StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Obviously not serious. :V

However, FC3 really suffers from trying to respond to criticisms of the second game. It goes back to the amazingly bland south pacific setting with yet more japanese bunkers and polynesians who need a white person to lead them. It doesn't have checkpoints at all, instead having outposts that project a zone of EVIL GUY SPAWNING, and those outposts are never retaken. The subtle storytelling and powerful themes of the previous game are replaced with pretty offensive stereotyping and an unwillingness to actually follow through on any of the ideas.

And lets not even MENTION the totally retarded advertising. Fans of INSANE LOL can rest assured they have already seen everything 'funny' or 'cool' Vaas does in the entire game.

On the other hand, when you put aside the
Spoiler story, the stuff they added to the formula often works well. Sadly, there's always a downside.

The game area is larger, but it doesn't feel it. Much of the map is deadspace and never successfully hits that note of versimilitude FC2 did. As you clear outposts and use fast travel, the size of the map becomes even less relevant.

The weapons have more variety and flexiblity, but its just Blops powered by Yak kidneys. Buying weapons is unnecessary because you get them free as you open up the map, and thus money becomes largely useless. There are signature weapons unlocked by doing xyz collectables, and they're massively superior to the weapons you can upgrade and render those weapons useless. There is no weapon degradation and you can use any outpost to sway weapons. Weapon slots are limited by how upgraded your shoulder strap is with dingo guys (no really) so things like the flaregun and repair tool don't sit in a nice niche the way they could have.

The hunting is kind of neat, but its not any more complex than 'go to spot, shoot animal with rocket launcher, cut out random bit of flesh, make new wallet'. By the time you hit halfway through the story (or the third mission if you're like me) you'll have gathered everything you need to upgrade everything to max and you'll never even look at an animal again.

But saddest of all is the gunplay. It's very low lethality, the stealth elements are amazingly overpowered, and heaps of the cool stuff you can do is locked by story until midgame. Its at its best when you're knifing guys and throwing knives and rigging grenades, but this isn't possible for hours and hours of 'put pixel on head pixel and shoot' blandness. The great kinetic feel and comical dialog is gone; no more can you shoot a guy with a pistol, have him fall down, complain about the battallion that must be out there, and then desperately reload before his friends flank you. Much of this is because the spotting mechanic now identifies and shows on a minimap the location of badguys, which hurts the tension overall. Of course, rolling into an outpost and killing everyone is fun, but there are like 25 outposts in the game, and clearing them means badguys never spawn anywhere ever.

Outside of missions.

Which are terrible.

Has anyone else played this? Everyone I know waited to ask me if it was worth it, and I can't in conscience recommend it.

But Stark are the factions identifiably different on the map?! Because that is what ruined fc2!

I was actually going to ask you this morning. I won't get a chance to play it till February, but disappointed to hear that they abandoned so much of what was good in the previous game. To be fair it does sound like a lot of the balance issues have carried over - weapons jamming was also an interesting mechanic in two that became totally irrelevant a quarter of the way through the game, and the awesome ideas and themes got sold out totally in the final act.

Figured since nobody seemed to understand the things that made Far Cry 2 fun vs. the things that didn't they were going to fuck up the sequel. I mean when you're dealing with people who's biggest complaint about FC2 was that the guns didn't have mods what else did anyone expect?

The factions make basically zero sense now; the evil pirates (later tactical private army) rules the islands and the poor Polynesians just want to live in peace (except for all the AKs). However they will need do anything until you cap an outpost at which point they'll roll up in jeeps and say 'haha I did this'. The far more numerous and better equipped pirates never counter attack because ... People complained.

The saddest part is that ENEMIES become scarce by midgame. Once ou cap an outpost there is literally no reason to ever go to that part of the map because there's nobody to kill. The spawn zones apps mess up missions and such when a jeep load of peaceful natives rolls up on some bad guys and starts a huge fight.

The idea of releasing tigers inside outposts to kill people is great. That they play a pounce animation without moving and a guy on the other side of the base dies is not cool.

Maybe if you finish it there's a reset function so you can tool around forever like in FC2 having a blast, but I couldn't handle it anymore. GW2 is better anyway lol.

Would "If you didn't like Far Cry 2 you will like Far Cry 3 and vice versa" an accurate summation then?

Probably not. Unless you like playing games where nothing ever happens.

aieeegrunt wrote:Would "If you didn't like Far Cry 2 you will like Far Cry 3 and vice versa" an accurate summation then?

Can you explain the thought process behind this question, because I re-read my posts and I don't understand where you're coming from.

Well "...FC3 really suffers from trying to respond to criticisms of the second game..." kind of gave me that impression.

I played Far Cry 2 for a bit, but sort of lost interest. I can't really put my finger on what it was about that game that didn't draw me in. I liked the combat and stuff. It just sort of felt like the game itself wasn't really going anywhere, clearing a road block and have it be reoccupied five minutes later gave the game a sort of Sisyphus feel of never actually accomplishing anything.

I thought perhaps Far Cry 3 would be a good buy. I've liked the previews and stuff I've seen so far. I'm bored with Halo 4 already. The opportunity cost for getting Far Cry 3 would be a fucking killer vintage meerschaum pipe though.

