Far Cry 2 Masterpiece Avoided

[Stark]

I played FC2 back when it came out on PC, nearly finished it, etc. JSF got it for free with his new Xbox so I took the opportunity to play it again.

And it's so good! The versimilitude, the look, the ambience, the map that is both big and interesting without being so big it's boring or irritating to move around, the multiple things to do, the flexibility of combat with ranged, CQB, fire, etc. It is a great game and for the first hour I seriously considered reinstalling the (prettier) PC version.

Then I started doing missions.

And they're not horrible; they're fun and surprisingly flexible. Just ... driving around the World of Respawn with relatively high-lethatity combat is hopelessly annoying. I was driving to assassinate the jfk at the abc, and I got pitted by two jeeps, drew another jeep from a local guard post, blew everyone to shit and started a raging bushfire. This is fun, but I nearly fucking died doing nothing. When I was using the AK, you can burn half your ammo in a single random jeep event. The fast-travel buses are a life-saver, but the game starts to suck the will to play out proportional to how far from these nodes the mission objectives are.

Now I don't dislike this entirely. I like that you have to avoid guardposts, that you sometime prefer to go around and use a boat and work your way back to targets to avoid unnecessary combat. But the roving jeeps mean combat is literally unavoidable, which really sucks in a low-ammo high-lethality game. Everyone has been over this issue a million times, but I felt I needed to express how much I enjoy every single other thing about this game. Sure, I wish the weapon degradation didn't become irrelevant as soon as you buy an AK, and I wish the 360 version didn't have nerfed fire (no giant bushfires here). The game is such a success at 'put player in African shithole and let him go' that the frustrating nature of travel is a real fucking shame.

[Alyeska]

You pretty much covered it. So much about the game was so good. It was a few critical areas that could easily have been rectified. I would add the All Seeing enemies. They can see you anywhere the moment you initiate hostilities.

The game is beautiful. The graphics are well done. The environment is truly inviting. It had so much potential. But the same flaws creep into it. It wastes time and effort. Some can live with it. Some cannot. And some few seem to love the constant run and gun. Anything less then combat 90% of the time is a game not worth playing.

I might reinstall it after some time, but not at the moment. It feels too much like level grinding. And for so little gain.

[thejester]

I only found roving jeeps annoying on the second map, when the .50s and Mk19s could ensure a virtual instant kill. I understand the criticism about chewing through ammo, but I rarely travelled in anything but jeeps and just used the MG on the back, so didn't find it much of a problem.

The other obvious solution is to use the boats - (almost) no checkpoints, only one or two areas in both maps that are patrolled.

[Stark]

That's it - I realised yesterday that I'd played the game for FOUR FUCKING HOURS and completed like three missions. The missions themselves take about 5 minutes, tops. The rest of the time was dying, respawning, avoiding checkpoints, and fun stuff like blowing up convoys and finding diamonds. This isn't really a bad thing, but so much playtime is spent dealing with the problems it's difficult to see the awesome of the game when you've died for the eighth time and get sent back to a checkpoint.

I've heard bad things about the AI, but I think that the foliage is 'transparent'. The ground isn't (even trees) and you can confuse people up close, but the actual foliage and bushes etc don't seem to interrupt AI LOS. We've all seen a guy run across into some bushes and fire from the BACK of them and hit you, but doubling back around buildings works fine.

[Stark]

I only found roving jeeps annoying on the second map, when the .50s and Mk19s could ensure a virtual instant kill. I understand the criticism about chewing through ammo, but I rarely travelled in anything but jeeps and just used the MG on the back, so didn't find it much of a problem.

The other obvious solution is to use the boats - (almost) no checkpoints, only one or two areas in both maps that are patrolled.

I mentioned boats becasue with a few exceptions, up north they're not near anything and you have to slog. They're worth using just to run over errant zebras.

And the mk19 jeeps show up up north towards the end too, and they're so annoying it's not funny. It'd be one thing if they were bad shots, but on hard if you're not evading they will hit you every time.

[Alyeska]

I have heard the game described as Grand Theft Auto: Africa. You have a constant wanted level of 4 stars. Road blocks, roving patrols.

