Far Cry 2's Incendiary Nonsensibility

[josh797]

this is an incredible peice of writing that highlights the game, is poetic, yet informative, has a tremendous sense of style, and reminds me about the reason i frequent this site for my gaming media. thanks guys!

 

[Uncompetative]

I don't attempt to review games, but I am interested in game design and why things don't quite work.

Far Cry 2 is one such example. I know how they could have programmed it so that the guard posts didn't instantly respawn so unrealistically, but I think it would be more helpful to focus on improving the controls.

Africa is a big place with few landmarks and the signposts you encounter aren't all that much help. I still find myself toggling the map on/off an awful lot and have come to the conclusion that this should have been a "hold the Left Trigger in" to raise the map into view by degrees, thereby avoiding an explicit modal state in the control interface. This would then mean that the Left Bumper would have to be Aim, just as it had been in Goldeneye. In the Long Run control mapping Sprint would have to go on the Right Bumper just as it does in Frontlines: Fuel of War. This then presents a problem: Grenades.

However, these can be first equipped by holding down the Back button the pin pulled with the Right Bumper, optionally "cooked", then thrown with Right Trigger - as neither of these controls do their default actions whilst the Back button is held. This is what is called a Quasimode and is equivalent to you typing on a keyboard whilst holding down Shift or Alt.

I had also thought that you could peruse the open map with the Right Thumbstick and then click this stick to toggle a series of enumerated waypoints which would then appear on the GPS.

The next issue is the enemies, which can spot you through thick grass as if it isn't there, and storm out of nowhere in a noisy jeep which you really ought to have been able to hear in the distance and avoid. You can crouch, but not go prone. You can shoot enemies, but they take as much damage as if they were wearing full body armor even when they are bare chested. Yes, everyone is attacking you all the time and it gets old. Surely if you only work for the UFLL they would leave you alone and you could scope settlements and chart a course through the map. Yes, it is very open world, but it is as if the designers panicked that there wouldn't be enough happening, but in adding action around every corner they hampered your freedom. Ironically, it is hard to appreciate the astounding graphics because you are in a constant state of paranoia.

Finally, at some point in the future the issue of Saving will have to be addressed in these massively open-world games. It just takes too long to reattempt a failed mission from a Safehouse, even when you've unlocked all of them. I'd like to be able to push the Xbox Guide button and Shutdown the console and resume from that point the next time I power up if all I had done was Pause. This isn't Quicksave as you only get one slot. Reattempting missions could be done with a single separate save slot (user-defined checkpoint) which is activated by using the phone prior to the mission proper. This would mean that the player could collect multiple mission contacts and then seek more work "in the field". Also you wouldn't be rung up by a buddy in the middle of a Stealth mission! You would call them. In fact, the GPS could be combined with the phone (after all, it already finds diamond briefcases and Jackal tapes).

Anyway, I would rather make constructive suggestions than condemn Far Cry 2 as boring.

Thank you for bringing some insightful comments to this thread that has quickly become a flamewar.

On topic: I found the article to be well written and whilst it did beat around the bush, made a few good points of the better side of the game.

However, I believe that Ubisoft tried to focus on making a really big 'open world' game and severely neglected the actual gameplay elements of the game. It's like they didn't actually play test the whole game, just focused on the main points.
I do think that this is a vast improvement on the rather dire first game and is certainly a great spring board on which to build another improved Far Cry game.

I'd pay for a sequel in the not too distant future - and I haven't even finished the Campaign yet. Finally, a game that is value for money.

I've already got the DLC, which was worthwhile. You get a crossbow that fires explosive bolts among other things...

It would be nice if you could store weapons in your vehicle, at the cost of carrying only two. Although you would have to replace them if the vehicle was destroyed.

 

[ZP---Fanatic]

i think it was Average (other NPC people talk fast,very fast though) the flames where the best I have PROBABLY NOT CERTAINLY (Cod5 is quite good 2) ever saw.

 

[Liverandbacon]

Well, I'm happy with it. Of course it did come free with my graphics card, so that takes away any not worth $50-ness. The guard post respawns could use some work. If Ubisoft would release a damn SDK, the problem would be fixed within a day. In my mind, the perfect setup would be that checkpoints nearest bus stops and the central city would respawn fastest, and the further you got away from one of those, the longer a respawn would take. That would add some realism. But again, that's not going to happen unless Ubisoft releases an SDK or a fan puts in a metric ton of work to make one.

 

[awmperry]

Could those in the flamewar just, I dunno, get a room or something? It's getting tiresome, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd be more interested in the sort of constructive analysis that Uncompetative provided...

In my view, Far Cry 2 had a number of key failings:

- The enemies; bulletproof string vests, close combat with M2HB machine guns, and utterly unrealistic detection and accuracy stats. Not to mention the respawning checkpoints and the lazy, clumsy way of dodging the need for factional AI; "Oh, it's a secret mission, yeah, that'll be it."

- The vehicles; utterly homogenous in behaviour and feel, except that the Land Rover clone is much better than the others at handbrake turns. (Incidentally, the handbrake on a Defender acts on the centre diff, so trying a handbrake turn would be quite expensive...)

- Over-hyped. The story *isn't* adaptive, and really doesn't try to be. There are no major choices involved, just illusions of choice. The graphics are pretty, but with noticeable shortcuts here and there. And the much-vaunted fire propagation? It's not realistic, it's not accurate, and it doesn't even look realistic up close.

There were a few things that would have been unequivocally good had they been handled better; the wound system works well, but its claims of realism force reviewers to measure it with a different yardstick, by which it fails miserably. The ambush missions would have been interesting had they not been on small, infinite loops.

I could go on - in fact, I have done quite frequently - but the basic result is that Far Cry 2 is full of unattained potential. It could have been good, if they'd just *thought* about it a bit. But they didn't, so it wasn't.