Far Cry 2: Why the hate?

[Sephychu]

I really enjoyed it. Cost me a tenner, and the assassination missions were way more fun for me than missions of a similar vein from other games. The optional stealth was nice too.

 

[linwolf]

I liked it. It had some cool stuff and ideas in it, but there were just not enough variance in it to make a great game.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

I agree, I don't get the hate either.
Hell, I'd probably put Far Cry 2 in my top ten favorite games list, if I was to make one.
Sure, the malaria, the superfasttalkingcharacters, and the constant checkpoints with respawning angry African mercenaries were all annoying, but everything else was great.
Rocking up to a settlement of bad guys, and trying to figure out the best way to tackle the situation was a really cool experience for me, even if I had to do it many many times.
I actually liked doing it many many times.
But I'm clearly in a minority here, so I better just stop typing.

 

[Woodsey]

The story is virtually non-existant, and when it does crop up for 5 minutes at a time (and appears a grand-total of 3 times at the beginning, middle and end) tries to pull a load of philosophical crap that it can't pull of. So for starters, it's a very shallow game trying to be deep. Not to worry though, I think that of Bioshock too.

Then there's the main gripe in the gameplay with the enemy camps. I can't tell you the amount of times I planned to do a mission in a specific way, got all my weapons ready, drove to the objective and then spent all my ammo/broke all my weapons going through 5 respawning enemy checkpoints.

All the missions feel exactly the same, as do the factions you work for - and there's nothing to do outside those missions except hunt for bloody diamond cases. Driving is dull (partly because the map is too big for it's own good, partly because you're always getting in/out for enemy encampments) yet you do it all the time.

On the plus side, it was really pretty and the buddy system was good.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

After recently getting Far Cry 2 and getting through maybe halfway of Act 1, I just have to ask, why all the criticism? Sure, it has very little to do with the original Far Cry, but at least it innovates while it strays from its predecessor. The malaria mechanic is quite interesting, and it creates a surprising amount of tension when you suffer an attack in the middle of a shootout, when your screen suddenly turns green and you're trying to survive after you've popped some pills. The fire mechanic is perhaps more interesting and allows for some creative combat options. It's a fun shooter, the experience of which can't be gotten in many other places and I simply want to know why people don't like Far Cry 2.

I personally enjoyed Farcary 2 immensely. The only ruining factor was each time you got a mission, the objective was on the other end of the map and you had to get out of your car very often to dispatch guard posts... It wasn't as seemless as it could have been. THat and enemie's binocular vision...

Other than that, it was a beautiful game

 

[ImprovizoR]

I love Far Cry 2. I love the gameplay, weapons, vehicles, gunfights, and the world just looks beautiful and huge. But I always wanted to go to Africa so maybe that's why I like Far Cry 2 that much.

 

[Mrhenners12]

I agree, apart from the ammo shortage the game is fantastic. The map making is awesome, the setting is awesome, the missions get a bit tedious and Im going to go play it now.

 

[VincentX3]

Because......
ENEMIES CAN SEE YOU FROM 100KM AWAY AND STILL HEADSHOT YOU!
and they have X-ray vision, so no use hiding behind the BEAUTIFUL scenery...

So yea, if they would to fix that in a patch, I would re-play it some day.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

I don't hate it. It looked great, it had a lot of different mechanics, but I found the enemy AI to be annoying and there wasn't much variety. Combined with the open world this made it seem such a bland, unfocused, experience. The cars driving in circles really did it for me. The illusion was shattered as I waited at one spot for them to drive by again and again. It was cool to wait for them at the other end of a flaming bridge with an RPG.

 

[Danish_4116]

I didn't like it because there was all I did the whole game was
a. Travel to point B from point A
b. Kill Everyone at point B
c. GTFO

That's basically all there was to it for me. I tried to go Sam Fisher on their asses to make it more interesting, but the AI's infuriating ability to spot me 50 meters away in dense scrub really left all guns blazing the only option. In the words of an acornfilm review:

If you would like to recreate this experience without spending money on a PC or home console, then just put on a glow-in-the-dark yamaka and read "Where's Waldo" while RUNNING through Pakistan

 

[Ickorus]

Well I disliked it because of repetition and the fact that there was absolutely no stealth in the game, I could have my silenced gun and kill someone without them firing a shot yet still manage to alert the whole base or I could be sneaking through the foliage to go for a sneaky kill when someone glances in the direction of the bush im behind and spots me which manages to alert the entire base.

