Please use spoiler tags if you are spoiling something.
I’ve played now for an hour and completed my first two minor missions. Man, I’m loving this game, like no other shooter. This is what Stalker would have been if it had a decent budget.
I’m running this on my PC at 1920x1200 on DX10 Everything set on ultra high except physics (my CPU is lacking a bit). Man, the graphics are almost Crysis level, not quite, but it runs a lot smoother. The ambient lighting, the water, the level of detail and the huge draw distance sucks me in. It’s like watching Rambo only I"M Rambo. That’s another thing I like. The camera movement is very realistic, as are the movement of the hands and weapons.
Has anyone tried out the bazooka you get at the beginning? Holy cow! I don’t think I’ve ever felt so powerful in an FPS.
Questions:
I got killed on the very first objective, trying to get out of the city. Did anyone make it out?
How long did it take you to rescue your first buddy? I took my time, scouted the area and waited for the perfect time to strike – when one of the guards was separated from the rest.
I recall playing the original and liking it a lot. I also remember it turned very linear, very fast. I haven’t played enough of this one to know for sure if that is not the case this time around, but all reviews point to a truly open ended sand box type of game. I’m also more involved in my character. I get to choose from several to play as, where as with the old one I was stuck as the single main protagonist. This gives it a more RPG’ish feeling.
Hmm, I might be thinking of getting it then (on the 360, apparently the PC version has DRM up the yazoo). How’s the much-discussed improved immersion work in practice? In preview videos and the like it was said that the camera always follow’s the player character’s head and never teleports anywhere. Pulling bullets out of yourself and relocating dislocated shoulders also seems delightfully gruesome.
I’m playing on PC and haven’t noticed any particular DRM issues. You’re asked to authenticate your CDKey online, and once that’s done - you’re finished and can play harassment free.
Regarding the immersion: If you’re really concerned about such things - no, there is no camera teleportation whatsoever. Everything has an animation, and I must admit it actually does seem to improve the game a little. The plethora of wound animations (I am, of course, much too leet to have much use for them) is refreshing and fairly gruesome. From what I can tell, there isn’t much traditional RPG-style character skill/level advancement, although I’m still early in the game. Extra weapons are the only things I’ve been able to unlock so far.
Overall, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the game yet. As a longtime shooter fan, I’m really hopeful for this style of game (sandbox shooters, delicious) and so far have been relatively impressed. I’m finding travel times and poor AI to be somewhat of an issue, and the game’s been disproportionally lopsided (WoW-style) into a scenic tour consisting of more travel than action.
Speaking of which, consider me relatively unimpressed with the graphics. With all settings on High it sure looks pretty, but there’s a certain element of style that seems to be lacking. The lightning in general is dull - I think the palate could’ve really used a bit of extra gamma, and some harsher reflections.
Overall I’d give it a handwiggling 7.5/10 so far. Hopefully the modding community embraces this title - I can see some really fantastic things happening with the engine.
:: sigh:: yeah, publishers will never learn when it comes to DRM, sadly. It’s not all that intrusive though. Just requires an activation after install and you can then put away the DVD (though I got mine through steam, so no DVD requried). I don’t know how the activations will work though. Not surprisingly, the DRM was cracked hours after the game was released. :rolleyes:
I love the FPS camera. It does a great job of putting you in the shoes of the mercenary. And the transition between different vantages when on foot, driving a vehicle, swimming, etc is fluid and never takes you “out” of the experience.
So far I haven’t seen any bone resettings, but my guy did push out a bullet from his arm by sticking his finger through the wound. Sweet.
How do you dismount the boat turret? The interact key doesn’t do it. The exit vehicle key doesn’t do it. The change seats key won’t do it. I’ve tried every single key, and I can’t seem to leave the mounted boat gun. Well one time I managed to dismount by jamming the return key, then I promptly slipped through the world geometry and died. :rolleyes:
Also, how do you manipulate the alarm clock? My tutorial has a bug in it where the instruction boxes display blank spaces instead of keys. And sometimes it’s not so obvious - the reload key changes the map zoom.
Out of interest regarding the viability of the new DRM, I followed the cracking process (mainly indirectly through the people waiting for cracks at a haven for such folk) and it appears to have been solved around midnight of the 22nd/23rd - I.e. 36 hours after it was released in the US two days before it hits Europe and a week before it hits Europe on Steam. The 360 version was cracked a full week before that, due to negligence by a pre-release industry reviewer. (Up and working on the 15th, IIRC)
The game doesn’t launch until tomorrow over here in Norway, but I’ve got my copy in pre-order at Game and I’m looking forward to picking it up between school and work and wasting a few hours on it saturday morning. PC Gamer UK (who reviewed it for the October issue) gave it a 90% score and I have good faith in them.
(On a gaming nitpicky note, the team behind the original Far Cry - Crytek - are the ones now developing and publishing the Crysis series, while the Far Cry publisher retained the Far Cry brand and decided to develop it in-house in their Montreal studio. This move has been open, but not publicized leading to some annoyance among less bright Europeans that the game was published in North America three days before Europe, despite supposedly being developed in Europe. This, as one can observe, makes absolutely no sense. Though one might be forgiven for thinking that since Ubisoft has its HQ in France.)
