Some Far Cry 2 stuff

[Oscar Wilde]

The Malaria originally wasn't to bothersome, but fuck you, I want to do missions that drive the plot so I can be done with this bitch, not go to a house, get some passports, go to ANOTHER house and get my meds.


"You're on your own, even APR guys will shoot at you"

Then why the FUCK am I working for you?

[Stark]

LOL people who don't listen to the plot amuse me.

I hear there's no way out of the country and you're there to kill the Jackal? If only there was an intro to explain this stuff, lol.

[weemadando]

LOL people who don't listen to the plot amuse me.

I hear there's no way out of the country and you're there to kill the Jackal? If only there was an intro to explain this stuff, lol.

I think he's referring to the fact that no matter how much work you do with a faction or what you are doing at any given time, everyone wants you dead. It's just a cover for lazy programming IMO - "we can't be fucked implementing an AI that has a support state, so we'll just say that no one knows who you are working for..."

BUT WAIT - why is it that when I take a mission within 30 seconds all of my buddies/contacts are calling me up going: "mang, I hear you just started a big time black op, that's like so totally covert, lets hang out and I can mislead you with some bullshit."

[Stark]

Yeah, because you're a deniable asset and they have terrible opsec so they can't tell anyone or the point of your mission is to discredit someone by being non-aligned. Again, almost every mission briefing has them telling you literally that you get no help and their guys will shoot you too, so it really shouldn't be a surprise unless you're not paying attention. Maybe working as a non-uniformed soldier in an irregular militia in a chaotic civil war is dangerous? OH NOES TOO GAMEY NEED REALISM PLZ.

Frankly it's hilarious whining to assume it's lazy programming; maybe YOU'RE just lazy because you can't deal with a game as it is, rather than as you want it to be. The whole point of the game is that you're in a chaotic shithole doing terrible things for wankers you don't like (and who don't like you and constantly try to kill you) and you want your hand held and to grind for faction, thus totally missing this point. And oh no you don't like how bonus rounds are presented, game sucks lol.

It's awesome to me that nerds pick holes in average games for irrelevant or imaginary problems instead of very real mechanical problems (of which Far Cry 2 has many), but will lick shit out of the ass of games like Bioshock. Clearly FC2 didn't spend enough on marketing!

[weemadando]

Yeah, because you're a deniable asset and they have terrible opsec so they can't tell anyone or the point of your mission is to discredit someone by being non-aligned. Again, almost every mission briefing has them telling you literally that you get no help and their guys will shoot you too, so it really shouldn't be a surprise unless you're not paying attention. Maybe working as a non-uniformed soldier in an irregular militia in a chaotic civil war is dangerous? OH NOES TOO GAMEY NEED REALISM PLZ.

Frankly it's hilarious whining to assume it's lazy programming; maybe YOU'RE just lazy because you can't deal with a game as it is, rather than as you want it to be. The whole point of the game is that you're in a chaotic shithole doing terrible things for wankers you don't like (and who don't like you and constantly try to kill you) and you want your hand held and to grind for faction, thus totally missing this point. And oh no you don't like how bonus rounds are presented, game sucks lol.

It's awesome to me that nerds pick holes in average games for irrelevant or imaginary problems instead of very real mechanical problems (of which Far Cry 2 has many), but will lick shit out of the ass of games like Bioshock. Clearly FC2 didn't spend enough on marketing!

No Stark, I listen to the mission briefings and know that they are all deniable and shit like that, but it still pisses me off that no matter how much work you do for one faction they'll never ever actually accept you, or you know, stop shooting the piss out of you at a checkpoint. And also, like I said, if it's so super-fucking secret, why is it that every fucking ex-pat merc wanker out there seems to know exactly what fucking mission I'm doing and can call me up to chat about it. And yes, I know that it's a game mechanic, but they could have at least written that a bit better.

[Eleas]

Huh? Where?

My mistake; being fucked in the head as I was/am, I seized upon your use of the word "immersion" and didn't place it in its proper context. Sorry for putting words in your mouth.

