StarDestroyer.Net BBS

So. Who got it? Who's suffering under an international release date and can't get it until after all the Americans have talked about it already?

I had originally gone into with a "What Crysis should have been" attitude, then I went to a "What STALKER should have been" attitude, it's really what they BOTH should have been if they were put together.

It handles itself nicely, their's a lot of attention to detail and very few constraints on the player. The AI seems pretty easy to fool from time to time, yet somehow, it's still way better than STALKER's AI and completely shits all over Crysis' predictable bots.

The great thing about the game is its character interaction/faction mechanic is handled far more elegantly than other titles. Playing the factions and buddies against eachother is pretty interesting, especially because it's actually relevant to how you'll carry out future missions. In terms of appearance I was under the impression it didn't look as good as Crysis did, fuck that idea. When you consider how open it is you really stop thinking about those uber rock textures and nose hairs Crysis rendered for us...at the cost of everything else.

Setting fire to shit is pretty cool, since the AI really needs to deal with the changing enviornment. It's also cool that wind direction plays into it.

The sound design kind of annoys me though, after Bad Company i'm kind of spoiled by good sound effects. It's just that audio skipping in the starting gun is pretty noticeable.

How good is the AI at dealing with spreading fires? Have you noticed if they have any particular teamwork?

This review implies that the mercenaries you meet in the game aren't anything spectacular:

PC Gamer wrote:This isn't a perfect game. I have criticisms. I think the buddies are under-used. You can't, for instance, invite them to help you on tough tasks, nor do they appear outside of their carefully choreographed cameos at the end of a mission.

I'm an hour into the game about so i'm just figuring things out. Buddies do have "objectives" but, they're unforunantly scripted with the current mission. It's nothing really "bad", because your actions with them in those missions affect the future. It's just that it's nothing entirely new either.

The AI is back and forth with me. Watching them displace and abandon their positions when you set the field on fire behind them is interesting. They're surprisingly easy to lose though. I had been hoping attacking a base would make the AI really dog you and stalk your ass deep into the jungle.

Picking my copy up later today.

What system you playing on hawks? I will be getting the PC version.

Playstation 3. The idea of shorter load times was crucial in my decision of hardware?

Actually, it was because I need to get a good single player game on it that ISN'T Metal Gear.

I'm curious enough to play this; in particular I'm interested in the less-warm reception it's recieved compared to corridor strolling pieces of shit like Crysis. Hawks, can you talk a bit about the world? Is it broken into levels, separated by chokepoints, largely linear, etc?

Basically, 'how much like what STALKER should have been is the map'.

Stark wrote:I'm curious enough to play this; in particular I'm interested in the less-warm reception it's recieved compared to corridor strolling pieces of shit like Crysis. Hawks, can you talk a bit about the world? Is it broken into levels, separated by chokepoints, largely linear, etc?

Basically, 'how much like what STALKER should have been is the map'.

From what I've read online the only loading screen in the game is when you enter ala GTA 4.

Stark wrote:I'm curious enough to play this; in particular I'm interested in the less-warm reception it's recieved compared to corridor strolling pieces of shit like Crysis. Hawks, can you talk a bit about the world? Is it broken into levels, separated by chokepoints, largely linear, etc?

It started out with lots of canyons and that had me worried for a little bit, but it quickly opens up and gets a lot bigger. Looking at the map and exploring, the game is pretty comparable in size and terrain to Oblivion. It's no Flashpoint, but what is?

Their are two "levels" and each of them are about as big as Oblivion was anyway.

Basically, 'how much like what STALKER should have been is the map'.

It's waaaay better than Stalker's seperated "level worlds".

Now that I think about, watching the reviewers give this game lukewarm responces and then gush over Crysis: Warhead makes my head spin. Nobody ever said this game was perfect, but it's so superior to Crysis in every way I can't believe anyone would even bother to acknowledge Crysis' existence after this. Maybe it's because "Crytek" wasn't attached to the box?

