Far Cry 2 first impressions
Far Cry 2 has now been out for a few days and I have had a chance to put in a few hours with it. There is as yet no indication that I have yet made any significant progress with regards to the main storyline (and it seems that this game will be a long one). However, I believe I have gotten a bit of a feel for some elements of the game.
From a players perspective, Far Cry 2 is related to its predecessor in name only. The game is set in a war torn country in Sub-Saharan Africa, and features open ended style gameplay reminiscent of Oblivion or Assassin’s Creed. So far this seems to be working fairly well, but I must confess that even in my few hours I am starting to see something of a repetitive formula emerge. Hopefully, the developers keep mixing it up as the game continues.
Far Cry 2 was developed by Ubisoft, in contrast to the orginal Far Cry and Crysis, which were developed by Crytek. Perhaps as a result, the game feels very different than Far Cry or Crysis. Unfortunately, many of these changes are not for the better, at least from a PC gamer’s perspective.
The game seems to suffer from being taylored in large part to work on the current generation consoles. For one, graphical quality is substantially lower than in Crysis. (This might actually be a plus for gamers with older hardware). Models and textures feel flat, simple, and generic in comparison to the older PC-only shooter. Combat is substantially dumbed down, with rifles much less accurate than in Crysis. You simply can’t get consistent headshots at even moderate range with most of the rifles. The exceptions are of course the sniper rifles. You do not suffer the usual slow, random movements designed to make sniping difficult for PC gamers using the mouse. So, sniping is really easy, perhaps too easy.
Except for headshots (obviously!), enemies in general take a few hits to bring down. This, coupled with low weapon accuracy and the lack of any radar for quickly finding enemies means that you can get in over your head pretty quickly. You definitely need to show some restraint when rushing into nests of enemies, or you will wind up taking much more damage than you need to.
Health pickups are scattered around liberally, and I have so far had no problem keeping my character in good health with plenty of reserves. “Health pickups”, by the way, are actually syringes. You basically hit the “heal” button, watch your character do an injection, and immediately return to full health. It is ok, as far as it goes, but it is not exactly realistic or immersive, as the developers would have you believe.
Menus and interfaces are simple with an emphasis on immersion. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as most of the time while playing there is no interface at all. This can be quite nice. Unfortunately, I am somewhat spoiled by the graphical prowess of Crysis, and so I don’t find the visuals to be particularly immersive.
There are some nice touches. Once they have been dropped, enemy weapons are highlighted a bit, aiding you in finding valuable ammo. While the Crysis approach of making you search through shrubbery for dropped rifles might be more realistic, it is certainly not more fun. Weapons you find tend to jam a lot, while the ones you buy are much more reliable. This is a good solution to the problem of encouraging players to make weapon purchases in a world where every person you meet has an assault rifle.
I must in good conscience re-emphasize that I have only begun playing the game. I have tried to avoid making any general, sweeping comments about the overall quality of the game since I haven’t seem much of it yet. Currently, I am cautiously optimistic, but worried about the game being too console-esque and concerned that the open-ended gameplay may become stale.
We will inevitably be doing more Far Cry 2 related content, including a full review, at a later date.
October 26th, 2008 at 4:43 am
Whilst it dosnt suffer from “The Curse of The Console” as much as Dead Space it is very consoley. I heard mention of playing factions off against each other and suchlike but EVERYONE attacks you when your not in a protected area. The guns mainly suck, the driving model is awfull considering how much driving you have to do (at least give it some feel and make it fun) the gfx are repetitive in the extreme and the missions so far have been much the same. Lets not even talk about the guys at checkpoints respawning about 10 seconds after you wiped the last lot out.
