FarCry 2: Awesome

The Game Room
#1

I didn’t want to go for such a fanboyish title, but I got FarCry 2 on PC a few days ago and I’ve spent the past two days destabilising a fictional African Country and loving it. :smiley:

The graphics are absolutely breathtaking- it’s the most realistic game I’ve ever seen. The designers have gone to great lengths to keep you “In the game”- there’s almost no HUD (a health and ammo bar flashes up when you get injured, heal yourself, reload, or switch weapons), and when you’re driving all the cars have functioning GPS units in them to help you navigate- you or can drive around with the map in your virtual hand and look down as you drive; even if it does make you feel like the lost foreigner you so clearly are.

There are lots and lots and lots of guns in the game- everything from Makarov pistols to AK-47s to FN-FALs to M79 Grenade Launchers to flamethrowers (yes, an effective, functioning flame thrower!) and more.

In fact, FarCry 2 is a Pryromaniac’s dream- one of the best tactics involves sneaking up on militia outposts and then lobbing a molotov cocktail or firing a flare into the grass nearby and watching it all light up like bonfire on Guy Fawkes’ Night.

You really do feel like you’re a Mercenary in the centre of an African conflict- the best way I can describe the plot is as a cross between the Frederick Forsyth novel The Dogs of War and the Leonardo DiCarprio film Blood Diamond.

The game has it faults- the militia outposts keep respawning despite the fact that you might have killed everyone there three or four times over, and you’ll sometimes get attacked in the middle of nowhere by randomly spawned baddies, and the quests start to tend a little too much towards “Go here, kill this guy, come back”, but the overall experience more than outweighs these minor criticisms, IME.

I’ve been playing for two days and I’m still only halfway through- Fallout 3 is out tomorrow here and I have to go out of town for a week for work on Sunday, which is as frustrating as hell- but I strongly recommend that anyone looking for a great free-form FPS with an incredibly immersive setting, more guns than a Soviet Arsenal’s Warehouse, and some breathtaking graphics should look no further than FarCry 2. :slight_smile:

#2

Visually a very cool game.

I still use GTA IV as the benchmark for environment depth and immersive gameplay. For example:

The cell phone in GTA IV let you call one of your buddies and do different things with them (“ey Roman!! Vant to go to da strip club?!”). It would have been cool if you could maybe have one of your pals ride shotgun with you instead of just having the Corey Feldman looking guy drag you out of a firefight.

Busses - kind of a minor point, but it would have been fun to actually have the option of seeing the bus trip, like the taxis or subway in GTA IV.

Randoms - The only people who live in Farcrynesia appear to be the mercenaries and warlords you fight. It would have been nice to have an environment where you would also encounter civilians, farmers, refugess and other folks and have them factor into the game. Sort of like Mercenaries 2 where you get penalized when you accidently (or intentionally) kill civilians.

Lack of variety - While the scenary is nice, I haven’t seen much diversity. You don’t really get much of a sense of place - there’s a rock, theres a tree, there’s some savanah, etc. It also seems like the selection of vehicles and bad guys are somewhat limited.

#3

Good to hear! I’ve got the PS3 version on the way from Amazon. Is the plot pretty consistent or does it pull a Far Cry 1 halfway through and turn into a gene-spicing horror-fest?

ETA: on second though- don’t spoil anything

#4

I’ll be getting this for PS3. I’ve wanted a game with a flame thrower for a long, long time.

#5

Ugh, I HATED GTA4. It took itself too seriously and lost all the fun. The cell phone idea was one of the worst in history. Ok, maybe not that bad, but having your friends call you up every 10 minutes and beg you to hang out with them, and getting angry if you can’t make it across the entirety of new york in an hour (seriously?! have you ever BEEN to New York?) made the game, honestly, painful to play.

The idea that there are no civilians in FarCry2 though, is a bit odd. I did like that aspect of Mercs 2 (though I hated how your faction guys would always run in front of you and get shot and you’d lose faction points. Damnit, I’m on a recoilless rifle here protecting your ass from tanks, don’t get IN FRONT of me!)

#6

It’s a different development team so I have higher hopes for it. I couldn’t play through the original even though it was beautiful and had some interesting gameplay ideas because it was painfully cheesy. Your enemies would yell stupid stuff like “I’M GONNA GET YOU” and then you’d have to shoot them 8 times in the face before they’d die. Does the second game have a more realistic feel in that regard?

#7

I’ve heard some very “meh” things about it from a lot of folks. It looks nice, but it’s not that immersive and a lot of folks wished they rented it instead of bought it.
It all comes down to “How is the multiplayer component?” That’s the test of replayability.

#8

They’re mostly quiet during actual shoot-offs, but when you’re playing the mouse&cat game, they’ll taunt or try to creep you out. And you don’t have to shoot them Crysis-style, but most of them will take 2-3 rifle rounds to knock down, or a clean headshot. (But watch out, because the pesky buggers have a habit of getting up on their elbows and capping you with their sidearm after being knocked down) However, most sniper rifles will take them in one shot to the chest, or at the very least knock them down (gut shots, mostly - upper body shots are almost always kills).

I’m quite happy about the realism in that way, since most of your hasty kills will end up bleeding out rather than dropping dead from being shot in the leg. In other words, we’re not talking about the gas-mask-wearing, minigun-wielding, trench-coat-sporting Turbonazis of Medal of Honor: Airborne. (Who will eat two RPG rockets or tre close-range .50 cal rounds to the forehead)

#9

I bought this yesterday and have only played a couple of missions, but so far I’m impressed. The graphics are gorgeous on my HD screen, sometimes even photorealistic. The stealth aspect seems pretty cool too; it’s not just a run-and-gun game. It may get tiresome at some point, but I’m digging it for now.

#10

So…multiplayer? No? Yes?

#11

Too busy to have even tried it- the way things interact is incredibly amazing in the game.

For example, I came across a mission where I had to blow up a railway tanker full of petrol. I could have run in guns blazing and done it the hard way, but instead I sat on top of a nearby overlooking hill and, after taking stock of which way the wind was blowing, fired my flare gun into the grass on the outskirts of the rail depot.

A firestorm ensued, sweeping through the depot, burning all the bad guys to cinders, and blowing up the tanker car- along with some assorted explosive barrels and an ammunition stockpile which cooked off, taking care of the few guys that had survived the fire.

And the guys that survive being shot and manage to use their last ounce of strength as they’re lying on the ground e to shoot at you are a nice touch, too…