CaptHawkeye wrote:Now that I think about, watching the reviewers give this game lukewarm responces and then gush over Crysis: Warhead makes my head spin. Nobody ever said this game was perfect, but it's so superior to Crysis in every way I can't believe anyone would even bother to acknowledge Crysis' existence after this. Maybe it's because "Crytek" wasn't attached to the box?

Amusingly Crysis Warhead was even MORE linear than Crysis and yet considerably better. Most likely because the amount of downtime where your just walking around was lower and your weapons more lethal allowing you to actually use your super powers.

Is there multitrons? I can snag it on the way home tonight and play a game of 'where are you on this huge map'!

Stark wrote:Is there multitrons? I can snag it on the way home tonight and play a game of 'where are you on this huge map'!

I am over at X15, come to me

*JSF Shot Stark's Head*

Good old useless STALKER multi.

It's a slow day so I've looked at a few FC2 reviews, and it's really strange. I mean, picking out a lack of dynamicness when compared to Crysis? Saying the NPCs aren't active enough... compared to Crysis? It boggles the mind.

I frigging love the degrading weapons and jamming. The coolest thing happened, a rocket from my RPG-7 turned out to be a dud right? So it's booster failed in flight and dropped to the ground about 10 feet in front of me, then the booster ignited and the rocket spun around on the ground until it blew up. Turns out my rocket launcher is recovered broken shit and I should get a new one.

Stark wrote:Is there multitrons? I can snag it on the way home tonight and play a game of 'where are you on this huge map'!

Yeh its got multitrons.

Class based, standard game modes.

Also, CARL GUSTAVS

I'll probably pick this up on the way home from work.

After reading about the setting fuck i'm glad they dropped the sci-fi bullshit. Far Cry was, IMO not too bad a game when you were running through the jungle, sneaking up on enemy positions, and basically wandering around the island. It was when the HORRIBLE GENETIC FREAKS show up that it turns into a bog standard corridor shooter, and I lost all interest from that point on.

If their open world is better than what the STALKER devs have been promising for god knows how long, I shall be greatly amused.

Flash wrote:I'll probably pick this up on the way home from work.

After reading about the setting fuck i'm glad they dropped the sci-fi bullshit. Far Cry was, IMO not too bad a game when you were running through the jungle, sneaking up on enemy positions, and basically wandering around the island. It was when the HORRIBLE GENETIC FREAKS show up that it turns into a bog standard corridor shooter, and I lost all interest from that point on.

If their open world is better than what the STALKER devs have been promising for god knows how long, I shall be greatly amused.

Dont forget the swarms of infinite ammo rocket launcher riot shield dudes.

I've been playing it and I do like it so far. It is more open ended than Crysis, and the faction mechanics do work pretty well. I don't know about the AI yet, so far the enemies seem pretty dumb and nothing to really call home about, but I'm not the kind to mind that much. The area isn't all that big, though, without counting the guard posts it probably takes about 10 minutes to drive from one side of the map to the other, but there's still plenty of space and different environments to fool around in. So, it's really fun to play, i'd definitely recommend it if you like shooters.

On the visuals, even though it's looks great it's not as good as Crysis with the exception of the grass and fire effects. It also somehow it fails to capture the sense of vastness Crysis has, i don't know if i can explain it very well, but it just looks smaller than Crysis even when you step into a big plain (And so far there don't seem to be many of those, i haven't explored the whole map yet, though). Also, most of the time it seems like you're driving inside small canyons or like you're surrounded by numerous tiny hills, so what you actually have a very limited line of sight, i guess they had to make compromises for performance or something. I don't know if you get to fly freely across the map at some point yet, that would be pretty cool.

Shogoki wrote:The area isn't all that big, though, without counting the guard posts it probably takes about 10 minutes to drive from one side of the map to the other

Ten minutes? Of driving? What other game requires ten minutes to get from one side of the other, and how is that a small number?

Have to ask: are the weapons moddable? Because I love to pimp out my favourite weapons with shit like laser pointers, flashlights, etc.

Joviwan wrote: Ten minutes? Of driving? What other game requires ten minutes to get from one side of the other, and how is that a small number?