[CaptHawkeye]

So, how many pseudo-critic dudes here really liked Crysis and Far Cry 1? How about Bioshock?

It's interesting to watch people nitpick Far Cry 2 like mad...and then compare it to other FPS games. Yet many of these same people will later complain about the stagnation of the game industry because "no one takes chances anymore".

[chitoryu12]

On terms of stealth, it sometimes seems absolutely random. Sometimes I can snipe three guys with a dart rifle and sneak by the rest without them even turning around. But then I was going to do an assassination in the old Foreign Legion fort in the northeast, and I macheted someone in the back while he was on patrol, and suddenly everyone in the fort knew where I was. Keep in mind this was on the way up to the fort, so you couldn't even see us from the fort past the rock walls and boulders, yet they still somehow heard it. Apparently, all Africans and mercenaries have Superman's hearing, and can not only hear a man getting stabbed in the back and his short gasp of death from a hundred yards away, but discern the exact location as well.

[Zixinus]

So, how many pseudo-critic dudes here really liked Crysis and Far Cry 1? How about Bioshock?

Far Cry 1: Not bad, but I felt that it was over-hyped. The game was very frustrating due to its lack of quick-saving. I had to play the last part with cheats. I might fair better with it now, but meh. Can't be bothered.

Crysis: Interesting idea, especially with the suit. Actually gave you something unique. I liked it, played it several times but I think the game was too linear in progression. There was this very hasted sense of story to it, like it was added as an afterthought. I mostly ignored it and focused on the gameplay. Warhead was better, yeah, although the developers still need to learn that they are making a story for a video game, not a movie. But, meh.

Bioshock: Being someone that played the original System Shock (one and two), I can sum it up in one sentance: SS2's gameplay dumbed down for console tards, yet still shown allot of promise. The story tied in well though. The plasmids were also cool, but I've seen something far more interesting done with Dark Messiah.

Problem is with the game industry that it's geared towards technical archivement and allows only minor or gimmicky changes in gameplay, not daring to make something completely new. Most games are "Like [insert big-selling game title here] BUT IT HAS [insert gimmicky or broken mechanic here]".

I'd like to paraphrase something I've read in some magazine. Modern business grave innovation, making something old new again, not invention. Innovation is refurbishing, while invention is making something from scrap. Invention may be difficult to sell but innovation is just polishing something that's already there.
You will find many business marketing to focus on the word "innovative" but will avoid the word "inventive". Business doesn't know what to do with something new, that would require some honest-to-god thinking.

[Kaiser Caesar]

So, how many pseudo-critic dudes here really liked Crysis and Far Cry 1? How about Bioshock?

I'd like to paraphrase something I've read in some magazine. Modern business grave innovation, making something old new again, not invention. Innovation is refurbishing, while invention is making something from scrap. Invention may be difficult to sell but innovation is just polishing something that's already there.
You will find many business marketing to focus on the word "innovative" but will avoid the word "inventive". Business doesn't know what to do with something new, that would require some honest-to-god thinking.

A portion of the problem also lies with people who play video games themselves, who the majority of the time would rather play it safe and go with generic fps #452 rather then try something semi-new. Although this is understandable, it has to the current situation, where instead of trying to do something new, they play it safe and steal somethings off from each other (ex. Game 1 has "strategic targeting" allowing you to target certain parts of the enemies body/structure to damage them in certain ways. Game 1 is a financial and critical success, and, all of a sudden, the whole market is saturated with the exact same game play mechanic, only called "tactical dismemberment", "tactical aiming", etc).

[weemadando]

To respond to the "psuedo-critic" stuff.

Far Cry 1 - I'd give it a 8/10, mostly for technical achievement. But the lack of a decent save system and the stupidness of the latter levels would probably push it to a 7/10

Crysis - I've only played the first few levels of it so can't really pass judgement, but it feels like a 7/10 for similar reasons to above - amazing technical achievement, but I worry where it's going.

Bioshock - I played the demo and loved it. Then I picked it up and yeah, a look at my Gamercard would tell you the rest. I got up to the medical facility and haven't played since. It's still on my "to play" list, but it just didn't feel compelling enough. Especially given the hype.

