Features 10 Years On: Far Cry 2

Funny you should mention Far Cry 2. I've just been playing Far Cry 1 again.

 

Whilst it was probably among the most boring and repetitive games I have ever played I really must say how much I loved the poison dart sniper rifle. That was the crowning moment for this game for me. You could sit miles out of a village, get into a good position and literally kill every one in it without them even knowing you are there. That was great, and the graphics were truly lovely for the time too.

 

Mohhhhhhhh.

Bloody keyboard. Brown switches need more powah than blues. Yes, that's it exactly. Damn keyboard *mumbles and complains*

 

This game's true legacy is that it marks the protoype stage of the 'Ubisoft Game,' that so many love or despise today. It's the moment Ubisoft changed it's direction from releasing many and varied titles to launching one or two indetikit open world games per year ad nauseum. They had a go with Assassin's Creed the year before, but this is the one that really bears all the hallmarks of what would become it's own dull genre.

For that the game and all involved in it should have been strangled, whatever it's own merits as a game it was the harbinger of doom.

Just remember, evil mutant Apes are highly allergic to P-90 fire.

 

I loved Far Cry 1 so much and was so excited about this game. I just remember being gutted, I wanted to love it I really did.......

 

I am not a FPS fan, never was - except for the Far Cry series. And FC2 was the game that won me over. Actually it was the African setting - visually and sound-wise (music and effects) - in combination with the open-world concept. The latter of which was new to a shooter - to my limited knowledge of the genre anyway.
Still have it in my Steam library and even installed on one of my retro machines...

 

They called it Far Cry 2 "because it was twice as good as Far Cry 1 and half as good as Crysis".

A lot of truth in that. I bought FC2 after being impressed with FC1 and reading a 94% review in PC Gamer. What a disappointment!

The production values in FC2 did improve on the low-budget original, but that was all. I was astounded at the sheer clunkiness and lack of attention to gameplay. I actually needed a walkthrough to complete the tutorial, because unless things were done in a specific order the end was unreachable. Once into the game itself, FC2 defined "repetitive and boring", as has been noted. I dropped it forever after a few hours.

Thankfully, Crytek went off to give us the Crysis tetralogy, IMHO the epitome of single-player FPS. Nothing since has even approached these in movement and combat smoothness, weapon refinement, physics, enemy AI, and graphics excellence (which scaled beautifully!), not to mention other production values such as voice acting, music, level design, story punch etc. There were some let-downs such as the cave and VTOL sequences, but those games were and still are just incredibly good. I have assaulted the mining camp in Crysis dozens of times, trying new techniques and approaches - and that's just one scenario out of many that I replay.

BTW I recently tried Crysis on a Celeron 1007U dual-core with Intel 4000 IGPU. At 1600 x 900 with all 'Low' settings it runs about 21 FPS in the benchmark. In-game it's just playable enough to be fun... all the qualities I've mentioned above carry it through. Thank you Crytek and oh I wish you'd give us more SP FPS like this.

 

This!

 

I looked forward to it for months, played it on release, and discarded it after about 8-10 hours. The relentless grind, particularly with near-instantly-respawning checkpoints, did it for me. Not played a FC games since.

 

Never really understood all the fuss about Crysis, or it's sequels. I generally found the suit mechanics reduced the fun, particular having to constantly hide to recharge. I guess it probably got better with more time but I found the story pretty dull and didn't care about the characters so I just played through them all once. The original Farcry, however, I have played through multiple times. Crysis was also up against the Orange Box in 2007, which just left it for dead in every way (for me, anyway). I actually even preferred Doom 3 to Crysis...

I thought Farcry 2 was okay but, as has been the recurring 'problem' with the more recent games, you can do side quests to obtain the best guns which inevitably break the game. Fire was the best ally in FC2 so I spent most of the game wandering around with a flare gun and flamethrower. Fire a flare in the 'problem' and any bad guys that managed to escape were met with the flamethrower. Rinse and repeat.

 

I didn't play another until FC5 in co op. It was great fun.

 

game was rough all right tho the respawning check point got on my nerves. tho i did think at the time the story line got better. did ubisoft ever confirm if the jackal was jack carver from the first game or not?

i have still to play FC 3/4/5 its all on my still to playsteam list

 

Lots of comments about the tedium/repetition of the game, which I can remember clearly (not being able to outrun cars chasing you as well, I recall).

I started playing Mass Effect 2, and found its gameplay unbearably slow, tedious, and repetitive. However, it so often seems to get a free pass on this by merits of its story. How can you justify hours and hours of time wasted for a story that is, compared to watching a few top-notch films, lacklustre? What differentiates that game's plot from the atmosphere (for want of a better word) of FC2?

 

I quite enjoyed Mass Effect 2's gameplay. Purely on the shooting it is a fairly average third person shooter, but it's well made enough. The world and characters are much more fun to explore than FC2's assortment of grizzled mercenaries. It's also improved by having all the expansions installed, what with the hover tank, extra boss battles and characters. The base game I can see being quite repetitive.