I honestly felt like I had a big sign over my head reading 'Kill this twat' with an arrow pointing downwards.

 

[YesConsiderably]

My major issue with it is that enemies can take a whole assault rifle clip to the face without dying.

 

[CAPTCHA]

It would be a good game if it wasn't so padded out with so much traveling and checkpoint evesion/destruction. Here's a typical mission.

Travel to Mission Start, dealing with a varied number of checkpoints.
Travel to safehouse, dealing with checkpoint A,B and C along the way.
Travel to mission objective, dealing with checkpoints C and D.
Travel back to safe house, dealing with checkpoint C and D again.
Travel to mission objective, dealing with checkpoint C and D aaaaagain.
Travel to Buddy rescue, dealing with checkpoint C, D and E.
Travel to bblajhjdhajkshfakljhfjkahjfgbanbnieolm m;p.....

...travel to game store and buy a better game.

 

[Vrach]

After recently getting Far Cry 2 and getting through maybe halfway of Act 1, I just have to ask, why all the criticism? Sure, it has very little to do with the original Far Cry, but at least it innovates while it strays from its predecessor. The malaria mechanic is quite interesting, and it creates a surprising amount of tension when you suffer an attack in the middle of a shootout, when your screen suddenly turns green and you're trying to survive after you've popped some pills. The fire mechanic is perhaps more interesting and allows for some creative combat options. It's a fun shooter, the experience of which can't be gotten in many other places and I simply want to know why people don't like Far Cry 2.

1. The story is awful and even nonsensical a good deal of the time.

2. The (fast) voice acting is atrocious to the point where I, and many other people, thought that there was a sound issue with the game/our PC.

3. The map is littered with outposts with low respawn timers, to the point where a lot of players will actually get so sick of attacking the outposts to get through, they'll actually take a longer route. Furthermore, there are cars and boats just driving around that have nothing other to do than ram into you and attack you, even if they're attacking you with a civilian vehicle/fishing boat and you're in a jeep/armed boat that has a mounted machine gun. Combined, there's way too much "unwilling" combat that takes away from the fun of it (even though the combat itself is, to me, really, really fun). Even if you were to agree it's ok to have that amount of combat, the problem is that there's nothing else. If it had civilians just walking/driving around, fine, but no, every single human creature in the game wants nothing other than to kill you.

4. Doing a mission for a faction won't stop their soldiers from attacking you (presumably because you're on secret missions, but 99% of the time, it makes no sense in the story, as Yahtzee said, it's just an excuse for not being able to be arsed to program friendly AI).

In fact, the AI only has only one mode (outside towns under ceasefire) and that's kill, kill, kill. I mean seriously, how realistic is it for outpost guards and patrols to just chase down any car, abandoning their outposts, with no provocation whatsoever. It would be far more interesting for them to have a more complex AI, only attacking you if you provoke them, drive hastily through outposts (you could slow down a bit to avoid combat), drive by in an assault jeep, etc. In short - AI sucks.

5. The malaria, while an interesting addition to the game, has no logical progression, at first, the levels kept going down to level 0, then at one point they just went up to level 3/4 for no reason, even though I never ran out of pills, even for a moment. Furthermore, aside from requiring you to pop a pill once in a while, it doesn't actually do anything, you'd think with 5 levels of disease there'd be some varying symptoms, but personally I saw 0 difference between level 5 and level 0. The reputation levels are the same, resetting arbitrarily and making no sense or difference in the actual game. You'd think, if your reputation was that of the Devil himself and the entire damn area feared you, a single passerby asshole in a civilian vehicle would think twice before going out of his way to chase you down, even if it took him hours and try to kill you on his own.

6. Non-companion side quests are all literally copy-paste missions, with targets conveniently driving in circles or sitting in one spot indefinitely until you take them out.

