Gaming Far Cry 2 is Underappreciated

I agree, Far Cry 2 did a lot of new interesting things, but it was never going to appeal to the Call of Duty types who don't like having to walk far. It is rather like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in that regard, only it managed to do it in a fairly seamless way - you could go almost anywhere, you could use the environment and the fire propagation to your advantage and you could quite easily immerse yourself in the world. The respawning was annoying, as was the malaria thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I do wish the fire thing had carried over into other titles though.

As for random encounters - they weren't so much random, they just heard you coming.

 

I don't understand all the beef with the respawnable enemy checkpoints. Once you scouted them, they became a reliable source of ammo/health/explosives, and you could dodge most of them by driving around or using the bus.

I've passed the same checkpoint because I had no choice maybe 3 times at the most. Most of the times I went around, or went there purposefully to restock my ammo.

 

Meh, I loved it myself. Must mean i have a buggered up sense of fun is suppose

 

Some people seem to rave about the planning you can do before missions, but at the end of the day, the only reason you would plan different attacks is to get some variety out of the game. The best method is undoubtedly to run in and shoot everyone.

And I say that because it is the quickest and most efficient way in terms of time. And when a game makes me want to finish it as fast as possible, that's a bad sign.

Sure, you could sneak in and stealth brain everyone, but it takes much longer than just shooting. And while it was fun the first two or three times, after that the repetition of the missions kicks in, and I just found I wanted to progress the story and finally finish the game. Then it moved on to the second map, and I gave up. I was so ****ing bored it was unreal.

The fire modeling is over hyped as well. Sure, it spreads from grass and straw huts etc, but apart from looking a little cool, it really does nothing. And don't even get me started on the woeful damage modelling. The only thing I can seem to remember that every other game doesnt do, is exploding huts. That are still standing, just without any 'skin'. What the hell, that's not amazing by any stretch of the imagination. It just feels like the old days of "Fixed Box" and Broken Box".

I have to agree that I enjoyed Crysis much more, and feel it is a better game in every aspect. Sure, when the aliens kick in it takes a serious nosedive, leading to me mostly playing the Jungle levels over and over, but that happens a lot later than when the tedium kicks in in FC2.

Plus, the different options in Crysis actually had reason to them, rather than just "you can do this". Got to love it when you have no ammo whatsoever, and a jeep turns up with three enemies in it, including one on the gun. Cloak, stealth around, distract the gunner to step out of the jeep, hop in, and uncloak as a hail of HMG fire destroys everything around you. Speaking of which, the damage in Crysis was far more spectacular too.

I'm sorry, but FC2 was poor. It had, at the core, a lot of great ideas, which is why I bought it. But these were handled so badly, were no where near as good as made out, or were overshadowed by really retarded decisions (such rapid enemy respawning in the checkpoints, and the easiest way to kill them is having to get out, shoot them, and get back in again).

 

I found the main 'beef' with respawning checkpoints was the frequency rather than the mere fact they respawned. If they had made it so they didn't respawn until 3 in game days had passed (or something similar) it would have made it more realistic.

Far Cry 2 had a fantastic engine (looks great and ran very well) and a great premise yet the exectution let it down badly. The absolute worst thing for me was the intro scene showing a war torn country with CIVILIANS yet the actual game had no CIVILIANS..... seriously.

Far Cry 2 is a game that had everything going for it yet left the house with its shoelaces tied together and no packed lunch...

 

First thing to say is congratulations on getting 19 comments within 1 hour your article release. And that's for a game that was released how many years ago? (almost 2). Impressive. The first thing that worries me is your references to the first game in the series. This is a bit silly considering the different developers for both games.
But this game had something. Its the only sand-box game I've finished.

You said "The combat is there as a hook, the plot as justification". I would rephrase this to "The combat is there as a drug, the travelling between missions the search for the next fix and the plot? What plot?." The travelling between missions had more variety than the missions themselves; do I use the bus or should I go on foot or perhaps use a river boat? Certainly any pain getting between missions could be minimised by examination of the map and by careful selection of the transport. Other whinges? You couldn't get to the top of all the mountains and you couldn't drive any trains (what's the point in putting in railway track if you cannot use it?)

When's your preview of Far Cry 3? ASAP please. That's one of few PC games on my wish list.

 

Worst game i've ever played hands down.

Annoying respawns, everything no matter what is always at the other side of the map, the most repetitive missions i've ever seen, a broken stealth system.

I wouldnt call walking 6ft up a hill and meeting an invisible wall freedom.

This couldve been an amazing game, but it failed slightly in just about every area.

 

thing is joe the minute you fire a shot every enemy on the map knows exactly where you are and runs straight towards you. its just too obvious that its a game all the time. as soon as you start to get a tiny bit emmersed it slaps you in the face with a re-spawned squad that you killed 10 seconds ago.

tiresome, irritating pap with decent graphics.

 

It might sound cliche, but it seems to me that those who complain about FC2 being repetitive are playing it wrong. It's a freeform game, you can approach it in a myriad different ways. Sticking to auto shotgun and rocket launcher, yes, it will become very boring, very quickly. Treat it as a toy, however; a sandbox for you to explore possibility, and it's actually a lot of fun.

