Far Cry 2 Review They should call it Grand Theft Auto: Africa ^.^

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Far Cry 2.... I'd heard it was coming out, but never really followed it unless they had a video preview on ActionTrip... Well I was at Best Buy with my girlfriend and saw it, and did a quick search at the Verizon kiosk they had in there (connected to the internet) and saw it was getting really good reviews, so I picked it up.Never buy a game based on the reviews on Best Buy's website I'll start with the "bad news" first... This game doesn't bring to the table everything that was originally promised. They said everything was going to be highly destructable, and whatnot... basically Crysis but better. Well, in this review, you are going to see how it compares to Crysis as well as many other games. I'm not going to get into the DRM like everyone is complaining about. I've had no problems.Some good news before I begin... This game is FUN.On with the review:Getting home with my new game, I did another quick lookup on Amazon to see what other people said, and found that 99% of the people hate the game due to many different annoyances.... I will cover most of these.Let's cover graphics.:Graphics:Far Cry 2 is visually stunning with all the display options turned up on Ultra. Environmentally, the game makes you feel like you are right in the middle of Africa, to the forest areas to the dry sandy desert... there's never been a game that's done an environment like this before. The map is huge, and comparable to Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Why is Far Cry 2 better? No loading when entering buildings... No loading at all unless you are using the "bus" or sleeping (or, of course, loading your savegame).... Yes, none of that annoying jitteryness, the game runs smoooth.Why is Far Cry 2 better than Crysis? I can run Far Cry 2 on full Ultra and my computer doesn't cry Seriously, of all things, I am most impressed by the fact that this game actually runs well on the PC. I picked up STALKER: Clear Sky and absolutely could NOT run it until I found tweaks online and turned off all the graphics.... Far Cry 2 runs great out of the box, and the view distance causes no slowdowns at all. Very steady framerate.:Audio:Far Cry 2 has excellent audio. The ambient bugs and wind and animal noises make you feel like you are there. The guns have distinct sounds and seem realistic and solid. The one thing I am not nuts about is the music. It seems like anytime you are spotted, the same fast paced music picks up and it is getting annoying... BUT if it weren't for that music, I would have been dead sooo many times just because you never hear them coming most of the time unless they shout out something (the enemies, that is). People say that there is something wrong with the voice acting being too fast, but I haven't really had that problem, or if I do, it's not noticable. Don't know what's up with that, but it's fine to me.:Gameplay:Ah, this is where the people start to complain. First off, the biggest complaint right now that I can see is the fact that guards respawn almost within minutes of killing everyone. You go in, wipe out an entire airfield, and you go back 2 minutes later (sometimes they spawned right in front of my eyes, which SUCKS) and the are all back like nothing happened. Nothing is permanent. Oblivion is better because if you drop a book on the ground, and go back there 20 days later, the book is still there (might not be totally realistic, but....). With Far Cry 2, you are basically just always on your toes because guards are constantly spawning around you... Even traveling on the road, a random patrol will come up from virtually nowhere and if you don't get out of the way, they will spot you and attack...Which leads to another thing... Other than the center city area, everyone and their grandmother is trying to kill you. It's like playing Hitman 2 while running, they must hate the sight of your character for some reason... Now with protected areas, I can understand shooting first and asking questions later, but it seems like in every town and checkpoint, they just want you dead, while leaving everyone else alone....Now I don't feel so bad about shooting people and stealing their cars... Yes, this game is like playing GTA in Africa haha. There are piece of crap cars parked all around that are free for the taking. Or if you're wandering in the desert and see a random patrol, you can snipe or otherwise kill the driver of a very nice Jeep and drive off with it. Damage of vehicles sucks. Rather than wonderful location based damage they had in Crysis or GTA or any other modern day game with cars, they have a general "health" of the vehicle, dictated by smoke coming out of the radiator... How do you fix your car? Go to the hood, and hit the action key to "wind it up" and it's as good as new... So you basically take a socket wrench and screw something, and suddenly the fact that you just smashed your new (stolen) jeep into a tree suddenly doesn't matter anymore!To be fair, that's more realistic than standing next to the vehicle with a wrench waving it in the air like in Battlefield 2, and having it get repaired, but I expected more from this game...Another thing that irks me is that there is no "gore" on people... When you shoot them, you see a cartoonish spray of blood, but no bullet wounds or cuts if you whack them with a machete :\As far as missions go... they follow suit of any Open World games, where you have the main mission you can follow, and also side quests.... The side quests remind me of the side quests from Assassin's Creed. There are many different types, but they are all the same... For instance: if you get a mission from a gun dealer, it's always to blow up a transport truck... That's it. It's in a different location, but it's always the same convoy you have to blow up. Likewise, if you go to these radio towers to get your mission, it's always an assassination of the same character model (a guy in a business suit... it's never different).One good thing is the way the map is set up, where you never take a pause to look at a map, but rather it comes up in your hand with a GPS location device. Really handy. The GPS comes with a green light that blinks when a suitcase of diamonds is nearby... There are something like 268 diamond cases in the game, so it's a bit like collecting the horseshoes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Diamonds are the currency in the world, and are rather "rare." Each diamond briefcase has at least 1 or at most 3 diamonds in it. So for 7-10 cases you find, you can buy a gun, though there are guns all over the savanna. The difference, though, is that when you buy guns, they are brand new and not prone to breaking or locking up... When you steal an enemy gun, it's usually old and rusty, and prone to breaking... And after awhile it will literally explode on you and you'll have to find another one.Vehicles.... There are cars, military trucks, boats, and a glider from what I can see... The cars drive too much like remote controlled cars... If you brake, it comes to a stop instantly, rather than an actual car would.... They drive like they have no shocks installed when you're driving on rocky terrain. They have no location based damage... Overall, the vehicles could have been done a lot better.I haven't gotten far in the main mission yet. The first part is just a tutorial, and after you get to a point it basically lets you loose in the world to do whatever you want.I had a hell of a time getting on multiplayer...-----------------------------FOR PEOPLE HAVING TROUBLE GETTING ON MULTIPLAYER-----------------------------I would try connecting to a server and getting a "cannot join this server at this time. Please try again later." error... I found that I had virtual networking locations that were in My Network Places from installing VMWare, and also a second Network Local connection that I disabled.... To fix the multiplayer problems, eliminate all but 1 working internet connection. That's what solved it for me.Multiplayer is still something I think a lot of people are getting used to. It's similar to Call of Duty 4, but the spaces are more open, and it's cool that you can create and download custom maps.I have not yet tried a "Ranked" server yet, just because I hear you lose EXP. Points if you leave early before a round ends, but in playing regular servers, I have been kicked and booted each time where I would be totally screwed if I had been on a ranked server.Multiplayer is good. It will add to the replay value once I beat the game. The only downside though is that you don't permanently unlock special weapons... From what I can tell, if you quit and come back, none of your unlocked guns are saved, just EXP points if you are on a ranked server... I played several rounds on one server, and got a lot of EXP points, and they didn't count because it wasn't ranked *sigh* Good practice, but little motivation to play on anyone's server unless they have kickass custom maps. So here's the conclusion:PROs:-Massive gameworld that is fun to just walk around in-Lots of guns to play with-Beautiful scenery-Realistic, but fun and not over-done-Multiplayer adds replay valueCONs:-You can't destroy everything like they originally claimed-Guards respawn too fast-Multiplayer is broken if the computer setup is not PERFECTLY and takes some work to get on-No bullet wounds or slash wounds on enemies when you hit them-Hard to play stealthy, night is not dark enough, and enemies can see you if you can see themOverall I would say it's worth probably $39.99, but certainly it needs some heavy duty patches and fan mods to ship it into better shape.A lot of this stuff is just tweaking anyway... Like respawn rates and adding back in the ability to blow up trees. WTF, that's why PC versions are better. Once the game is out, we can MOD MOD MOD!

