Far Cry 2 is a mixed bag of results | Forums

[b00tleg]

The immersion of Far Cry 2 feels broken to me and there are a few things that constantly remind me I'm playing a game. Why are the leaders of the two opposing factions that I'm supposed to be playing against each other sitting in the middle of a village almost directly across from each other? If under the village is under a cease-fire but if they are really that close to each other why am I not running assassination attempts for one leader on the opposing leader? If the two leaders are involved in a war against each other and I'm supposed to be using them to get to the jackal....shouldn't they be in heavily fortified separate villages on separate ends of the map away from each other? At least then the missions they are handing out would make more sense. And after completing a mission, would have been nice if the developers at least through in some fluff dialogue to explain how a particular mission helped out the faction that I did it for.

Why are all the weapons dealers the same guy (I think they are the same guy, I haven't paid enough attention to notice)? Why are each weapons dealer's buildings the same everywhere I go...Why do they use the same computer software/network to sell their weapons? Why do the convoys of opposing weapons dealers drive around in circles that I'm supposed to stop? Why aren't the missions just a tad bit more interesting, even one extra optional objective would have been nice, like "blow up the truck and if you bring me five of weapon x that's on the convoy, you get to keep one for yourself...." or something, anything...kill the convoy's jeep escort and hold up or kill the truck driver, then drive the truck back to the weapons dealer for a huge bonus for bring the stock intact. And with all of the arms dealers in the game, wouldn't it be reasonable that at least some of them work for the Jackal? Some missions from them that helps me find the jackal or at least get some info to make it easier to find/kill him would have been cool instead of blowing up the never ending circling convoy just to unlock more weapons...

Why do I need "buddies" in the game? I don't need to be buddies with anyone or socialize unless it gets me one step closer to the jackal. I mean, if the game was truly "play it anyway you want" then I'd like to play it by minimizing the bullcrap and killing the jackal as soon as possible.

Why must I find 221 cases that have one diamond each? Nothing more then a time sink to explore the game world...and no real benefit that I've seen so far other then to say I've found them all....can I beat the game by hoarding diamonds and what, paying someone to take out the jackal? The cases feel entirely superfluous and unnecessary.

Another thing, what's up with all the safe houses? Kill a few people and I've got a house I can save my game in....a nice feature I guess but when I can just save my game just after receiving a mission I don't feel so inclined to stop by each one and save my game at every opportunity, and besides, can't I just quick save via f5 anyways.

Who do the stupid guard outposts belong to? Any game before Far Cry 2 that I've played where I earned rep for one side or another, usually meant I could travel through their territory without being shot at...I've done missions for both sides and every guard outpost shoots at me. What areas of the map like the "fresh fish area" or "police stations"� belong to, they shoot at me to, it would be nice to know to help plan my route to a mission, otherwise I just work harder to avoid populated areas entirely.

The only thing that Far Cry 2 has gotten right so far is the aged weapon system. It makes sense for there to be a trade off for getting free weapons off of enemies I've killed. In other games you just pick up whatever they drop and it works like it's brand new. In far cry 2, you pick up a weapon and you don't know how old it is, how it'll perform, if it's been well taken care of or not. I've had plenty of weapons jam on me, some weapons of the same type jamming more often then not. I read somewhere that you could tell the age of a gun by how dirty it is, but that isn't a good indicator for me to know if the gun is going to jam very little or very often. That's just a nitpick though, the weapon system actually made me want to get enough diamonds to buy brand new weapons to use. Another nitpick however is apparently weapons you buy new will never jam, a gun jamming in the middle of a firefight is annoying but its realistic, new weapons shouldn't necessarily be exempt from that.

Some things that were hyped up but don't seem to affect game play much. The 24-hour day cycle, cool they put it in, but running missions during day or night seems to be the same. I try to do everything during the day b/c enemies are easier to see, and at night enemies seem to be just as awake and plentiful.

Why do guard outposts respawn so quickly? Just another combat time sink that's unnecessary. If I clear a guard post on my way to a mission, finish it and comeback the same way just a few minutes later...it should still be cleared out. If I stop in a safe house and save and say more then a couple of game time hours go by, then it would make sense that someone got word a guard post had been attacked and need to be reinforced.

Another thing, if this section of Africa encompasses 50 sq miles with two warring factions fighting each other, why am I not running into the occasional skirmish between the two. Instead of having to go through static guard outposts on my way to or back from a mission...it'd be more fun to come across a random firefight between soldiers of the two factions. With so much wilderness in this game, I'm sure there's plenty of room to spawn a few guys out in the middle of nowhere and have them shooting each other up and I come up on it. And especially if they don't start shooting at me right away, maybe I'll go around and let them kill each other, or maybe I'll snipe from a distance till they all die, or maybe they stop fighting each other and team up to try and take me out. Or maybe I take out just one side or the other. Maybe I earn some extra reputation for it or some kind of a bonus. Or maybe no bonus or reward, just the fact that such a random event occurred, but makes sense given the context of the overall plot of the game, would be reward enough. And hey, maybe if I help out one faction over another, I see fewer and fewer random firefights as the game goes on, or I see fewer and fewer guard outposts of the faction I'm not helping out, or I see more and more guard outposts claiming territory of the faction I am helping out.

