Far Cry 2

[ZOK]

If the train cart one is where I think it is, in the Oil Depot, you have to do a running jump off the rail of the storage tank next to it. Otherwise, seemingly unreachable ones are generally reachable by a hang glider in the area.

[Jamie John]

If the train cart one is where I think it is, in the Oil Depot, you have to do a running jump off the rail of the storage tank next to it. Otherwise, seemingly unreachable ones are generally reachable by a hang glider in the area.

Hohyeah. Forgot about them. Cheers.

[kerraig UK]

30% in and i'm massively impressed with this games ambition. Bugs have been discussed elsewhere and are disappointing but no point going over old ground, besides I haven't actually encountered any yet.

What's really impressing me is the boldness of design. It's quite brave in this age to make a game with such a deliberately 'slow' pace. It seems weird saying that when it's pretty much non stop action, but the fact that they've designed each mission to take around 2 hours, and to reward meticulous planning is highly commendable. This is an action FPS at the end of the day and to come out with something like this after the immediate roller coaster thrills of CoD4 takes guts. I'm relishing the trips to pala to pick up my mission, a trek cross country to get some more malaria pills, maybe a side mission to keep my buddies sweet cos I know i'll need them in the field, a trecherous cross country sojourn before a good nights sleep at my hide out, gear up for my assault, sneak across some back country, scout the area with my field map and goggles, and then when i feel i'm fully prepared... BANG! it's all action.

And man, WHAT action! I've been playing around with the AI and it's surprisingly robust. You can of course just hit a base at night with a sniper rifle and make mincemeat out of everyone, and it is incredibly empowering to do so, but the variety of tactical option beyond that are staggering. Sneaking into a checkpoint and rigging a jeep with explosives, then moving out and firing some unsuppressed automatic rifle will see the militias jumping into their vehicles to hunt you down. Seeing a convey driving towards you of fully armed men only to wipe them all out with one click in a fireball of twisted metal and limbs is ultra badass.

I recently undertook an assassination mission at the train yard and because my GF was preparing dinner I rushed into it. When i got there I was woefully unprepared. I had 7 bullets in a supressed MP5 and 1 dart rifle bullet. I saw my target in a hanger tying his shoelace and I took him out with my only dart. Nobody suspected a thing and I got my achievement without bothering the camp. However as I was leaving someone must have discovered him because I heard all sorts of commotion. What followed was a 20 minute game of hide and seek with me moving from bush to hut to tree, taking a headshot only when i knew I had a clean line of sight, then moving quickly on, and at no point did the enemy AI falter. They all moved to where they presumed fire had come from, or went for cover, or hunted in pairs. One guy even went to protect the ammo dump. When I finally mopped them all up my dinner was cold and my girlfriend was pissed.

I've done dawn raids with shotguns and long range snipes at night. i've injured a guy in the leg, and waited for backup to come to his aid and taken them all down with grenades, i've used fire to control the flow of battle, and i've been cosistently surprised by how well it's worked.

A couple of things obviously need improving. Sound volumes are way off (though positioning is correct), the melee stealth kill backfires on you quite drastically by the amount of noise your victims make, it's all too easy to just stick with sniper rifles and attack from a distance, maybe forcing you to do certain missions with certain guns would show off the games' dynamic combat at the expense of complete freedom.

Any way you cut it though, it's a staggering achievement all round. Shooting holes in propane tanks and watching people get a blast of fiery death is as satisfying as riggin cars with explosives and then deliberately getting chased. I do wish the game had an element to it beyond shooting (wildlife photography, red cross transporting, passport controls etc) but whats there is still deep, deliberately paced and compelling. Love it.

[kerraig UK]

I would like better developed platforming and climbing. The jump button and collision detection with rocks can be quite unreliable.

I'd also like to be able to cook grenades, but thats no big thing.

[macosx]

And hazardous wildlife to look out for and a gyrocopter

[Guest]

EDIT: Kerraig not Lilliputty

actually, one area of disappointment so far is in the story. After such high profile african history such as hutu vs tutsi genocide, land repatriation in zimbabwe and the ongoing civil war in congo its a shame they didnt really try to push the player regards their feelings toward african politics. It would have been wonderful to arrive as a gun for hire in this land and through the course of missions get to see maybe a government backed army vs peasant militia and maybe choose which faction to side with and seriously affect the outcome.

