Far Cry 2 ??? anyone know anything??

[FozzyBear]

It looks cool on the commercials, but does anyone have any thing else?

Just wondering?

[JustMeBF2]

I was "told" it is not much more than FC1
and

Far Cry 2 infact does come with this SecuRom DRM.

I was going to buy FC2 but there is alot of peeps
just downloading the game and playing Single player.
I don't see FC2 succeeding in the multiplayer world.

[atomicbob]

Filthy knows EVERYTHING about FC2....

:popcorn:

[DoctorToxn]

I have started to play it. It is based on the CryEngine 2 just like Crysis I believe. A lot of the controls are just like FC1. Graphics are top notch.

[FiLTHY_SNiPER]

lol Bob

Ok, here goes (based only on single player)..

Good:

Expansive environment with nice graphics, especially in the savanna areas.
Some of the 'realism' aspects including point-of-view actions like getting in vehicles and opening doors add a nice touch. The fact that you can't look down and see your own body or shadow ala Crysis kind of counters that though.
Explosion and fire effects are fabulous, it's one of the few things that keeps me playing. When a nade explodes it rips trees apart, sending a shockwave that spews leaves all over the place. Throwing a grenade usually gets very satisfying results.
Weather and wind effects are equally good, although I've yet to see it rain. The changing wind is very nicely done, with everything being affected.
Animations are generally very good, although enemies can look odd sometimes.
There are some nice animated touches with NPCs like in merc-occupied towns they will push you away and talk smack if you get too close, or when you threaten an NPC with your gun, the closer you go to him, the higher he will put his arms. And if you get right in his face, he'll tilt his head and give you a bad look.
The story isn't bad, and it's executed pretty nicely via using the buddies system and meeting NPCs throughout the area. The game almost has RPG elements, which are welcome, just like in STALKER.

ok..

BAD:

Combat. Well, maybe it's not bad, but it aint great. It feels average, sluggish and unresponsive. If you're used to CoD4... well, you're in for a drastic change. One thing that helps are the explosion effects which as I said are dazzling.
One thing that doesn't help the combat in the least bit is the A.I.
Generally, they either have thermal vision (can see you through a bushes thicker than that of a 60's porn star) and superhuman accuracy, or they are fucking moronic, and oblivious. In the former case, they can track you down like there's a chinese firecracker in your pants. In the latter case, they can't seem to find you if a beacon was strapped to your noggin. A lot of the time they actually shoot at you while facing away from you and the bullets magically go through their body to impact yours. Awesome.
The AI extremely hampers the whole game experience. It is inconsistent and bad. Instead of programming good AI, ala Crysis/FEAR/STALKER, Ubisoft opted to make them unrealistically accurate and with the hit points of a quake boss. It usually takes 5 or 6 AK rounds to the chest to drop a single soldier, and two headshots otherwise (they don't even wear helmets). BTW, I'm playing the game on Hardcore mode (2nd hardest)
Overall, the AI feels like it's from last generation, which does not cut it with a new generation, open world game.. not at all.

That's not even the worst part of the game. Picture this:
You come to a crossroad in the map where there is an enemy encampment (pretty much every second crossroad is occupied). You kill all the soldiers and effectively get the notification that you've 'scouted' the roadblock. You grab supplies, jump in their jeep and take off to your objective just down the road. Upon finishing the objective, you decide to head back to your conquered roadblock to grab some more grenades from the stock and guess what?! A plethora of shitheads have respawned and are pumping your Jeep full of 1000 perfectly aimed bullets while your candy ass happens to be inside. You get out, since surely you'd be better off on foot hiding in the bushes. WRONG AS$HOLE! Remember that bushes are see-through to enemies?
So now you're down to your last bar of health, hiding behind a rock and you're going to die unless you perform one of the oh-so-realistic health recovery maneuvers which usually involves taking a knife and a pair of plyers to your lower shin and yanking out a massive bullet. This takes about 5 seconds to do, and if you are interrupted while doing it (say, by a magic bullet that dodges the rock and inserts into your buttocks) then it cancels and your 1/4 inch remaining health continues to drop until you, inevitably, die.
Fun, huh?
This happens... a lot.
BTW, those little animations for health recovery, such as relocating your elbow or twisting your thumb back into place are goddam pointless, a waste of time and overall, very irritating. They could have taken all that wasted animation time and put it to good use like improving the enemy animations, or just firing the animator and hiring a real AI programmer.

alright, where was I.. oh yeah, in a firey pit of rage... I'll settle down a bit. I've seemed to have lost all kind of organization in this thing.