ETA: The DRM in question is a modified version of the publicly loathed SecuROM, but a mildened down and relatively unobtrusive version of the same MO as found in Bioshock. (I.e. a limited amount of installs on a limited amount of computers.) However, the technical install difficulties of Bioshock and the fact that a full install now correctly “revokes” the count against your total has let this slide by without too much notice. Some people remain in boycott because of principal dislike of DRMs.
The Xbox360 scene has been ahead of the PC cracking scene for awhile now, and they aren’t reviewer copies (which often don’t have unlockable achievements) but rather full gold versions (retail releases). Fable II, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Far Cry 2, Gears of War 2 and several others all hit the piracy scene well before their release dates (some of those games aren’t out). Not that I encourage such things, I’m more a boycott PC games due to DRM sorta guy as DRM makes absolutely no sense to me (pirate a game and get it DRM free, or pay for a game and get punished with restrictions?) though I haven’t purchased a PC game in over 2 years (nor pirated one, mind you, I simply avoid them these days)
as for your second point there, I definitely think such things should be publicized as the team behind the game itself is much more important than the publisher. Look at a series like Call of Duty, with every other game being good (made by Code Masters) or total crap (made by Neversoft or someone similar, I always froget). COD4 was great, COD WW looks lame. However, as for release dates, Fable II launched in America before it launched in Europe and that was developed in Jolly Ol’ England =) I think it comes down to, quite simply, America being a bigger market (though I don’t know, in that case, why simultaneous releases don’t happen. Might be just based on traditional release days for games? Maybe in Euro games traditionally release on a Friday, whereas I know in the States they usually come out on Tuesdays)
IIRC, the “good” Call of Duty games (1, 2 and 4) were made by Infinity Ward using their proprietary engines. Treyarch, the developer that made the Call of Duty 2 expansion “The Big Red One” and Call of Duty 3. While COD, COD 2 and COD 4 (the Infinity Ward games) had a MC rating average of 91/86/94%, COD 2: TBRO and COD 3 scored down as 78/80% respectively.
While this would indicate a sub-par developer, the 2005 merger of Treyarch and Grey Matter Interactive as well as having essentially replaced their game development managers gives me hope that CoD 5: WaW will be good enough to live up to CoD 4. (It’s being made in the same engine, after all.)
As to release dates, I don’t think there’s anything set for Europe as a “standardized” - I think it’s more a bastardization of the US release date combined with the logistics of shipping the game. (This week, for instance, Saints’ Row 2 was let go on Monday, Far Cry 2 this wednesday while Fable II was let go today, here in Oslo.)
As for DRM, I admit to being one of the “not getting it” crowd, too, though I don’t boycott game companies for it. I’ve never had any personal troubles with DRMs screwing up my games or my system and I’m way too much of a games geek to let something as feeble as ideology get in the way of my upcoming Far Cry 2 binge this weekend
[ul]
[li]Nobody seemed like it would be nice to mention that this is Oblivion, and equals parts RPG/FPS. Shooter fans (me) will be dismayed.[/li]
[li]Travel times are ridiculous. I spend far more of the game driving from point A to point B than anything else. Sporadically interspersed through the highly mediocre driving experience are the equivalent of “random encounters” where a machine-gun mounted jeep barrels straight towards me. Press ‘c’, switch to my own MG, spray down the car, and resume driving.[/li]
[li]Missions are, in themselves, not too bad, except that they’re completely repetitive (think GTA4) and plagued by the aforementioned transit times.[/li]
[li]As I expected, with any RPG/Shooter the strategic depth of the game gets shallowed into a wading pool. Enemies are hideously unresponsive, fail to utilize cover, don’t coordinate, and unless en mass in a confined area, are utterly unthreatening.[/li]
[li]Amazing graphics that aren’t.[/li]
[li]Achievements like “You’ve found 3 or 244 cases filled with a single diamond strewn haphazardly across the landscape for no reason other than to pad the gameplay timer.”[/li]
[li]Weapon damages are a little low, it can be jarring to watch an enemy climb to his feet after five 7.62mm’s in the gut.[/li][/ul]
The Good:
[ul]
[li]Excellent animations, entirely FPS-oriented view provides excellent immersion.[/li]
[li]Sound quality is very good and the music, when timed properly, enhances the whole experience.[/li]
[li]Sand-box gameplay does give you plenty of time to explore, and the scope of the world is impressive [if by world you mean the elaborate system of roads and rivers where you spend most of your time.][/li]
[li]Africa setting is sorta neato, I guess.[/li]
[li]I lied about some of the graphics. Explosions and structure fires are superbly done.[/li][/ul]
Overall I find my interest in the game still present, but beginning to wane as a solid hour or two of gameplay results in two missions, tops. The random encounters are more irritating than anything and give no sense of accomplishment. Maybe as the story (if one ever begins) will speed things up but at the moment, it’s simply just too boring. Downgrading this to 6/10.