A friend once noted an incredibly funny bug. Because of how the AI can detect you, he had something happen. He was walking along the bottom of a cliff when a Toyota suddenly came flying off the top of the cliff aiming at him trying to run him over. With no traction the Toyota slammed into a tree and exploded violently. Some AI had detected him from a road near the top of the cliff and just drove off the cliff to try and run him over.

The AI is so aggressive the game gets irritating. The time it takes. 4 hours and 3 missions. You die frequently and the checkpoints never empty. I have heard one person claim its possible to clear checkpoints. Everyone else says it is utterly impossible. I wonder how readily the game could be modded. With relatively little effort, the awesomeness of this game could easily come out.

[Alyeska]

So it seems that Far Cry 2 was not released with any SDK tools. Modding it would be very difficult and require manual changes to the individual pak files. Community considers it not worth their effort.

[Stark]

I wouldn't be surpised if the spawning was a very low-level aspect of the game, too. I don't think it's as simple as spawntime=10000 or anything.

[thejester]

As I said at SB (and everywhere else for that matter) I don't really understand the 'it feels too much like level grinding' criticism. I play FPS for combat. The game throwing combat at you that is, not in itself, hard to beat strikes me as something of a shallow criticism. The feeling of making no progress was at the heart of yahtzee's 'criticism', but IMO that just points to people being too use to totally linear beginning-middle-end games.

[Stark]

Yeah, like I said I actually enjoy the combat and flow - I don't think it's 'grinding' at all. If they reduced the density a bit it'd just be less annoying and frustrating. It's probably intentional that you basically bounce from safehouse to safehouse to move around the map, but I don't think many people realised that, due to expectations about 'how FPS works' as you say.

I think the game has a powerful sense of progress with upgrades and guns and shit, but I remember that some comlpained that 'the missions dont' make Africa better' and 'the war always goes on' and 'the world is always full of bad people', which was THE FUCKING POINT OF THE GAME.

[Alyeska]

The problem is that the spawning wastes considerable time while you make absolutely no progress much of it. The game isn't random. Its very linear in some respects. You will always run into the same enemies at the same locations and have to fight them off again and again. The games length is artificial increased by having to fight constantly in an environment where you die very often. I don't want to run and gun 90% of the time. Not even action games have you in combat that damned often.

[thejester]

Yeah, that was fucking unbelievable. 'The factions are just the same! Lazy programing!' Maybe it was, but to their credit the writers made something out of it and the end result meant that FC2 is far more fucking interest/believable/engaging then 'Space Marine X must save galaxy'.

Sadly the ending totally sold out that premise - and indeed sold out not only the story but also the free flowing nature of the game. I guess Ubi believed everyone did need a happy ending.

[Stark]

Most of the guard posts are avoidable; the issue for me is the combination of both kinds of spawn and aggro ranges. If a jeep spawn on you near a guard point, there's a good chance you'll die or waste piles of ammo, because everyone from the post will hear you and come over and if you're really unlucky anther jeep will spawn.

The combat forces you to desire cover and accuracy, which is really difficult when you have four groups of guys showing up all over the show. The individual cars by themselves aren't an issue and the posts aren't either, but together you get totally fucked. Which is fun and I like the dynamic nature of the combat... but not 2-3 times every time I want to drive somewhere.

[Pulp Hero]

I have this for XB360, but I find it unbelievable that there are no mods to fix the PC version. I'm not modder, but how hard would it be to:

1-Up checkpoint respawn times.

2-Make roving cars non-hostile or remove them.

3-Add lots of fast travel points.


The game would still have some downsides, but it would be immensely more playable. I mean, hell, would it kill the developers to release a DLC that does this?

[Stark]

It's likely there is no 'respawn timer'; once you leave the cell it probably doesn't track any information about map areas at all.

Making cars non hostile and throwing more fast-travel points would just make the game boring, easy and short. The rovers just need a chance to hostile, chance to pursue, chance to not give a shit etc instead of the current 'lol everyone kill you' thing.

[Vympel]

I hated this fucking game. Worst $69 I ever spent. It just felt empty and fake, the whole time I was palying it, after the superficial prettyness wore off.

Further, isn't the game still buggy?

[Stark]

I don't see any bugs at all, aside from typical AI glitches. It's not a CA game, after all.