What you should take away from that statement is that FC3 made bad decisions based on criticisms of FC2. That doesn't mean its a mirror-universe FC2; it just means its a poorly-designed response to ignorant outcry.

Do you like games where the world becomes progressively smaller and less interesting as you go along? Just Cause 2, Crackdown, etc? Shooters with nobody to shoot?

Ok, I'm loving the game, but hating parts of it.

1) Immersion is shit. What happened to the awesome "no UI" of Far Cry 2, with its handheld maps and the like? At least the coming patch will allow us to turn off UI elements.

2) Outposts are nice combat puzzles, but once you clear an area that map becomes sterile fast. Can we at least get some more random encounters or base defence missions? The checkpoints in 2 had grown on me and I kind of miss them.

3) Radio towers are cool. Nice unique traversal puzzles each time.

4) No buddies. Boo.

5) Traditional death mechanic. Boo.

6) Holy fuck that racist, stupid story. Don't worry ancient warrior culture, the white man with save you. Also, to show how respectful of your culture I am, I'm going to loot all your shrines and temples of their offerings and saleable artifacts.

7) Animals. They are the best. I love the random shit that happens with them. And crocs. Fucking crocs. They do good jump scares.

The menus. In menus. In menus. In menus. In menus. In menus. In menus. In menus. In menus. It's fucking absurd and a horror to navigate.

Overall I am really digging it and loving wandering around this vaguely hostile landscape, but some of the issues I'm having with the design and story stop me from loving it as much as I did 2.

What's really getting at me is that the game is a complete about-face in themes (specifically racism) and everyone is giving it higher scores than FC2 in that department.

I guess people just prefer in-your-face mustache twiddling villainy of Vaz to the Jackal's subtle criticisms of western hypocrisy.

Vas is a cool villain, well written and acted in a 80s action film kind of way. You also see him regularly, unlike The Jackal, which makes it easier for the devs to make him a "better" character.

aieeegrunt wrote:I played Far Cry 2 for a bit, but sort of lost interest. I can't really put my finger on what it was about that game that didn't draw me in. I liked the combat and stuff. It just sort of felt like the game itself wasn't really going anywhere, clearing a road block and have it be reoccupied five minutes later gave the game a sort of Sisyphus feel of never actually accomplishing anything.

Congratulations, that Sisyphus feeling is the entire point of Far Cry 2's story.

I missed it the first time I tried to play it too.

Silly me, I thought Vaas was a cynical Borderlands rip that exists solely to be 'insane' and 'funny' and drive the plot by being a drugfucked imbecile and provide yet more cheap sexual drama.

He barely exists as a character and the only thing he does that impacts on the player is fail (sorry twist ending). The Jackal was a constant presence giving the game context, had a philosophy and wasn't driving the action anyway.

Guess I should have stopped at 'HA HA HE'S SO CRAZY LOL AWESOME'. Lets talk about all the other failure characters too, like the CIA guy that nearly gave the game a point but nope needed more drug sex cutscenes.

Vaas is one dimensional, but he's regularly in the players face and directly impacting them. The Jackal you encounter in person only a few times in Far Cry 2, but his impact is everywhere.

The Jackal is a far superior antagonist as he has actual depth, but Vaas is certainly a "fun" one, like every crazy top henchman throughout the 80s.

But seriously, replace Vaas with a talking Cassowary and that game becomes 1000000x better.

*edit* the point is I didn't say Vaas was a better character, but can understand why people think he's a good villain.

Regularly = 3 cutscenes, all but one of which were trailers? Are we counting his hilarious sister fucking appearances in drug hallucinations?

PS he isn't even a villain! Not in this game, or in some imaginary game. He's a victim of the actual villain, who wasn't in the trailers because he's DEAD FUCKING BORING, just like the last half of the game.

OK, I'm still on the first island, so Vaas has been my regular tormentor.

Well, to be fair, crocodiles have been my regular tormentor because I'm yet to fucking learn that making my escape by diving into that brackish water is a poor idea.

But mang, do I have some nice shoes.

I see a trend of "insane" villains lately. Maybe because everyone liked Heath Ledger and now every villain should be a raving lunatic psycho murderer?

I like FC3 more than FC2. Quite frankly, the story in FC2 wasn't bad, it was just totally meh. No reason whatsoever for the main character to stay in country and work for the double crossing assholes.

Now, story in FC3 is totally silly. It's like a childhood fantasy of becoming a commando and saving your facebook pals from imminent death. And then like's all around. Thing is, the main character is driven by something meaningful other than malaria and that is much more important to me than a map you hold in your in-game hand rather than switching to a separate screen. So, suspend the disbelief of silliness and you will have a good time.

If you like games where there is inevitably nobody to shoot, sure!

It's sad people can talk ago things largely irrelevant (like the asinine and offensive story of empowerment through doing as your told and taking drugs) and not the fundamental flaws in the game. The game wasn't even a rental for me for a year because Vaas is such a snore, and then they released trailers showing exploration, hunting, etc. Unfortunately, the exploration is 'bee line to radio tower 18 times' and the hunting is irrelevant after three hours and amazingly terrible anyway. The outposts (which result in the game being devoid of bad guys) are the only interesting fights, and that's only if you decide to intentionally not use stealth which results in trivial victories in five minutes or less.