For example, say there are total 50 guard outposts, 25 belong to one faction and the other 25 to the other faction. Over the course of the game, say I do 75% of the missions offered by faction A and only 25% of the missions offered by faction B. It would be reasonable to see in a dynamic way that then, more of these guard outposts now belong to faction A. Now of course some sort of an artificial limit would have to be in place, because the game isn't about me helping one faction take out the other, I'm supposed to be using both factions to my advantage to hunt down and kill the jackal. Of course, it would be interesting if the game let me unbalance things by helping one faction take out the other...maybe I do so and as a consequence the Jackal escapes from Africa and I don't complete my main mission. Or maybe it doesn't matter and the game ends if faction A takes out faction B.

One other thing, my goal is to kill the jackal...if he is supplying weapons to the warring factions in this section of Africa; I don't think it would be entirely unreasonable to assume the jackal would have some sort of base of operations in the same section of Africa. Since it's an open world, and I can play any way I want, if I explore the entire game world, it would also be reasonable that I'd stumble upon his base of operations after wandering around in the game world. Maybe I can sneak in or fight my way in and take out the jackal and not have to bother with the factions at all. Of course, killing the jackal right away, especially at the beginning of the game might result in a mediocre ending..."you killed the jackal and went home...yay" so maybe then I'd be more motivated to play through the main storyline of the game to find out why I shouldn't kill the jackal right away if such a thing were even possible.

One last thing, the whole malaria thing feels like it was put in to replace the main character waking up at the beginning of the game with amnesia. I just read up on malaria via wikipedia and now know its endemic to Africa but other then the occasional blurry screen and having to hit h to take my pill, I don't see the point of it other then to try and drive home the point that the game is taking place in Africa.

[b00tleg]

The immersion of Far Cry 2 feels broken to me and there are a few things that constantly remind me I'm playing a game. Why are the leaders of the two opposing factions that I'm supposed to be playing against each other sitting in the middle of a village almost directly across from each other? If under the village is under a cease-fire but if they are really that close to each other why am I not running assassination attempts for one leader on the opposing leader? If the two leaders are involved in a war against each other and I'm supposed to be using them to get to the jackal....shouldn't they be in heavily fortified separate villages on separate ends of the map away from each other? At least then the missions they are handing out would make more sense. And after completing a mission, would have been nice if the developers at least through in some fluff dialogue to explain how a particular mission helped out the faction that I did it for.

Why are all the weapons dealers the same guy (I think they are the same guy, I haven't paid enough attention to notice)? Why are each weapons dealer's buildings the same everywhere I go...Why do they use the same computer software/network to sell their weapons? Why do the convoys of opposing weapons dealers drive around in circles that I'm supposed to stop? Why aren't the missions just a tad bit more interesting, even one extra optional objective would have been nice, like "blow up the truck and if you bring me five of weapon x that's on the convoy, you get to keep one for yourself...." or something, anything...kill the convoy's jeep escort and hold up or kill the truck driver, then drive the truck back to the weapons dealer for a huge bonus for bring the stock intact. And with all of the arms dealers in the game, wouldn't it be reasonable that at least some of them work for the Jackal? Some missions from them that helps me find the jackal or at least get some info to make it easier to find/kill him would have been cool instead of blowing up the never ending circling convoy just to unlock more weapons...

Why do I need "buddies" in the game? I don't need to be buddies with anyone or socialize unless it gets me one step closer to the jackal. I mean, if the game was truly "play it anyway you want" then I'd like to play it by minimizing the bullcrap and killing the jackal as soon as possible.

Why must I find 221 cases that have one diamond each? Nothing more then a time sink to explore the game world...and no real benefit that I've seen so far other then to say I've found them all....can I beat the game by hoarding diamonds and what, paying someone to take out the jackal? The cases feel entirely superfluous and unnecessary.

Another thing, what's up with all the safe houses? Kill a few people and I've got a house I can save my game in....a nice feature I guess but when I can just save my game just after receiving a mission I don't feel so inclined to stop by each one and save my game at every opportunity, and besides, can't I just quick save via f5 anyways.

Who do the stupid guard outposts belong to? Any game before Far Cry 2 that I've played where I earned rep for one side or another, usually meant I could travel through their territory without being shot at...I've done missions for both sides and every guard outpost shoots at me. What areas of the map like the "fresh fish area" or "police stations"� belong to, they shoot at me to, it would be nice to know to help plan my route to a mission, otherwise I just work harder to avoid populated areas entirely.