I know that they've attempted something along these lines, but they've failed rather spectacularly. I know nothing about either faction or their policies and I just take the missions as they come. I cant even remember what the factions are called. This apathy towards the story is exacerbated by there being no villagers or doctors or children present anywhere. By making every person a hostile they've completely desensitised the player to the countries plight. Probably the biggest failing of the game.

[Vulgar Monkey]

I think it's a rather brave move.

Quite a few people in this thread have pointed out that it takes some time to realise that you're not a 'good guy'.

Regardless of who they're backing, the mercs are cunts and have no interest in the country beyond the money.

If anything it makes me sympathise more, seeing all these european guns for hire raping the place for whatever they can get.

[Geo]

EDIT: Kerraig not Lilliputty

actually, one area of disappointment so far is in the story. After such high profile african history such as hutu vs tutsi genocide, land repatriation in zimbabwe and the ongoing civil war in congo its a shame they didnt really try to push the player regards their feelings toward african politics. It would have been wonderful to arrive as a gun for hire in this land and through the course of missions get to see maybe a government backed army vs peasant militia and maybe choose which faction to side with and seriously affect the outcome.

I know that they've attempted something along these lines, but they've failed rather spectacularly. I know nothing about either faction or their policies and I just take the missions as they come. I cant even remember what the factions are called. This apathy towards the story is exacerbated by there being no villagers or doctors or children present anywhere. By making every person a hostile they've completely desensitised the player to the countries plight. Probably the biggest failing of the game.

Yeah I agree that the story isn't the best, I can't name one person in the whole game other than The Jackal. I think that kind of suits it though being so alone and just killing just...because. After playing Fallout 3 which is excellent with regards to character and story it's nice to just go into this and shoot pretty much everyone you come across with little or no consequence.

[deerokus]

Two of my favourite 'moments' were 1) arriving at the ranch at sunset on a little hunting trip with my sniper rifle. 2) assassinating some bloke at a supply dump or some building like that in the dead of night. A slow 15 minute trek through the bushes, watching the patrolling guards and picking my spot, a quick rush in with the machete and then I was gone. Walking to my Jeep I heard the shouts of the search party in the distance, so that when I got in and started up my engine I was terrified that I had been followed.

The slow pace is wonderful.

[macosx]

the story is the weakest element, I too don't know what each factions goals are or who the key players are. They might as well be a PO box to collect missions from

[Puck]

It took me about 15 hours to really get into this game and as initially I would only play it for an hour at a time that 15 hours took a long while to pass. I don't know what happened, (nothing "clicked" for me), but eventually I got drawn in, (around halfway through the first game map, kitted out with my now comfortable and familiar armoury of silenced MP5, M79 grenade launcher and dart rifle and wearing the camo suit), and my enjoyment of the game developed at a break-neck speed. I must’ve played the last 30 hours in a fraction of the time I spent on the first 15.

I've ploughed over 50 hours into this now and have just got past the dreaded 69% mark. I now don't want this game to end, it is awesome and delight not to have to rush though it. So beautiful at times too - I've yet to tire of the diverse landscapes traversed whilst travelling to and from missions and the day/night cycles and weather are amongst the best I can remember experiencing in a game.

[ZOK]

Within the context of the game, the story is perfect. What they've done is created a nihilist game, and that's all you need to say about it. The story isn't good or bad, it just is.

As gamers though, we've a tendancy to want linearity in our story telling, we want the obvious markers. Far Cry 2 does a very effective job of rubbishing that, for me at least. If you come away with it saying 'well, the story was weak', then it's kind of lost on you.

Personally, I didn't give a fig for who I was fighting for, or why. When I got to the points where I had to make a choice, I made my decision based on the most spurious of reasons, which is the intented reaction, I think. It's for that reason I can tuck back into the game after completing it to enjoy the actual point, which is the combat. Thank fuck for respawing enemies! I wonder if there's a message in that, somewhere...

[Jamie John]

Had a string of awesomely intense moments last night.