October 26th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Degriz: By “The Curse of the Console” you of course mean saving only at predefined checkpoints? Indeed, I am very thankful the developers put in a quicksave. It is inexcusable for a modern PC game to not have a decent save system.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Most of the complaints on ye olde Reddit seem to stem from some kind of misplaced console gamer belief that nothing ever suffers from being designed for consoles and then ported over. Depending on the genre, different aspects of the game have to be changed when adapted for consoles, but there are always some changes. In the FPS genre the changes are especially noticeable. Compare the feel of, say, Half-Life 2 and Bioshock on the PC. Completely different. And I think it’d be hard to find anyone who preferred the latter.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I can confirm that even as you play this game it gets even more and more repetitive.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Richard: Yeah, that definitely jives with what I’m reading in another series of user reviews (one, two, three). I haven’t played through it as far as Grokmoo has but I’m already getting bored of the repetitive driving around followed by killing a few people, then repeat ad nauseum with the occasional annoying guard post thrown in.
Yet the professional reviews give Far Cry 2 a rather unbelievable 88% on average. I don’t think the big game reviewers speak for us, the gamers, anymore. They’re too beholden to advertising dollars and AAA titles. That’s why I don’t really trust the professional reviews anymore. I rely on what people on smaller blogs and in forums are saying, and at the moment, that’s the only way to really get the truth about Far Cry 2.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Why do you keep comparing realistic things to Crysis? That game is friggin’ arcade mode all the way. D:
Also, would you prefer to heal up by sitting around sucking your thumb for a few seconds like every other recent shooter? Health pickups, no matter how they’re implemented, are better for gameplay, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to believe the use of a syringe over waiting ten seconds for your mortal bullet wounds to heal themselves.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I can’t necessarily answer for Grokmoo, but I’ll try. Crysis uses “scifi realism”, in that most of its mechanics make sense with the basic assumptions that the technologies exist. Far Cry 2 doesn’t even have that kind of realism, as it bills itself as a modern-day shooter, yet there sure as hell isn’t any injection in the modern day that can instantly cure bullet wounds. At least with Crysis’s nano suit, there’s some self-consistent explanation for it.
I agree with you, health pickups are a good standard of the FPS genre, and that’s why you see them in everything. But there’s a recent “realism” trend towards dressing them up as other things that simply don’t make much sense. You’re right, it is a minor nitpick that doesn’t really have much bearing on how good the overall game is, but it is still a nitpick.
November 16th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
The much bring part is Weapon Shop. If I can bye i t from Manu’ it will be best. I cant go to Shop but running a full map then come back for the mission!
December 12th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Mafiul:The much bring part is Weapon Shop. If I can bye i t from Manu’ it will be best. I cant go to Shop but running a full map then come back for the mission!
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December 14th, 2008 at 12:39 am
I never played far cry 1 (apart from on xbox but lets not go there) because my pc was shit at the time but i did play crysis on a top range pc and boy was my life changed!! i dont know whether crysis spoiled me by raising the bar or whatever but far cry 2 just doesnt seem to live up to what i imagined. at no point did i ever feel crysis was getting repetive (even when it was) but far cry 2 is just bloody annoying now. every mission is the same!! drive half way accross the massive map at 20 mph… shoot other drivers along the way… collect a diamond… kill some dude with bad voice acting. i wish i could at least destroy some buildings to kill some boredom like in crysis, but no. infact the only reason im still playing the game is because i saw a trailer where the character is hang gliding and im just trying to get there. even though it looked pretty cool, im sure it’l get old fast. god i hate ubisoftand there power to destroy everything good they touch!
December 26th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
You all seem to be too distracted with realism. Don’t you prefer to have fun rather than walking across, or rather driving, the map just to find a doctor? And you think every console game has preset areas where you can save and no where else? i got news for you, its called 2009/2008/2007/2006 all the way back to whent he first xbox was created. Don’t try to tell me off either I’ve got both a computer and a xbox and a 360. I’ve played Crysis and it is awesome. Still though I think games like Call of Duty 4 and CoD: WaW are awesome. Oblivion and Fallout 3 are perfect rpgs with Sandbox themes and horrible gun aim in Fallout 3. I looked up the review to see whether it’s worth buying the game. Thank you for the time you put into writing the review, but from the normal buyers point of view, it sucked. Period.
February 10th, 2009 at 11:07 am
a GREAT PROBLEM IS Weapon Shop. If I can bye it from Manu’ it will be best. I cant go to Shop bY running a full map TO BYE GUN AND then come back for the mission!