Far Cry 2 - A damn fun game. There's a lot of gripes/niggles, but there's nothing in there that's actually killing the experience for me, just making me go: "geez, wouldn't it be better if..." Like I said in my original post, I'm still playing it to the exclusion of nearly everything else.

[Commander 598]

So, how many pseudo-critic dudes here really liked Crysis and Far Cry 1? How about Bioshock?

FC1 - Was just another FPS but with vaguely more foliage and land area than normal...and then large quantities of the giant rapid fire rocket sniping damage sponge trigens appeared and ruined everything. It's almost as if they said: "Hey guys, we have an engine that can do a decent jungle environment, large maps, and decent AI, so lets do everything in our power to not use any of them to any meaningful extent. Sure, we could probably make some cool immersive level where you're being hunted by some stealthy animal like trigen, but lets have a bunch of Schwarzenegger clones with rocket launchers for arms and make them able to soak more damage than should be even remotely believable instead." Also, I'm pretty sure I had already been playing OFP on a daily basis at the time so FC1's fairly small and linear maps were fairly obvious to me.

Crysis - Advertised large jungle environments, impressive AI, and PHYSICS.. We got MG sniper patrol boats, unimpressive AI, extremely pretty yet linear maps of not really spectacular size, and physics that seemed to work properly for me in the demo. Still entertaining however.

Bioshock - Only played the demo. Seemed vaguely immerse and entertaining but nothing really WOW worthy.

Of course, I rather liked FC2...could've been a bit better, but I still found it pretty entertaining.

[Stark]

No Stark, I listen to the mission briefings and know that they are all deniable and shit like that, but it still pisses me off that no matter how much work you do for one faction they'll never ever actually accept you, or you know, stop shooting the piss out of you at a checkpoint. And also, like I said, if it's so super-fucking secret, why is it that every fucking ex-pat merc wanker out there seems to know exactly what fucking mission I'm doing and can call me up to chat about it. And yes, I know that it's a game mechanic, but they could have at least written that a bit better.

Maybe I gave the game too much credit, but I actually enjoyed the theme of Africa being full of European war profiteers encouraging local enmities into chaotic warfare to no benefit (generally the massive detriment of the people) employing loose-cannon mercenaries they can barely control etc etc. Of course you can't make friends with them; they're psychotic ganglords or soulless mercenaries! That Dutch guy in particular spends the game a) making heaps of money and b) barely escaping constant death in the ever-swirling world of conflicting loyalties, brutality and profit. He works with you, not because 'you're friends awww' but rather because you're useful to him in his quest for security and money. This might even be the whole goddamn point of the Jackal and his retarded OMG GON SHOW YOU HUMAN NATURE silliness. Isn't his name even VOORHEES? JASON VOORHEES? From Friday the 13th? lol!

I can't believe you can complain about the guys phoning you up for bonus missions and not the 'arms shipments' that drive in circles around an airport until you blow them up, EVEN IF YOU BLOW UP ALL THEIR ESCORTS FIRST. WRT stealth, it seems from experimentation that once they 'see' you (btw camoflage and tree-cover doesn't seem to work) they 'know' where you are magically, but if you keep them looking the other way or terrain between you they can get confused. Lategame when you've got the camo suit, hiding in bushes etc does absolutely nothing. Finished game?

It frankly disgusts me that anyone would rate games like FC and Crysis '7/10 for technical achievement' (ps that's meaningless with regard to how good the game is) when they're such horribly broken games. Oh well. Man I wanna hijack this thread to talk about Bioshock now; my replacement 360 came with one of the very early trailers for Bioshock (the first-person perspective one that is 100% pre-rendered and nothing to do with the actual game) and I'm thrilled by the idea that someone found the demo 'immersive' when it was 'walk down corridor, shoot man'. Is that what everyone else's life is like?

[CaptHawkeye]

What's this "technical achievement" bullshit? Is that just lame-talk for "I can't actually think of anything useful to say about this game. Oh look normal mapping."