 

The word "fun" is the last one I'd associate with FC2.

 

plus it wasnt underappreciated, the reviews of this game were raving at the time, hence me going out and buying a lemon.

this is its a "reviewers" game to some extent. lots of nice effects and flashy add ons to grab attention, while if you sit there and try to play for the 20-30 hours required, you'll end up a slavering slack jawed retard with an irrational fear of black men in shorts

 

Far Cry 2 blew Crysis out of the water for me. Crysis was simultaneously too easy (stealth mode) and too tedious (aliens). I like playing FPSes in a sneaky way, so not using stealth meant I wasn't properly taking advantage of the suit, but using the suit made one almost invincible, especially against human enemies.

Far Cry 2 most reminded me of Thief. The thing I enjoyed most about FC2 was having a destination to go to, and planning how to get there without any unwanted encounters with patrols or checkpoints. That mostly meant taking a bus to the nearest location, perhaps making my way to a safehouse to pick up some transport and wait until nightfall, and then driving off-road to a suitable distance from the target, and sneaking in on foot, ideally from an angle that gives height for recon and sniping, then moving in to clear out the area piece by piece. I printed out a version of the in-box map with the checkpoints marked to ease in this planning.

I found the game nicely balanced too - I only ever had to rely on a buddy once, normally I was able to control the combat situation well enough that I was almost never overwhelmed. I like to play games almost as if I'm risking my own skin, so I don't like to get into a risky scenario that can go badly wrong. So if enemies try to come out of the woodwork and flank me, I usually end up beating a retreat around some corner, reloading, patch myself up, then open fire on those chasing.

I'm currently replaying FC2 right now, a couple of missions (i.e. ~2 hours) every day. The thought of replaying Crysis or Crysis Warhead, however, fills me with meh.

 

i loved the damn game!

 

How is it possible to play a sandbox game wrong?
When people say repetive i dont think they mean weapons, the gameplay mightaswell have been copy and pasted.

I wouldn't class Crysis as an amazing game either, its a great game but lacks alot of elements. Although the grpahics are top notch.

Although one thing i have to ask, what stealth? This game has none.

 

When no demo is available, I feel like purchasing a game is a gamble. I've never played this game for that reason. Well, that and the DRM. I liked the first, though!

 

Too many people don't understand the complexity of making a game like this.... as in the mapping and the scripting and the layout. This one game is probably the best to ever come along. It's almost perfectly mapped and scripted. I think care was taken not to release it too soon unlike many other outfits do. Cudos for the team that put this together.
If you ride around in cars going from place to place you might as well not play because you're missing everything there is to see and do.
How many of you actually found all the diamonds or where the golden AK47's were ? I only found 213 cases of stone but found all the golden guns.
If anybody reads this.... 2 things.... this is the first time I saw the crossbow and I saw a picture on a benchmark site with a double barrel shotgun..... where are these weapons ?
I just finished this game for the 15th time this morning... on hard core.
I hope when FarCry3 comes along it's almost exactly the same game.... I would even settle for an expansion pack.... say a west and east version whereas now you play in the northern and southern if you follow.

 

Yeah the DRM is why I never bought it. Its making me laugh reading through these comments though. People seem to either love it or hate it. I would still give it a whirl if they would remove that ridiculous install limit. Same with Crysis Warhead, its like they don't want my money, so silly.
Oh and I loved crysis, just played through it again last week and its as good as I remember. Endlessly replayable in parts

 

I enjoyed FC2, its nowhere near as enjoyable as the first farcry but it certainly kept me engaged. I used the same 3 weapons more or less throughout the whole game -sniper rifle, flame thrower and flare gun. Fire was such a powerful weapon that was little need for anything else in close quarters.

I thought it was quite emotive the way that the enemy mercs went from acting very though in the early stages of the game to crying in fear when they detected your prescence in the later scenes.

Apart from being an FPS there is no comparison to Crysis. Crysis was too short, too easy and had by far the worst case of 'urgh, the aliens have arrived...'

 

The consumer does not nor should not care how COMPLEX it is to make a game.

The lamest point I have seen is "The people complaining didn't play it right"? LMAo, sure, everyone who did not like the game didn't know how to play it. I played with every single game mechanic, put a lot of time into it and the game was down right boring and repetitive.

Finding diamonds and driving around? LMAo, is that your point what makes the game good? its on big same mission after the next with the same enemies at the same checkpoints, with super fast vehicles.

I found a lot of diamonds before giving up, it was beyond tedious.

The reason most here do not like it is because it was not a good game, if you do do not hide behind the "it was hard to make " or "You didn't play it right " high horse BS.

Perfectly mapped and scripted? LMAO.

 

I liked it but then I picked it up on offer for £3.96 so it was a bargain in my eyes.

A lessen to all, you will like games more if you hang back and buy when they're cheap. I may not have liked it for £20 but for £4 it was a good game.