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Ok, a couple of side notes I forgot to mention and new things I'd like to add.

The new beta drivers from nVidia customized for this game work well. I now can turn everything onto the highest graphical settings with no stutters, and it's even more sleek looking than before. So definitely look into that. Here's a site that has the drivers:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Despite all the bad hype the game is getting, I really am having a lot of fun. I do hope they come out with mods or at least a decent patch. I just watched gameplay footage for Fallout 3, and saw all the gore and wished we could get that for farcry 2 Heads blowing off, etc. I mean come on! We need it!

That's all for now, I will probably get in screen shots at some point, but I'm going on a business trip for a week so until then....

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

I'm quit interested in this game. My computer is an old piece of trash so it wont be an option on there but I am hoping to snag myself the PS3 version in the future. (Un)Fortunately there are an insane amount of games out or coming out soon that I need to acquire and play so it might have to be pushed back but everything I have seen on Farcry 2 has so far implied it is a very solid and fun FPS. Even though it seems completely disconnected from the first I'm excited to see what it holds.

[Herbert1405241469 0]

From what I've heard, Far Cry 2 can be handled decently by older computers if you turn down the video options.Granted, you'll want to look into your system specs first, but consoles are always an option. I just hope they come up with some cool mods for the game. It needs some.They did release a patch, but only for minor bugs and nothing to do with respawn rates or anything the fans suggested