That wee found the Bioshock demo compelling enough to buy the game? Fucking...how? It's walk down a corridor, experience the game's one and only flooding event that's totally scripted, then kill a guy with a wrench. Wow immersive.

[Stark]

I think it means 'Far Cry had a big map and was otherwise a totally ordinary, 100% linear Half-life shooter that even stole the story, 7/10'. Cry Engine... the engine so advanced nobody used it because UE2.0 was better! Where's UT2k4's 'technical achievement' award? Oh, it's just efficient, scalable, modular, simple to develop for and constantly supported. WHO CARES ABOUT THAT SHIT.

[CaptHawkeye]

Nobody Stark! Where is your game's corporate media hype engine? They're a god damned necessity. How else are you going to make last years games this year's "revolutionary experience" (insert other marketing buzzwords)? Just look at how good a job EA did at convincing people they needed to buy Mirror's Edge because roof jumpers did not exist before it. What's Assassin's Creed?

Holy shit, I just remembered, when Assassin's Creed came out, it was subject to endless nitpicking as well! Meanwhile "Mirror's Edge stupid controls, non existent AI, claustrophobic linearity, but cool looking buildings excellent tech achievement 7/10".

[Zixinus]

A portion of the problem also lies with people who play video games themselves, who the majority of the time would rather play it safe and go with generic fps #452 rather then try something semi-new. Although this is understandable, it has to the current situation, where instead of trying to do something new, they play it safe and steal somethings off from each other (ex. Game 1 has "strategic targeting" allowing you to target certain parts of the enemies body/structure to damage them in certain ways. Game 1 is a financial and critical success, and, all of a sudden, the whole market is saturated with the exact same game play mechanic, only called "tactical dismemberment", "tactical aiming", etc).

I think its because how targeted marketing shapes the audience. Since most companies don't want to lose investors, they aim for games that are safe to sell, based on previous games. Do this enough, and expectations change. When you played mostly FPSs your life, you will be more reluctant to play an MMORPG or the like.

[Stark]

Mirror's Edge gets 9/10 for 'art design'. It's one of the best games of the year because of 'art design'. Not even graphics - the DESIGN of the graphics.

And people wonder why I ignore reviews.

Anyway I'm actually pretty sad that I can't get back into FC2; it was fun to blow shit up, but I can't play it for more than five minutes before getting bored. You get the highend guns way too early and they make the game too easy (and the bad guys scale so now everyone's got 50 cals and RPGs yay).

[CaptHawkeye]

I don't think i'd mind "FPS #3412 now with death camera"...if they didn't price it like a full game. It will always be like that though. The industry doesn't give rewards for even attempting innovation. The money only comes if a game strikes big like a Hollywood Blockbuster. That means the companies are dominated by demographic charts, not by "we had a cool game idea once." As it is, they've got their little status quo and the consumers aren't showing any movement away from it.

EDIT: Responce to Zix post. Too lazy to hit 'quote' today.

[Zixinus]

I think this segment with an interview with Al Lowe sums up the status que rather nicely.

Then I’d show them the game and our ideas and do our pitch. Their responses would be, “That’s the first game I’ve seen in months that I would actually play myself.” And “It’s amazing. You’ve done things I’ve never seen before.” And other wonderful compliments.

But a week later we’d call and they’d say, “We’re not interested.” When I asked, “Why?” they’d say, “Because we can’t find any comparables. There’s no game like it on the market and therefore we don’t know if it’s going to sell or not. We can’t give you any money because the way we fund projects is by guessing that a game’s going to be a little bit better than some other game, so it might sell a little bit more than that other one, but not as much as this one. Since there are no other games like yours, we can’t tell if it’s going to sell or not.”

It was really frustrating. We shut the company down, sent everybody home, and I retired again. It was sad. And you wonder why the game business today is so non-creative? When people base decisions only on previous products, all you’ll ever get are products that are like previous products.

http://noisetosignal.org/2008/10/the-nt ... ew-al-lowe

Back in the day, game companies could afford to throw out an experimental game because its potential loss was affordable and offset by selling other, successful games. Game development didn't take 100+ member teams back than, it was about 15-30 not counting the testers.