Obvious comparison: Any of the Grand Theft Auto games.
Less obvious: The GTA inspired games, Mafia, Crackdown, Saint's Row, etc.

Hell, I'm not ready to be quoted on this, but now that i think about it the islands on Crysis and Warhead might be geographically bigger too, even though you can only reach certain places if you have a VTOL, there are stretches where you drive about as much as that continuously, (and faster too) it's just not the same as Far Cry 2, though.

I mean, they tout 50 square kilometers a lot but if you think about it it's about a 7x7 km area, which is by no means bad, but not precisely huge. It does feel a bit crammed, specially because most of the time you can't see further than a 100 meter radius because of all the tiny, tiny hills and canyons.

Are you saying it takes more than ten minutes to drive from one side of the other in any GTA game? This is actually not the case in any with the possible exception of SA in a crap car. Ten minutes is a long time when you're playing a game - Burnout Paradise is pretty large for a racing game, and it takes maybe 3 minutes tops to go from sone side to the other in a middling car. Not all games are like Sacred and Oblivion, where the world seems larger because transit speeds are so low.

Frankly, focusing on such a game-meaningless bullet-point is kinda what's wrong with gaming journalism. It's probably smaller than a vast number of games; so what? Do we say Freelancer sucks because it's smaller than Elite? Crysis can be as big as it wants, it still sucks (and Warhead was so much better by being smaller).

It's just hilarious to watch everybody nitpick the game to death. The official Ubi forums are full of idiot fanhards telling everyone not to buy the game and boycott Ubisoft because SOME areas of the map are canyon-ish. Never-fucking-mind that most of the missions take place in the savanna and rolling deserts OUTSIDE the canyons.

Remember how Shadow of the Collossus was advertised with "huge open enviornments" and everyone agreed? Playing the game, you see that for most of the map that's true, but their's PLENTY of SoC's map that is "canyons". In an ironic twist, most of SoC's missions take place IN those stupid linear canyons.

Listen, people think that Crysis wasn't a series of corridors and had excellent AI. These people are not good judges. I'm fascinated by the reception of FC2, to be honest - I still haven't played it, but both Flash and JSF are horrible cunts when it comes to games and they've got plenty of good things to say, whereas reviews are just bullet-point 'isn't exactly like this other game we really like' nonsense.

Playing through the game i've learned it's really kind of cruel to compare to other games. It's not like any other game out there, and it's not trying to be. Far Cry 2 is trying to be Far Cry 2. Not STALCRY or Farsis or even Grand Theft Zebra.

I will compare it's public responce to Assassin's Creed though. You remember that game Stark, the one everyone just loved abusing with some of the most blatent double standards?

I have to admit, I am quite enjoying FC2. And I say this as someone who, in general, is not a big fan of shooters.

First off, it looks the fucking business. It really does. I didn't play crysis (the demo bored the shit out of me), so i'm not going to get into a comparison there, but I think it looks awesome.

I like the map system of actually pulling out a map and a gps. Being able to tag stuff is great as well. The combat is intense, if somewhat difficult for me (i suck at shooters, sue me). Because of my craptacular skills with shooters I won't really comment on the AI either, but I will say that I haven't seen it do anything really stupid yet.

I do have some minor niggles though.

One - unlocking shit. I fucking hate this stunt in a game, especially when it comes to things like weapons. I'm a mercenary in some african shithole, but I can't get an AK? Sure, make the good stuff EXPENSIVE, but don't force me to jump through hoops. If i've got the cash, give me the stuff.

Two - I can see the malaria getting very old very quickly. It's a nice idea, but I can see it going pear shaped for one of two reasons. Either the pills will be easy to stockpile, thus making the concept an exercise in 'press the pill button to make the annoying graphic effect go away, but no real threat', or they will be scarce as fuck, making the game incredibly frustrating. Bear in mind that I haven't played long enough to gauge this yet though.

Three - the quickly respawning guard posts. Sure, they should be resupplied, but it should take longer than a few minutes.

I should stress that none of these are game breaking things however. I am still having a ball.