I'm even reminded that because of whining almost no vehicles in the game have guns, which means a carload of reinforcements isn't a threat; it's an opportunity to get a 4-kill achievement.

Since its like Crackdown or Just Cause 2, only both those games have better combat, what is there to recommend this game over any other? The large map (which is game-meaningless because you fast travel and simply ignore the parts that don't spawn guys)? The tepid weapon upgrading which is literally the only thing to send money on (god knows nobody can spare a wallet)? The 'hunting' (fast travel to deer, throw grenades at deer, cut out deer liver)?

If you wanted to hunt in a Ubisoft game you'd be better off playing AssCreed 3 anyway :v

You know after hearing Stark describe the protagonist of Sleeping Dogs a bunch of times, I'm wondering if their is some audience of the video game industry that likes to imagine themselves as racist douche bags because they can't act that way in life. Or at least in SD's case, seeing their ingrained stereotypes and prejudices confirmed.

You could argue it's just an anti-hero thing, but the critical factor in a lot of so called anti-heroes is that they are not actually bad people.

Stark wrote:If you like games where there is inevitably nobody to shoot, sure!

Ultimately it doesn't really matter: once you liberate a checkpoint it becomes a fast travel point, so manual travel isn't needed no more, you just click wherever is near your waypoint and instantly port there. So you don't meet any enemies anyway. But that's the equivalent of healing a tumor on your finger by cutting off the entire arm.

What I am really disappointed about though is that the whole territorial mechanic is so shallow. Once you liberate the map, the only opponents to shoot are moved to another dimension you miraculously access when starting a pre-scripted mission?

I wish, that for once, game devs went a little more farther than what forum whining oblige them to. Checkpoints are a good example. Almost everybody hated them in FC2 and Ubisoft responded to criticism... by allowing to take the checkpoints... once. Of course, with such a strong pirate activity on the islands, it begs the question of "why don't they try to retake it?". If this was a serious issue on the forums, I bet in FC4 they added... counterattack instances. Which of course would probably be immensely stupid because they would force you to drop whatever the hell you are doing and travel to some other part of the map just to kill some random mercs shooting at your random natives (sort of like GTAIV friend activities). After a 10th counterattack, the player would be annoyed and whining on the forums, while ubisoft devs wondered "what went wrong?"

Instead, why not implement a basic strategy layer? Manage and organize defences so you don't need to be present each time there is a counterattack. Also, since supposedly this is a war, make the checkpoints stronger and more susceptible to decisive counterattacks when the distance to the main HQ decreases. That would make an impression of an actual war. Jagged Alliance 2 did good in that respect, since you could never feel safe, but at the same time you didn't have to micromanage each raid on one of your cities/mines.

I think the biggest problem of this game though is that there is no predesigned pace of action. Once you get on the sandbox map, you can basically unlock EVERYTHING, capture EVERYTHING and liberate the whole damn place without doing a single mission. Which is just stupid, because then you are just left without any opponents. Alternatively, you can skip the capture/challenge system and just concentrate on missions, but then you are missing out on a big chunk of the game. So, if you want to enjoy exploration, by midgame you might run out of things to do.

So far, I've been able to pace the game myself and balance capturing/missions so there is still something interesting to do - and I am having a blast. But somebody should tell Ubisoft that it's also their job to pace the action in a game, maybe lock out some portions of the map, or make the enemies too strong to approach some places before reaching a given level... so that you synchronize sandbox activities with missions.

What motivates people to defend a poorly designed game, and even indulge in page-long pipe dreams obviously outside the scope of the project or ability of the team involved? Why not just shrug and say 'game sucks because of poor design'? Players should pace themselves even though everything about the structure of the game drives destroying the fun (gotta open the map to get free guns, gotta do outposts to finish unlocks, oops game broken). Clearly this isn't an obvious design failure motivated by idiots who whined about FC2. Just play it 'properly'.

It blows me away Ando can use terms like UNIQUE TRAVERSAL when he's on the first island where each tower takes maybe 45s because they're all totally linear. At least in the second island the totally linear and obvious path occasionally doubles back (on the other side of the tower so as not to confuse idiots). The only entertainment I had was crushing some guards with a handbrake turn. Never mind, by second island you're even stealthier and don't have to worry about pesky 'enemies'!

Even while being designed badly by morons to please fat people, the game could easily be saved. If each outpost created a small area of Polynesian spawn rather than removing the badguys, the outpost wouldn't empty the map, it'd create entertaining factional warfare, whole still providing the fast travel and quests required by the stupid MMO-lite structure. It wouldn't even break the story by having the islands actually be totally empty of pirates and tactical privateers while the story pretends they aren't.

Yes, I just fixed FC3. Is it that easy? Or am I just a better game designer than all of Ubi? You decide.

It sounds logical to me, but I wonder how it is that we can "fix" games so easily and yet these devs cannot.

Sturgeon's law, mass market appeal as determined by suits and people having terrible taste?