The only thing that Far Cry 2 has gotten right so far is the aged weapon system. It makes sense for there to be a trade off for getting free weapons off of enemies I've killed. In other games you just pick up whatever they drop and it works like it's brand new. In far cry 2, you pick up a weapon and you don't know how old it is, how it'll perform, if it's been well taken care of or not. I've had plenty of weapons jam on me, some weapons of the same type jamming more often then not. I read somewhere that you could tell the age of a gun by how dirty it is, but that isn't a good indicator for me to know if the gun is going to jam very little or very often. That's just a nitpick though, the weapon system actually made me want to get enough diamonds to buy brand new weapons to use. Another nitpick however is apparently weapons you buy new will never jam, a gun jamming in the middle of a firefight is annoying but its realistic, new weapons shouldn't necessarily be exempt from that.

Some things that were hyped up but don't seem to affect game play much. The 24-hour day cycle, cool they put it in, but running missions during day or night seems to be the same. I try to do everything during the day b/c enemies are easier to see, and at night enemies seem to be just as awake and plentiful.

Why do guard outposts respawn so quickly? Just another combat time sink that's unnecessary. If I clear a guard post on my way to a mission, finish it and comeback the same way just a few minutes later...it should still be cleared out. If I stop in a safe house and save and say more then a couple of game time hours go by, then it would make sense that someone got word a guard post had been attacked and need to be reinforced.

Another thing, if this section of Africa encompasses 50 sq miles with two warring factions fighting each other, why am I not running into the occasional skirmish between the two. Instead of having to go through static guard outposts on my way to or back from a mission...it'd be more fun to come across a random firefight between soldiers of the two factions. With so much wilderness in this game, I'm sure there's plenty of room to spawn a few guys out in the middle of nowhere and have them shooting each other up and I come up on it. And especially if they don't start shooting at me right away, maybe I'll go around and let them kill each other, or maybe I'll snipe from a distance till they all die, or maybe they stop fighting each other and team up to try and take me out. Or maybe I take out just one side or the other. Maybe I earn some extra reputation for it or some kind of a bonus. Or maybe no bonus or reward, just the fact that such a random event occurred, but makes sense given the context of the overall plot of the game, would be reward enough. And hey, maybe if I help out one faction over another, I see fewer and fewer random firefights as the game goes on, or I see fewer and fewer guard outposts of the faction I'm not helping out, or I see more and more guard outposts claiming territory of the faction I am helping out.

For example, say there are total 50 guard outposts, 25 belong to one faction and the other 25 to the other faction. Over the course of the game, say I do 75% of the missions offered by faction A and only 25% of the missions offered by faction B. It would be reasonable to see in a dynamic way that then, more of these guard outposts now belong to faction A. Now of course some sort of an artificial limit would have to be in place, because the game isn't about me helping one faction take out the other, I'm supposed to be using both factions to my advantage to hunt down and kill the jackal. Of course, it would be interesting if the game let me unbalance things by helping one faction take out the other...maybe I do so and as a consequence the Jackal escapes from Africa and I don't complete my main mission. Or maybe it doesn't matter and the game ends if faction A takes out faction B.

One other thing, my goal is to kill the jackal...if he is supplying weapons to the warring factions in this section of Africa; I don't think it would be entirely unreasonable to assume the jackal would have some sort of base of operations in the same section of Africa. Since it's an open world, and I can play any way I want, if I explore the entire game world, it would also be reasonable that I'd stumble upon his base of operations after wandering around in the game world. Maybe I can sneak in or fight my way in and take out the jackal and not have to bother with the factions at all. Of course, killing the jackal right away, especially at the beginning of the game might result in a mediocre ending..."you killed the jackal and went home...yay" so maybe then I'd be more motivated to play through the main storyline of the game to find out why I shouldn't kill the jackal right away if such a thing were even possible.

One last thing, the whole malaria thing feels like it was put in to replace the main character waking up at the beginning of the game with amnesia. I just read up on malaria via wikipedia and now know its endemic to Africa but other then the occasional blurry screen and having to hit h to take my pill, I don't see the point of it other then to try and drive home the point that the game is taking place in Africa.

[LongDarkBlues28]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by b00tleg:
there are a few things that constantly remind me I'm playing a game. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
That's because it is a game. If you're disappointed that it's not virtual reality set in Africa, I don't know what to tell you.

[BasicReality]

You don't HAVE to find the diamond cases, it's completely optional, and they range from 1 diamond to 3 diamonds.
They are merely there so you can afford to buy every weapon and every upgrade, but it's completely optional, you can easily play the game without finding any of them and still have enough diamonds to buy all the weapons and some of the upgrades.