So... graphics. The graphics are good. I'll leave it at that. They look pretty much on par with Soldier of Fortune 3. SOF3 looks nice, but not great by any means. Far Cry 2 is very similar, and can look sort of 'cheap' and cartoony at times. I think this is partly because most of the textures have little more detail than a solid colour.
If you were thinking this game would have anything on Crysis, you are gravely mistaken. Crysis kicks the living shit out of this game graphically.
The jungle areas of Far Cry 2 are decent, but don't even come close to Crysis' jungle. Where FC2 really shines is in the savanna which looks out onto rolling hills of desert and really opens up into a nice scenario. The savanna only outlines the outer edge of the map though. The rest of the map can feel very linear due to mountain ranges separating everything. This makes the world feel very enclosed, which is a bad thing in an open-world shooter. They should have cut those mountains in half vertically and let you traverse over/through them. You'd expect to go anywhere in this 50k of game world, but really you can only walk on half of it due to the hills/mountains making paths around everything.
The best thing graphically in this game in my opinion is the water. Whether it be in a swampy area or the savanna, I love taking a (shitty, but fun) boat on the calm river and gliding to my next objective... that is, until four dead-eye dipshits riddle my boat's engine with bullets from half a mile away, leaving me with one bar of health and the need to put my thumb back into place, of all things.
BTW, try to play as much in the daytime as possible because night looks atrocious. It looks like poo.. no really it does. It's horrible.

FC2 is supposed to be a more 'realistic' shooter. It's not. Weapons in real life (especially an AK) don't jam after every 5 bullets and explode after 2 clips of usage. The jamming gimmick is one of the more irritating part of the game, and doesn't help the already broken combat. My rocket launcher also misfired twice in a row, making the rocket explode 6 feet in front of me. It's nice how this never happens to the AI, either. Their guns never jam, only when I kill them and steal their gun does it explode in my face. It makes for an even more unfair advantage in some already unfair combat gameplay.
As I said, those (apparently realistic, according to Ubisoft) recover animations including removing bullets, putting fire out on your limbs and fixing broken bones don't add much to the game and are more an annoyance than anything.
You also can't sprint very far, which makes getting from one point to another without a vehicle tedius. There's also this thing with malaria where you have to take pills every so often but I'll let you discover that for yourselves.
There are nice little touches including having to bring up an actual map in your hand to find objectives etc, and the factions system in which you gather missions is pretty neat.
One thing about factions though is, even if you do a job for a faction, their members still fight you. I was under the impression that there would be some neutral areas, but everyone just shoots on sight as if I have a glowing swastika above my head. It doesn't make sense, and it's not realistic. Even at the beginning of the game, you get stopped by a patrol and asked where you are going and in the end your cab driver gives them a bribe. There is nothing like this in the actual game, which is dissapointing because it would add a lot of atmosphere. They should have made the AI wave you into roadblocks and ask for a bribe. Subsequently, if you didn't cooperate they'd shoot you, rather than just shooting on sight regardless of how far your are and what faction you're affiliated with.

Far Cry 2 is a mixed bag. There is a good game somewhere under there, but it needs to be found via mods/patches that fix the awful AI and drastically increase the spawn times of the soldiers. Oh, and remove the need to do the pointless 'healing' animations. I'm not sure how digging a knife into your thigh to remove a bullet is going to make you any more able to 'walk it off'.

It's funny... I still like the game, and I want to play it, since taking over safe houses on the map and exploring the more interesting parts is pretty fun, but the glaring issues make it an aggravating experience a lot of the time. I haven't heard myself curse this much at a game in a long time.

OK, I'm done before I start typing any further...

you happy Bob? You happy you got me all riled up and writing an essay?? :P

If you have a console, I suggest you rent Far Cry 2 first and try it out.


I have started to play it. It is based on the CryEngine 2 just like Crysis I believe. A lot of the controls are just like FC1. Graphics are top notch.

No, it's based off an Ubisoft in-house engine (Dunia). Graphics are worse than Crysis, especially the textures, IMO.

As for controls, sure the buttons are the same, but the gameplay holds absolutely no resemblance to Far Cry 1. FC1 was much smoother than FC2 IMO. Even if that may be less realistic to some, I find it's better.

[sir_digalot]

wow! look out yahtzee filthy is in town! *L*

[atomicbob]

You go, Filthy!!

(That's my fearless leader right there!)

:woot:

[FozzyBear]

Filthy

:bowtome:

us



Thanks for the info!!!

Think I am going to get it off of Steam and try it out.

[CHAOS]

after all that.. your still willing to try it out..

Thanks Filthy.. you have confirmed to me that this is one i need to pass on.. thanks for saving me some $$$

[antigen]

$44.99 at fry's this weekend... that's all I know.

But I want it.

[Dereks_06]

It does have some of the problems filthy mentioned. However it is still version 1.0 and some of the things may be tweaked or fixed. Even with its problems it is very fun to play and I am kind of addicted to it.

[tbm9607]

o how i love to shoot the trees with my noob tube

[Kennel-Dog]

I'm loving this game. I never played the original, but this kicks ass. I keep getting a CTD though whenever I try to open the wall mounted first aid boxed, which is starting to really piss me off.
Definitely a fun game worth a purchase though.

