw your controller at the tv. On top of that, there really isn't a difference in story between the 8 or 9 different characters you can choose from to play the game.

The developers said that FC2 is bigger than Oblivion and more open; that is false, much of the area involves mountains and or cliffs that you can't get up to and only make traveling that much more tedious. And yes you have to do a lot of driving or 10x more walking to get to every where you want to get to. In your spare time if you're not plagued by that damn malaria and thus have to seek meds fast- you are probably wandering around looking for those safe houses and or diamonds in order to get your achievements. The safe houses really don't serve any purpose other than you can save your game in a random portion of the map and really don't need to be unlocked. The secret diamonds that have been scattered all over the map are only helpful to unlock weapons which is nice except you have to do a lot of work for some of the diamonds and when you do you usually end up with only 1-3 diamonds for your troubles. The hang gliders which were so praised by the developers during those teaser trailers are actually very rare and hard to find. There are almost no missions in which you can use one of those hang gliders for an aerial assault plus you can't get any more elevation on a hang glider its all down hill. So you are probably wondering what the purpose of the hang glider is; its purpose is to reach some diamonds that are otherwise inaccessible. The old FCIP hanglider was fantastic, the player could toss grenades, molitoves, and pipe bombs from the glider as well as gain altitude. The enemy AI also gets to be overwhelming after a while as they tend to respawn 5 seconds after you leave the area.

Glitches, glitches and more glitches. The developers made a lot of careless mistakes, its almost like it was a machine that made the whole game down to the last tree. There are a lot of floating objects and vegetation including vegetation that pops in and out of rocks depending on the breeze as well as vegetation in buildings and other areas it should not have been. Also the river banks were not properly smoothed thus the player cannot climb out of the water in a lot of areas. A lot of the paths have too many obstructions in the way and are also very narrow which makes driving hell. There have also been times where my xbox will freeze up in the middle of playing and even times when I have tried to save the game I was rudely interupted by a game freeze. Where were the ubisoft game testers and if the game was tested, how long was it tested- 2min??? I also found it very annoying that I had to pay an extra $5 for some bonus content code that works for every FC2 game in the world.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the game glitched on me and I was unable to get the pulitzer material achievement because the glitch made the other half of the jackel tapes not register.

The map editor and multiplayer are the only really good things worth mentioning, however; the multiplayer shares a resemblance to COD4. The map editor is a vast improvement over the old FCIP and is highly unique and fun to use as all of you know so well.

Story mode: 2 out of 10- for a big WTF story and environment. And another WTF for the game freezes.
Multiplayer: 9 out of 10- for improved graphics and an advanced map editor. Why was the FCIP multiplayer game modes and gameplay taken out for an unoriginal COD4 copy?

Who's ready for Crisis 2?

[UPDATE: 11/23/09] I've been hosting a lot of matches on FC2 for the past several months, and I really do have to say that the gameplay is starting to not be as fun as the FCIP gameplay. I used to play FCIP on a daily basis for nearly two years. In fact I had FCI and FCIE so I technically played FC for about 5 years and I had a new fun and exciting time each time I played. But I'm just not feeling it as much on FC2 as I did the other FC's. The map editor is still the greatest thing since sliced bread and I keep making more magnificent creations all the time as well as the many people I know. But the gameplay is starting to get kind of boring. Maybe if Ubisoft added another game mode or two it might breath more life into the game.

Multiplayer: 5 out of 10- for lack of fun factor.

Also if ubisoft intends on putting a similar style of story gameplay into FC3 they should definitely make it a co-op story because the FC2 story mode is very similar to borderlands except that FC2 is not co-op.

Pvt.Cupcake
11-25-2009, 06:19 AM
I honestly don't mean to start trouble, but since FC3 is supposed to be coming out some day I figure I should post this up in the hopes that FC3 will be better than FC2.

Ricamundo
12-01-2009, 03:28 AM
Its a shame about all the bugs in the console versions. I've only played the PC version( 7 times thru and counting) and not experienced any kind of game stopping bugs or feeze ups.

As to your comments about gameplay, you dont communicate with NPC's much because this is a shooter, not an RPG. If you want conversation, try FO3 in first person. You can talk your arse off in that game. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

I've not found any sand box style game that allows you total freedom of movement. FC2 has unsupassable mountains, FO3 has all kinds of buildings, and piles of debris that you cannot climb. FC1 and Crysis were quite linear, but looked like open world. You could wannder around a bit, but if you wanted to progess, you had to get to the next checkpoint.

You mention you played FC2 2 times, and commented on all the tedious driving and walking, but you never mentioned using the bus to the nearest station to your goal. Did you use them? It does cut down a lot on travelling, but TBH, its an open world shooter, and travelling is the main idea, like in a real life situation. To me, i love the travel, and the exploration. It aids in the immersion that i love. That and the fact that there aren't friggin monsters, zombies, freaks, and giant flying aliens populating the landscape like in EVERY other shooter, it seems. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

You can climb using the hangglider, but it takes a bit of praccy with the direction keys. In RL you wouldnt expect to be a hang glider god the first time in use, right?

As for floating objects, etc, ive seen the odd one, but nothing like you talk about. I see em in virtually every game ive ever played, actually.

I cant comment on MP as i only play SP.

Pvt.Cupcake
12-01-2009, 06:02 AM
In FC1 Jack Carver the main character automatically responds to what the NPC's are saying and it adds a lot of depth and detail to the story. I have used the buses, and even then its still very tedius. And yes this is a FPS but its a lot like an RPG which is why I compared it to borderlands. And as for the hangliders, I've been to every location that you can get a hanglider and if there is a way to gain altitude there isn't enough room for that. I've also tried going into the editor and making a huge mountain and then setting a glider on top and I was still unable to gain altitude, it was all down hill. I have the 360 version of the game that might be the reason why I can't get altitude on the glider, the PC version has a lot more, or so I've been told.

Ricamundo
12-01-2009, 11:48 AM
Actually, you compared it to Oblivion. really, the story in FC2 is what you amke of it. The basic plot isnt rocket science, but if all you want to do is blow thru the game and get to the final boss, then you're clearly not playing the right game.

FC1, Crysis, and from what ive seen of Borderlands vids on Youtube, are pretty much linear checkpoint A to checkpoint B type shooters that lead you along by the hand.

That type of game is fine, but FC2 is trying to get the player to use his/her imagination and creativity a bit. It isnt a complete success, but i found the PC version to be amazingly good fun, and i hope that if there is an FC3, it's more of the same, only bigger and better.

Pvt.Cupcake
12-02-2009, 06:05 AM
No the developers in there pre release videos where they were showing off FC2 were comparing the game to being bigger than oblivion, I said that if you had read carefully.

At the bottom I compared the game to Borderlands. The youtube videos don't do Borderlands any justice. If you really liked the FC2 story mode then I highly recommend you get Borderlands. The borderlands way of getting missions is exactly the same as FC2, the only difference is that its co-op, like I said above.

I have no problems with the general story, but some good character dialogue and more cutscenes would do wonders for this game. You should seriously play FC1 and borderlands and then you'll see what I'm talking about. As for being creative in FC2, thats where the map editor comes in and I have to say that is the best thing the developers did.