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Still playing Far Cry 2. It's been going well, though I've finished all the side missions available to me at this time, so I'm back on the main story, but sadly I don't feel like I'm getting any closer to my objective, to kill the arms dealer, the Jackal. With open world games like Oblivion and STALKER, you were playing the main mission, and always felt like you were getting closer to your goal, where Far Cry 2, it's all "Hey Merc, go blow this up and kill everyone." The only actual thing currently connecting me more to my objective are random tape recorders laying around that a reporter lost after making an interview with the infamous Jackal. The guy reminds me of the main guy in ... oh I think it was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.... The guy has his own way of rationalizing why he's an arms dealer and just generally a philosopher with a touch of madness, which actually starts to make sense the more you hear him talk.Very much like the Heart of Darkness.Working in this world you make "buddies" which just is wrong connotation for this type of game... You have 1 main buddy that works with you on missions, and another one that will be available if you get majorly wounded (die) in battle that will pull you out to safety and watch your back. They can die at any time (if they are in the game world, if they are in a safehouse, you cannot draw a gun and kill them) and you can kill them in the field yourself if you're tired of them, but if you do that, you'll eventually have to find a new buddy, and there is a reputation/history you build everytime you work with a buddy, so I don't know if that affects the game later, but I'm sure you want a buddy to live as long as possible... I've heard things about the buddies, but didn't want to spoil it, so I'm trying to avoid any of that info till I beat the game.Sadly, I also hear that you don't have free play after you beat the game, which sucks because it means there will be no reason to keep playing if you don't keep the guns you unlocked :\ I'm hoping they release a mod or patch for that, as it takes too damn long to play the game as-is without beating it and basically having to start over.I've been playing more multiplayer. It's different, sometimes it takes a whole clip to kill a guy, which makes me think there are armor upgrades I haven't received yet. Playing on Ranked servers gets you diamonds that you can use to buy new guns and upgrades. The closest thing I can compare it to is Call of Duty 4, for run and gun gameplay. The game modes are rather boring, but the maps are high quality which make up for it.I'm still playing the game, which means it must be good. I'm having fun driving around and shooting up stuff, but I'm also getting to a point where I just want to beat the damn thing and be done with it. I'm weird like that, even if a game is somewhat sucky I will want to beat it just to have that closure at beating it.Not to say that this is a sucky game, actually it's very fun, but needs some more TLC and polishing.I see Fallout 3 is getting mixed reviews, so I don't feel as bad that I didn't go with that one instead. I need to do more reading.

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Finished the game tonight... I don't know how I feel. The overall game experience and game world was very engrossing, yet as people have been complaining, it does get repetitive. I was glad to be finished with the game, and will now probably shelve it, as the multiplayer isn't really holding my interest as much as Left 4 Dead is right now. I'm sure I'll go back to it eventually. I like the weapons and want to increase my rank online, but I've had enough for now.The ending *(no spoilers)* wasn't great. All the choices you make throughout the game basically bottlenecks you into one ending no matter what you do. You can take 2 actions at the end, but they result in the exact same cutscene, which isn't long enough to make up for the length of the game... Then they treat us to a text-based epilogue, which reminded me of how frustrating old NES games were when you actually managed to beat one that took you months, and were thanked by a crappy text based ending.They (the game developers) tried very hard, but somehow it just missed the mark. It promised much and it delivered on most, but they left out some cool gameplay elements that they should have put back in (or created in the first place) such as more stealth... Because once an enemy spots you, pretty much the whole camp knows where you are.Overall I'd say wait to pick up this title till the price dips below $30, as you will get at least 30 hours gameplay out of it, though it's not as satisfying to beat as it should have been.

[Atomic0 0]

At the moment, its US$49.99 on Steam.From my experiences at playing, Far Cry 2 is a fairly good games, with just some minor disappointments and annoyances. I suppose one of the more annoying things is how the entire gameplay world is somewhat littered with guard posts, which a place at major intersections at road. Unlike other games like Grand Theft Auto 4, where you can roam freely as you wish, you can't peacefully drive around the world would being shot at by the guards at each guard post, as the guards are automatically hostile to you as soon as they see you even though you haven't shot at them with weapons. This sort of makes traveling from one place to another place especially during missions difficult without getting shot out by mercenaries and getting your vehicle damaged, which makes you have to fix it everytime it starts smoking from the engine.Also, I have noticed that the missions are getting a bit repetitive, almost like 'kill this person' and 'blow some stuff up". Basically, most of the missions that you do as a mercenary hired by the two different factions is do to with killing someone important to the other faction or destroying some infrastructure belonging to the opposing factions. Also, with the missions that you do for the Underground in exchange for malaria pills (to suppress the dizzy spells your character suffers), they are just missions getting to safely deliver travel documents from one place to another and kill everyone in your path.In terms of customisation, the game has a variety of weapons that you can choose from, with the weapons divided into 3 main categories. Like some other games with achievement systems, the guns in Far Cry 2 have to be bought with diamonds found around the map which are then unlocked for use. One thing people may not like about Far Cry 2 is the ability for the weapon to jam, which is annoying when you are in a middle of a firefight. What I found was more annoying was when the weapon simply breaks apart when I'm using it, and the character simply throws it away, leaving you weaponless in the middle of nowhere.After playing around 10 hours of the game, it starts to get boring and annoying having the travel around the game world, which is quite large compared to other games, where the maps are sort of linear and straight forward, unlike the open world nature of Far Cry 2. I would however recommend the game to those who enjoy open-world games where you can roam at your own will.

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Another annoyance is the fact that, unlike the GTA series or even the Elder Scrolls series Oblivion, etc, you can't keep playing when you beat the main mission... Granted, you 're tired of playing by the time you get to that point, but still, it would be nice if someone modded a way to let you get back into the game after the credits just because you have everything unlocked and you'd be able to keep playing with all your firepower, rather than having to start over and watch that long-*bottom* into cinematic...Multiplayer is probably dying as well, I haven't played it since I got GTA 4 and now Fallout 3. Great game, but many bugs that discourages a fulfilling gameplay experience..