[Bonez]

picked it up, agree night looks kinda crappy, little too much ambient light.

[Lord ALF]

know what i hate about "Chutes and Ladders"... the fucking board is too flat.
:flipoff:

anyhoo...i'm playing it and enjoying it. yeah i could pick it apart just like any other game out there ever made...but instead i'm choosing to enjoy it.

-alf

[FiLTHY_SNiPER]

Gimme a break Alf..

What, I'm not allowed to voice my opinion on a game that I bought which is disappointing in many ways?
And instead of straight-up bitching, I at least tried to make it funny.

You don't see me complaining about Fable 2, which I'm also playing. That's probably because it's a much more polished and enjoyable game in my eyes.

[Prowler130]

Filthy

:bowtome:

us



Thanks for the info!!!

Think I am going to get it off of Steam and try it out.

Careful Foz, much to my amazement, the steam version also has securom:


Title: Far Cry® 2
Genre: Action
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: Oct 22, 2008
Languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish
3rd-party DRM: SecuROM™
5 machine activation limit

[Gruthar]

I think I'm going to hold off a bit on this one. From what I gather, it's a decent game, but it's not an outstanding one. Despite the glowing reviews PCG gave it, most I people I've talked to give it a 7 or 8 out of 10.

[Lord ALF]

Gimme a break Alf..

What, I'm not allowed to voice my opinion on a game that I bought which is disappointing in many ways?
And instead of straight-up bitching, I at least tried to make it funny.

You don't see me complaining about Fable 2, which I'm also playing. That's probably because it's a much more polished and enjoyable game in my eyes.

wasn't directed at you, just in general. seems every game now-a-days has something wrong with it that someone wants to pick at. even at the office (ironically) there's people like that. you'd think someone would just learn to pick up a game and play it... either you enjoy(ed) it, or you didn't.

like i said...just in general.

-alf

[FozzyBear]

No I was giving thanks and praise to Filthy for giving me a review.

I read what he thought about it, looked at some other reviews (PC gamer mag being a big swing vote for me), and gave him props :woot::woot::woot:

Still not cool with the whole secure rom thing though.. boo hiss.


Just got past the opening cinematics where you can look around, so far very impressed.

[FiLTHY_SNiPER]

wasn't directed at you, just in general. seems every game now-a-days has something wrong with it that someone wants to pick at. even at the office (ironically) there's people like that. you'd think someone would just learn to pick up a game and play it... either you enjoy(ed) it, or you didn't.

like i said...just in general.

-alf

Yeah you're right..

Personally, I think I'm far too picky these days.
If I saw a game like this roll around 4 years ago it would blow my goddam mind.

Speaking of which, this game has definitely grown on me, despite it's flaws. I think it's because I've been playing less in the confined or jungle areas. The gameplay really opens up once you have room to maneuver and not to mention bypass roadblocks without getting shot at.
The fire effects are very impressive too, and I've been appreciating the graphics a bit more (damn you Crysis for spoiling my ass). I was playing last night at dusk in the open savanna by a small pond near an outpost and it looked fabulous with the calm water reflecting the low sunlight casting long shadows everywhere.

I still don't take back what I said, the game can be very frustrating and repetitive at times, but as I said, it's definitely grown on me.

Anyone tried multiplayer??


Just got past the opening cinematics where you can look around, so far very impressed.

Yeah that beginning is pretty cool. It's cool how the mercs stop the cab and need a bribe to let you pass. I wish there was a system like that in the actual game, rather than the soldiers at the roadblocks just constantly shooting on sight

[Lord ALF]

that's a cool idea... you play your character in a way that doesn't make the AI nervous and you can get close to either bribe or waylay for a close in attack.

i've just been driving around...finding safe houses and diamonds...taking out check points at some point or the other and doing missions off an on.

saw the rain effects... thought those were pretty cool as are the sunrises and sunsets. over all, having a fairly dynamic weather/lighting/day-night is pretty cool.

-alf

[sir_digalot]

sounds like the savannah version of gta4

[Dereks_06]

Possible spoiler alert:



Dude has anyone else made it to act 2? The whole map changes. Like I thought the first one was big and didn't know how they put it in 3.5gigs but there is a whole different one. I have only explored like 1/10 of this map but it seems to have a lot more vegetation which I think makes it look better.

Also about everyone out to get u that changes. Going into act 2 u choose a side.

I absolutely love this game and will have to play it several times. Cause I noticed when I picked my fraction that the number of main missions went down. So there will be multiple endings.

Edit: the second map is more of a swamp area.

[Shadowryche]

I like it so far, and find it runs on my machine loads better than Crysis. Though it is toned down a little. I have all my settings on high or very high and my PC doesn't even choke on FC2.

[antigen]

The only thing I don't like about it is that you have to keep returning to the bar at the center of the map, only to have to spend 5 minutes traveling to another part of the map for a mission... lame.

But hey, it's fun!!