7. The companions are useless, almost always found dying when you reach them after a mission, having to either blow one healing injection (which is kinda ok) or reload cause they arbitrarily decided to die on you (assuming you're like me and don't like them dying on you, should've just put a bullet between their eyes tbh). On top of that

Spoiler

the first lot of companion mofos disappear in the first part of the game, then come back with the second lot of companion mofos during the final mission to attack you. And remember, these are the guys you did every single favour to, these are the guys that would've probably be dead about 10 times over each if you weren't there to defend them and save their lives with your own healing pots. I'm all for plot twists, but that's just pure bollox.

8. The "side" missions companions give you are supposed to make the main missions easier or provide an extra objective for something more right? Problem is, they never yield anything, only a few side quests make your main missions easier at all, most make it a lot harder and more tedious. But as long as they reward you right, I mean you're helping your companions do something right? They even tell you you'll get some money/etc. for helping them with certain quests. Sadly, there's literally no reward from any companion quest, even when they tell you otherwise. On top of that

Spoiler

as I said above, the bastards aren't even at all grateful (I did every single companion quest in the game, thinking they must've mattered for something), even the two "best" friends that I had '20 history' with, one of them a guy I just saved from incarceration, beating and death less than a few game-time hours ago, had no issue trying to put a bullet in my skull at the end of the game.

9. There is no sense of progression in the game, you just feel like you're going in circles, there's nothing different about helping the UFLL/APR and there's no repercussion from just jumping from one to another for quests, it's even a must as it's required to continue the game as one of them will just run out of quests and you'll have nothing to do than go to the other. The further you get into the game, the more you feel like "so, what was all that I did before this for?", especially on a few "flushing the story down the toilet"-checkpoint locations in the story.

Probably more to it, but those 9 reasons are the main things that made the game shit to me. It has some shiny stuff that's enjoyable, like some of the RPG aspects of weapons, but there's just way too many down sides to the game to call it even half-decent. I did find multiplayer thoroughly fun on a small scale though (possibly is in bigger numbers too, but I couldn't say).

 

[The Procrastinated End]

It's repetitive, the respawn rate is too frequent, and the inability to actually hide.
Pretty much your experience.

 

[timmytom1]

It`s alright, it`s just as many others have said before me being stealthy is a waste of time and the fact that the AI is determined to kill you AT ALL TIMES leaving whatever job they were given to hunt you down across THE WHOLE DAMN MAP this made sense in missions , it was just annoying when all i was doing was wandering around to a buddies place only to be chased by jeep after godamn jeep they should make another one just thrown a bit of frendly AI in and give those who want to be stealthy at least half a chance

 

[Oilerfan92]

ITs not FUN.

It has decent ideads and that, but not fun.

The missions have ZERO originality. Go to point A, kill everyone. OR talk to your friend, go to point B, kill people. THEN go to point A.

And im sorry, but i like money. When your getting 1-2 daimonds a mission you feel unmotivated.

Theres like 3 cars. I know its Africa. But variety.

The game doesnt go anywhere. You dont feel any stronger/better as the game goes. It feels like your going in circles... no. Circles actually go somewhere. ITs like a dot.

 

[soulasylum85]

just couldnt get into it. for some reason i found it really boring. good thing i only paid $10 for it

 

[gnargle]

Gawking at the pretty visuals while sneaking into a base, silenting knifing dudes who stand in your way, planting a bomb near something needing to be blown up, blowing up said thing, frantically running for cover in a crazy shootout, setting fire to the nearby foliage to create a barrior between you and your enemies, and finally finding a car to high tail it outa there is pretty fucking awesome...

...that is until you realise that's all you ever do.

Go download some Escape maps for multiplayer, bro. They're incredible.

 

[antidonkey]

Other than it being dull I really had no idea why I was doing a lot of the things I was doing. Like the mystery guy missions from the comm towers. Who is that guy and why am i taking orders from him? I also hated the fact that if any one spotted you on the horizon they immediately attack you and their cars seem to always be able to catch mine. Plus, the save points pissed me off. Having to treck way out of the way just to save is a terrible idea. I died from a fall and lost about 2 hours worth of gaming and haven't fired it up since. I may go back and cheat my way through it just to finish but I'm not even motivated to that.