Weapons that you buy do jam, the only difference is they're brand new, so they take some time to get rusty and jam.

The only weapons that never jam is golden ones.


To the rest of your post, well all I got to say is that what they implemented here already took them 3 years, to go even further it would take many years to implement all that fully, and they make games as a business, meaning they need a return for their investment, and it's already hard to get that when they work for so long with so many highly educated people.

[b00tleg]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by LongDarkBlues28:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by b00tleg:
there are a few things that constantly remind me I'm playing a game. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
That's because it is a game. If you're disappointed that it's not virtual reality set in Africa, I don't know what to tell you. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wasn't expecting virtual reality in Africa. I did expect a game with a believable plot with a believable setting with believable characters so it seemed less like a game and more like an adventure to take out an infamous weapons dealer that it was advertised to be...at least that was how it was advertised to me.

[BasicReality]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by FPS2008:
When something is significantly NOT as described, that is considered FRAUD. Get your money back by filing a `chargeback` through your credit card company and get your hard earned cash back now. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Lets see what it says on the back of the game:

Run, swim, drive and fly your way through over 50km2 of open world.

Play with the most realistic fire ever seen in a game.

Create your own maps and challenge anyone online.


All of these are in the game, so no, there is no fraud.

[b00tleg]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by FPS2008:
When something is significantly NOT as described, that is considered FRAUD. Get your money back by filing a `chargeback` through your credit card company and get your hard earned cash back now. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wouldn't say the game is significantly different from what it was advertised as. It's more about the execution of several components of the game (as detailed in my original post) that breaks the "immersion" and "play any way you want" that Ubisoft was going for.

[b00tleg]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BasicReality:

To the rest of your post, well all I got to say is that what they implemented here already took them 3 years, to go even further it would take many years to implement all that fully, and they make games as a business, meaning they need a return for their investment, and it's already hard to get that when they work for so long with so many highly educated people. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Your right, they already implemented quite a bit of content which works and helps implement the immersion. The day/night cycle, procedural weather, dynamic clouds, being in a fire fight at around 8 pm with the sun just setting all scream AFRICA. I love its, its all great. But it's the other components with in the framework that break the illusion. Like one thing I forgot to mention in my original post is dropped weapons flashing orange to indicate you can pick them up. Was that really needed in the game? I don't feel it was, and it breaks the immersion of the game in my opinion.

[RealSnakeDiver]

Mine says "A captivating story" on the back. I haven't seen that yet

I in no way say its fraud, I just say the game is fun as a mindless action game, but as for multiplayer and story, its a definite disappointment.

[soltyspl]

Don't tell me you're actually surprised. FC2 is a hasted console port. So whenever you want it or not - it will inherit every console limitation, starting with technicals, and ending with a mindset of an average Joe casual console gamer (read: target audience).

The same happened to Bioshock, the same happend to DX:IW much earlier, and the same happend to other games.

In a short summary / feedback from my perspective:

"typical" hasted console port problems:<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>mouse sens/accel mess
<LI>fov problems
<LI>oversized consolish menus
<LI>crippled controls - no leaning, no proning, no burst/single fire changing - among other things
<LI>no sound settings[/list]

broken and/or dumbed down gameplay:<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>no destructible environment
<LI>"big 50km2 world" made into a maze of between-cliffs corridors you could render a cave top instead of the sky, and call it FarCry: descent into undermountain
<LI>AI leaving a lot to be desired (on "infamous" level at least)
<LI>everything respawns ! damn quickly at that, so you better be quick while doing missions, if you don't want enemies you just killed shooting at your ***
<LI>handholding (average console Joe can't feel lost after all)
<LI>weapon carrying capacity limited to 1 per class (instead of weight or some generic cap) - so forget about bringing assault and sniper at the same time
<LI>unified ammo per class (DX:IW anyone ?)
<LI>once you buy something, unlimited amounts for free await for you ! yay (for console Joe at least) !
<LI>world doesn't change - whatever you do, how many missions you did, for whom - everything remains exactly the same
<LI>/absolutely/ everybody hates you ! friendlies ? maybe with some tasks to do ? forget it ...
<LI>where is that big faction war (happening actually, not advertised) ?
<LI>simplistic, identical missions (it literally starts feeling like mmorpg grind)[/list]

+ridiculous DRM on top on everything.

There's more, but that's just from the top of my head, after playing a good few hours.


And you know what the most sad and ironic part is ?<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>omg, Far Cry 2 didn't sell as we expected, it's all pirates' fault !
<LI>but ... we delivered subaverage, overhyped console port - isn't that the main issue ?
<LI>sacrilege ! It's all becuase of those filthy thieves I tell you ! Next time we implement DRM requiring fingerprints and retina scans - that will show them !
<LI>...[/list]

I can bet my head that in case of such scenario - pirates will be the excuse of everything.