You have to organise that many people, which means management, and pay these people and so on.

Games now cost 10+ million dollars to make because the amount of work that goes into all the graphical newances, purchasing all the tools, the audio work, getting the teams gather enough source material (FC2's little savanna trip was unlikely to have been cheap), etc.

Change will only occur when the whole thing cannot work the way they are anymore.

Of course, you might argue that with the slow rise of the indie scene and possibly EA's change of policy (yes, Mirror's Edge is shit, but its not an awful sequel).

As for "technical archivement" : that's when you know that the reviewer is bribed, one way or another.

[TheMuffinKing]

So, how many pseudo-critic dudes here really liked Crysis and Far Cry 1? How about Bioshock?

It's interesting to watch people nitpick Far Cry 2 like mad...and then compare it to other FPS games. Yet many of these same people will later complain about the stagnation of the game industry because "no one takes chances anymore".

I loved the first Far Cry. I thought it was awesome, though I also felt that it took too many pages from Halo with the genetic supermonkeys/Flood creatures. I suppose it was just coincidence that they introduced totally alien monsters part way through both games. Hmm about that, I was getting tired of fighting mercs exclusively though... Now that I think of it, I liked FC1 batter than 2.

[Stark]

What? The FC1 plot was just HL1 with different names. What was Flood-like about mutant monkeys? They were even individually dangerous, something not true of the Flood.

You kinda proved everyone's point though; you prefer a totally bog-standard shooter with zero ai, zero innovation, worst vehicles in any game until Crysis and PRETEND FLEXIBLITY over a game that actually lets you sandbox fights (and then ruins it with guardpost respawns). Why would anyone do anything other than reskin Doom with players like you around?

[Mr Bean]

What? The FC1 plot was just HL1 with different names. What was Flood-like about mutant monkeys? They were even individually dangerous, something not true of the Flood.

HL-1? Half-Life? No wait you mean Halo 1? What the fuck Stark, get back on the agreed on short hand for games. Besides it's fucking Halo, you saved two letters and managed to confused people, good job Captain Fail.


On another note Farcry was fun it was great, until about half way into the game. I hate the damn mutant apes You hate the mutant apes, everyone hated them. Everyone hates the magic guard posts, they are a part of the game that is not required. The Guard posts are tolerable, I learned to just breeze past them or dodge around in Mercenaries I/II and you do the same in this one. Or mod them away.
That was not an option in Farcry because the monkies like the Flood were part of the damn game, you can't mod them away, they are the game after a certain point.

[Stark]

No, I mean Half-life. What does the plot for FC1 have to do with Halo? No super soldier, no aliens, no AI, no find the Captain, no kill all aliens, just mutant apes in Jurassic Park OH NO THEY GOT OUT HOW SURPRISING.

And yeah, I stopped playing shortly after you get to the part where the whole game is killing mutant apes outside when chopper loads of rocket-firing mercs cruise around. Ugh. Even the 'lure the hit team through the door and headshot them all with yout G36' was better than that.

[TheMuffinKing]

What? The FC1 plot was just HL1 with different names. What was Flood-like about mutant monkeys? They were even individually dangerous, something not true of the Flood.

You kinda proved everyone's point though; you prefer a totally bog-standard shooter with zero ai, zero innovation, worst vehicles in any game until Crysis and PRETEND FLEXIBLITY over a game that actually lets you sandbox fights (and then ruins it with guardpost respawns). Why would anyone do anything other than reskin Doom with players like you around?

I wasn't trying to point out that they were'nt flood like, just that the developer went the route of introducing monsters partways through the game, just like many others. Halo just came to mind first. Funny you should mention Doom, I played no less than four versions of Doom and loved it. There is a lot of room for innovation, I agree with you, but the economics of gaming don't seem to allow this and honestly if they could do something innovative and especially fun, I'd play it. IMHO sandbox games can be lots of fun, but so can linear shooters. Developers and marketing who hype up their latest CoD4 clone can eat dicks though.