If you really enjoyed the dubious aspects of Oblivion and tend to prefer less hectic, less skill-demanding gunfights, you may enjoy this. Everybody else, approach with caution.
crap. Infinity Ward and Treyarch, my bad (Treyarch did the Spiderman games, Neversoft did the Tony Hawk/last two Guitar Hero games) I should really know this. I blame working 8-9 hours every day and helping my kids with their English skits (they’re all japanese) for another 2 or so on top of that, every day. Damn brain just doesn’t work so smoothly when I think in two languages for that long
Sounds a whole lot less interesting now. On the other hand, I really liked the ‘just dick around and look at things’ aspect of Morrowind, and retard AI isn’t a deal-breaker.
The only bit I don’t know anything about is the load times. Is it more like GTA, where it loads when you start a game and you don’t see a load screen again until the next time you start your game? Or like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., where you have a bunch of discrete regular sized levels walled off by cliffs and there’s a loading screen every time you move between levels?
I bought it for XBox360 but I’m wondering if I should have rented it instead. Ah well.
I’ve finished the training missions, but I’m a little worried that the landscape might be a bit repetetive. GTA 4 you always had a sense of where you were because it was a city. So far I feel like I’ve seen that same bush and rock already.
Anyway, once I’ve had time to play it I’ll be able to make a better judgement.
Can’t help you with the boat turret - haven’t had to use that yet.
To set your alarm use the A or D keys - your normal left and right strafe keys to move the alarm left or right.
For load times - apparently there are some load times on the consoles, but on the PC version that I’m playing I have yet to see anything. It’s one huge seamless world.
Ok, having completed a number of missions, I feel I can add some feedback:
Good
The graphics are really good IMHO. You really do feel like you are driving through the Serengeti. I even saw a zebra (but had to take off because some dickhead started sniping at me).
Good atmosphere. I like being able to nap until dark and set up a midnight ambush for some convoy. Or toss a molotov into a base and watch dudes scurry to put out the brushfire. And it is tense driving at night seeing some headlights coming at you (especially if you have the shitbox 2-door and not a gun truck). Bad
Why does everyone in Africa what to freakin kill me? Why are there zero civilians? It would be SO much better if during the day, there were civilians and refugess farmers with their waterbuffalo and just ordinary people just doing their normal shit. At night I would expect it to be much more dangerous with no one but drug lords and bandits and guarillas on the road. That might add an extra element of strategy. For example, you might plan your mission to travel to a nearby safehouse during the day when you are less likely to be attacked and then make your final approach to the target under cover of darkness.
Which brings me to my other major point. The travel between missions is pretty arduous and tedious. There isn’t a whole lot of variation in the scenary to interest me or even navigate and I spend most of the time driving with the map out (causing me to drive into a lake a few times).
Basically, unlike GTA 4, the world doesn’t feel “lived in”.
Also, there is no variety of vehicles. All I’ve ssen are shitbox compacts and the same machinegun mounted jeep.
Wow. Before I searched for this thread, I was preparing a gushing review. I just picked up the game for the PS3 this weekend – loving it.
I’m not even a usual FPS guy – I’m more into the sports titles – so maybe I don’t have a frame of reference. All I can say is that I was a little leery of another FPS after I bought Medal of Honor: Airborne and promptly sucked at it and hated it.
Even Far Cry 2’s online play isn’t half as frustrating as other FPS’s (Bad Company, I’m looking at you).
And the map editor. Is this not the coolest packaged level editor you’ve ever seen? I’m amazed by the shit people are coming up with on the public boards.
Anybody here playing it on PS3? I’m jack-mike in all PS3 related online activities.
Far Cry 2 update time
I’m about 50% of the way into it and I’m totally addicted. Yes, the driving times are long but I actually enjoy shooting up the random jeeps that come after me. It’s not so bad if you use the bus system to teleport around the map.
I also like how 1/2 way in, right when I was starting to get sick of the map they open up a whole new map to go shoot people in.
What I like:
The jeeps with mortar launchers on them are the shit. I love blowing whole guard shacks up and watching jeeps, propane tanks, gas cylinders fly around shooting flame while ammo stores cook off.
Sniper rifle/uzi combo kicks ass too. Snipe 'em before they can see you, then move in and clean up with the Uzi.
The main missions generally have good variety
This is a long game. I hate buying a new game and finishing it in a weekend. I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.
Enemies definitely get tougher as you progress
Day/night cycle (apparently 1 min realtime = 5 mins gametime)
Graphics are good, but everything looks kinda washed out to me. Maybe it’s my monitor, but more vibrant colours would’ve been welcome
What sucks:
Driving around can get tedious. (I know, I just said I like the driving. Sue me.)
Storyline is pretty nonexistant
Side missions get repetitive fast
Overall the weakest areas of the game (IMHO) are the lack of story/background and travel tedium. It would even cut down on the travel tedium a lot if missions tended to bunch together or ‘lead’ you to the next area instead of always being as far as possible from your current location.
Anyone else? Now that you’re deep in the game, have your opinions changed?