[Mr Bean]

The issue of Farcry 2 in no order which change the game from interesting to unfun.

Enemies are by Psychic and have Spidey Sense and are all Olympic Snipers, By xenu look it's the Mercenary! Yes I know he's 1/2 a k/m away driving in one of our jeeps dressed just like we are but I know it's him because I'm Psychic! And ho! My friend was shot with a silence rifle on the other side of the building by someone a kilometer away in the brush, I instantly know where he is and will begin shooting at him!

As noted brush does nothing, buildings however do fine. To the point you can almost Metal-Gear is by running around a building then going into a crouch and walking two steps, instantly all the enemies who can't see you stop and look around confused.

2. Nothing changes
I can deal with checkpoints but I made a point of the first time I went through checkpoints to smash ever building steal every item. If possible burn down the grass blow up the building and arrange all the bodies in humorous poses. I then walk outside the local grid(Around 200 meters) and bam, not only is the run down checkpoint restored to "pristine" condition but it's full of enemies who now shoot at visible me. I've watched it happen if you go out to some of the eastern checkpoints you can see the point(Via sniper scope) when you get out of visual range and everything "re-pops" good as new.

If the repop was on a delay timer or featured a Tiered reinforcement system like say the first time you smash an outpost it's reinforced to double strength, the next time the same but with heavy weapons. The third time only two guys with a truck who run when they see people coming and then empty if you get them. Instead no matter how many you kill their are always more people willing to repopulate those checkpoints.

If you could just fix those two things I could deal with everything else but those two things alone are highly frustrating.

*Edit
On the highest notability level the checkpoints stop bothering you but the Mk19's don't.

[Stark]

I really don't have an issue with the 'psychic' (ps not psychic) enemies. Sure they can see through grass and magically identify the driver of a featureless jeep, but otherwise I think they're fine and people just don't like games where if you fire a giant gun people know where you are. Their accuracy isn't that great either - it's only at close range they will kill you quickly.

The failure of silenced weapons (especially the fucking machete) is a bigger issue, since there's literally no reason to use them. The manual says machete is for silent kills and EVERYONE SCREAMS.

EDIT - actually, I'm curiuos how much 'psychic guard' comlpaints across all games is a result of stupid players. If you snipe a guy in FC2 and MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE, they DO NOT KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. They have mega night vision and cyber-zoom eyes, but they aren't getting 24/7 updates on your location.

[Mr Bean]

I really don't have an issue with the 'psychic' (ps not psychic) enemies.

Psychic not psychic? Are you questioning my spelling or my choice of words? If it's spelling you used the same spelling I did. If it's word choice I contend they can see the same "auras" you can thus everyone in Africa is Psychic (You know the tag them with bionics so you can ever after see them)

[Stark]

Oh sorry, no I was suggesting they're not really 'psychic' (like guys in Oblivion), they just have clumsy AI that sees through bushes, isn't bothered by the dark, etc. They still react and have to see things. I use fire to distract them all the time for melee kills; they're not literally informed about player location... unless you don't move.

[CaptHawkeye]

I remember making the Far Cry 2 thread last year. Their were plenty of problems to be had with the game, but overall I found it a surprisingly competant shooter. With a lot of things to do and a great gameworld to explore. I loved how the game offered a ton of variety in the weapons and none of them suffered from typical hand waving game balance bullshit. It sucks that they never really fixed the stealth, knifing guys in a back alley where no one could see you still led to everyone in the town knowing you killed someone.

At least Far Cry 2 actually had guys who chased you when you attacked them though. They didn't just forget about you after you led them 10ft down the road. Now if only they fixed the AI drivers. Those guys had great eye sight.

[weemadando]

I tried to get back into FC2 on the PC recently. And then had to drive across a map through oodles of perma-spawning checkpoints and random encounters.

That trip down memory lane only lasted about 30 minutes.

[Stark]

Wait wait wait.

Do people use the roads in this game? The posts themselves really are not very dangerous. There are only three in the north that you can't trivially ignore unless you're going to certain locations.

[weemadando]

I tend to use rivers mostly, but I ended up on roads as I was in the desert. And I couldn't just follow the rail lines in the direction I wanted.