After just managing to do one of the assassination missions I start high-tailing it back to the nearest safehouse with no syringes left, only two bars of health and hardly any ammo. Limping along a road in a narrow canyon, I first hear the distant murmuring of an enemy jeep, then see the headlights fast arriving around the corner directly ahead of me. At this point I'm pretty much closed in by the cliffs to either side, with no grass to hide in without being detected, and the more open area where I came in is too far away to get to in time. Thinking I'm gonna have to now run for my life the way I came, towards where I'd pissed off a lot more angry mercs by blowing up the person they were protecting, I spy a small pond in front of me, partially hidden by some bushes, just to the right of the road and a lot closer to where the jeep is coming from. Sprinting fit to bust, I manage to propel myself off a short ledge, travel about six feet in the air then land right in the middle of the water. Just before my head goes beneath the surface, I see the jeep turn the corner and start up the road I was just walking along. I stay under for as long as I dare, come to the surface gasping for air and get out in time to see the jeep about a hundred feet down the road - reinforcements for the guy I'd just taken out. I then got a wicked cramp in my foot because my entire lower half had been tensed from the moment I'd heard it and my balls had leapt up to my throat. Twenty seconds of pure awesome.

Then, later on, I'm approaching a guarded safehouse that I haven't unlocked yet. Through my sniper scope I can see a guy standing on a ledge and another guy standing parallel behind him on a seperate ledge. I headshot the first guy, and because I'm using the bolt action sniper, come out from the scope to reload and go back as quickly as I can to shoot the other bloke before he can get to cover. The cross hair comes up and there's nothing, just the long grass where he was standing and the dusk sky. Thinking he's gone behind the house, I slink up with my pistol out. I stab the cowering third guy in the back from behind and he goes down silently. Wondering where the fuck the second guy went, I creep round for about five minutes expecting to be shotgunned in the face at any moment, too scared to just use the safehouse to sleep in case he's waiting for me in the morning. Eventually I find him face down in the grass where he was initially standing, dead. It takes me a few seconds, but then I realise that I'd taken both him and the first guy out with my first shot, the bullet going through the guy's head and then hitting his matey standing behind him. I retire to my safehouse and sleep the sleep of the good.

B)

[K]

Within the context of the game, the story is perfect. What they've done is created a nihilist game, and that's all you need to say about it. The story isn't good or bad, it just is.

The thing is, the game is a weird mix of solipsism and nihilism, as the entire world appears to revolve around your character. Your buddies devote themselves to looking after you, and almost literally everybody else in the world dedicates their lives to taking yours. I think the nihilism might have come across a bit more clearly if the game world wasn't so clearly focused on the player - little things like non-hostile soldiers might have made the world seem a bit less artificial.

[Raide]

Had a string of awesomely intense moments last night.

*Story*

Sounds like you had fun.

[Dotterel]

little things like non-hostile soldiers might have made the world seem a bit less artificial.

Yup, I think even if soldiers didn't always instantly recognise you or if there were more cease fire areas it'd make the game seem less simplistic. Someone said earlier that they thought the AI was robust. I just don't agree, I've been playing on normal (so it might be different on higher difficulty) but all I've seen them do is either stand and be shot or run in zigzags like crazed bushwhackers. They do try to flank sometimes but if you simply move backwards it stumps them.

Doing the last mission(s) in the game and my sniper rifle exploded. This game hates me. Earlier I was being shot by a sniper - THROUGH A MOUNTAIN.

Am I the biggest moaner in this thread yet? I don't actually dislike the game but it hasn't been a deep enough experience for me to dismiss all the niggles. I don't see why missions - Assassinations - Convoys - Story Missions couldn't have been far more varied.

It looks like I'm right at the end, so I'll finish with about 34 hours (minus the 7/8 hours lost to bugs) played and to be honest I could have done with the story ending about 10 hours ago.

As you were though boys.

[Spacehost]

I'm actually amazed at the number of bugs some people run into. My playthrough (an epic everything-done OCD-fest) didn't even give me a guy shooting backwards through a mountain.

I'm writing up a review of it at the mo, so I'll post it up to explain my FC2 love. You're not alone in the game winding you up, though.

[K]

I’ve given up at around 12% into the game to be honest, but that’s about eight or nine hours of playing time; I’ve had quite a few bugs so far (including one that wiped out a shedload of progress after a safehouse refused to unlock, thus sending me back to an earlier save point when I died, and one that lost me even more progress when it refused to let me complete a mission), so I will probably wait until there’s a patch before continuing.

The thing is, the game is a bizarre mix of extremely effective immersion – having to travel across the whole map, guns breaking, the sweet, sweet graphics – and astonishingly crude gameplay mechanics. The latter is especially baffling – FC2 just screams “I AM A GAME” over and over again, and it kind of knackers the suspension of disbelief. I’m talking about stuff like the total lack of any non-military personnel, the abundance of functioning vehicles scattered across the world that nobody seems to mind you stealing, the instant respawning of soldiers, the magical buddies that appear like valkyries whenever you go down, etc etc.

It reminds me a lot of Operation Flashpoint; some of the gunfights and journeys are like little self-contained stories that emerge from the game’s rules, and some just feel like you’ve either found a loophole and stumbled across victory, or been killed by the game refusing to play by its own rules. The former are great, and FC2 pumps these moments out on the regular, it’s just that the latter are very common too and it does my head in a bit.

[ZOK]

You either fall in love with it, and forgive its faults, or don't, and then they stick out like a sore thumb. It is a steady mixture of astonishing / dumb in almost every department. Some of the grenade physics I've seen have been just jaw-dropping, and then your sniper shots will clip a surface because the cross-hair is nearly touching it.

I'm tempted to say that it's even better than Dead Rising for me, which automatically awards it best game on the 360 status.

[Orion]

I'm about 9 hours in and loving this. A real change of pace compared to most other fps's.

I am bricking myself about the bugs though. I have I think 13 or so save games going on. I've been reading online about glitches not just at 60%+ mark but at the end of the first map area too. Quite why its been months and this hasent been patched is beyond me. It feels like lottery where I am crossing my fingers the game doesent fuck me over 30 hours plus in.

[Mr Do 71]

I'm about 9 hours in and loving this. A real change of pace compared to most other fps's.

I am bricking myself about the bugs though. I have I think 13 or so save games going on. I've been reading online about glitches not just at 60%+ mark but at the end of the first map area too. Quite why its been months and this hasent been patched is beyond me. It feels like lottery where I am crossing my fingers the game doesent fuck me over 30 hours plus in.

I don't mind replaying the missions, it's losing all those diamond discoveries that really grate.

[kerraig UK]

Yup, I think even if soldiers didn't always instantly recognise you or if there were more cease fire areas it'd make the game seem less simplistic. Someone said earlier that they thought the AI was robust. I just don't agree, I've been playing on normal (so it might be different on higher difficulty) but all I've seen them do is either stand and be shot or run in zigzags like crazed bushwhackers. They do try to flank sometimes but if you simply move backwards it stumps them.

Maybe it is different on harder settings then. Ive spent a lot of time playing with the AI on hard and its pretty impressive stuff. Sniped an exploding barrel in a camp and instantly saw one man run to man a turret, another run and settle in behind sandbags while 2 more jumped into the driver seat and gunner seat of a jeep and come out in search of me. Nothing wrong with that.

[Puck]

Finished! I frickin enjoyed that.

[Ktw]

Finally starting to enjoy this, about 10 hours in. After I realised the bus is the best way to travel in most circumstances it really improved. Now it feels like I can choose which fights I want to take and that makes the whole experience so much better, however ridiculous it is that the bus is the safest way to get around...

[Smitty]

This really didn't...turn me on.

I gave up fairly quickly.

[Quest]

Say what you like about the multiplayer experience in ranked matches, but this is excellent online with a friend. Tonight we set up some one-on-one deathmatch games against each other, with the rules being that we only had one life each and had to use the standard bolt-action sniper rifle.

Each match became incredibly tense, hiding in the undergrowth, trying to spot him and make the perfect kill without giving away my position. My favourite moment was seeing him from all the way across the map, slowly swimming towards his position until I was right behind him, pulling up the sight and blowing his brains out from about three feet away.

It's like a multiplayer version The End from MGS3.

[Timmo]

That sounds pretty great, actually.

[fatoy.japa]

I quite enjoyed the multiplayer myself, but they really ought (if they haven't already) to remove the player name tags in deathmatch. It makes tense showdowns like Vermilion's all the more difficult to engineer when somebody with a sniper rifle can just keep scanning the horizon left to right until a red tag pops up.

[Joyrex-J9]

This really didn't...turn me on.

I gave up fairly quickly.

It's pretty tough to get into, but worth it.

[Ktw]

A couple of questions regarding weapons, as I still haven't earned that many diamonds:

I have already bought the G3, the M1903 and the PKM (LMG).

Is it worth getting the silenced MP5? I enjoy the sniper approach and then mopping up with the LMG, however not notifying enemies of my presence sounds appealing.

Is it worth buying the IEDs even if I plan on getting the M79?