Some Thoughts On Far Cry 2

With rumors swirling around this week at the possibility of a Far Cry 3 being announced at E3 it made me think about Far Cry 2.

Far Cry 2 was a major departure from the the first game, no longer being developed by Crytek as that studio had moved on to Crysis it was instead made by Ubisoft Montreal. Ditching the man vs monster elements and the tropical island of the first game we're taken to a war torn Africa, on a mission to kill an arms dealer known as the Jackal. After a brief introductory/tutorial section you're presented with an open world to explore and find your way to your target.

Now this isn't really a review as I'm just writing down my thoughts on the game which I freaking loved. At a time when I was just tired of open world sandbox games Far Cry 2 was able to pull me in and every second of the entire month I devoted to playing this game was an amazing experience.

Now some people didn't really care for FC2 and yes I admit, it did have it's issues. It had some bugs and some glitches and some of the game mechanics could of been better but they're just some little things that I feel need to be looked past to enjoy what this game does right.

The one thing for me that FC2 had going for it was the immersion. Every step of the way I felt like I was in the deserts of Africa hunting diamonds and shooting fools. The little details like the barely there hub and the map you had to hold in your hands to use were so well done it helped bring you into the game. All this was presented with amazing graphics, I played the game on the PC and it is one of the best looking games out there, rivaling Crysis is parts. The Dunia engine really shines in this game as I think the only other game that uses it in full is the Avatar Movie Game.

I love the way the weapons work in this, they degrade as you use them and eventually jam and break down. It adds tension to a firefight when your gun is on it's last legs and you need to scramble to grab a fallen enemies' gun to finish off his friends. You can ambush supply lines to get access to new perfect condition weapons which will eventually break on you but for the real fun of it just use the guns the enemies drop. They only drop weapons in the worst condition and it ups the challenge and again the tension of the combat.

There is one thing I do not like about how they handled the weapons, they're broken up into three possible types. Primary, Secondary and Special. Primary are the basic assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles. Secondary are pistols and sub machine guns (Uzis and such) and finally the special weapons are rocket launchers flamethrowers and the like. I absolutely hate not being able to carry an assault weapon with a sniper rifle. You can get by with the dart gun in the special slot but really who wants to just put guys to sleep, I want to split skulls with a Dragunov and still be able to clean up with an AK-47.

Fire is very important in this game, you can use it to help in combat and that is really cool. Let's say you have a group of enemies in the field you can light said field on fire and kill them with that or use the same fire to corral them into an area for you to pick off easier.

I do want to mention that stealth in this game is just straight up broken. Enemies can see you from a mile away if you shoot one of their friends, you can barely sneak around and if someone lets out the slightest gasp when you shoot them in the face the whole area knows exactly where you're at. For a game that stressed how you could sneak and all that stuff for it not to work is really lame.

When you're wounded to your final section of life you get a severe wound. When you fix this wound you're treated to a gruesome animation of your character fixing the wound. You'll push bullet through your arm, reset broken fingers and pull sticks out of your leg. It's all really cool, I like how it's handled and I really wish more games would use this mechanic.

As I said in the article I did about more games needing co-op Far Cry 2 is the prime example of this. Most of the vehicles have multiple places to sit, namely the boats with a driver seat and then the gunner stations. It would of been great to cruise down a river with a friend, drop them off near the target then coordinate a strike on the target with them. This game sorely needed co-op and I think this is one of the biggest things it suffers from.

I also need to bring up the guard posts. When you pass through a guard post it's usually stocked with enemies, you kill them and move on. If you come back to the guard post they have respawned which is okay but you can just go barely out of sight of the post and turn around to be greeted with a full group of guards, all ready to kill you dead. It would of been cool if sometimes the posts are guarded by friendly units depending on you doing missions. The respawn rate on the guards should of been drawn out, you couldn't repair and restaff a guard post in a few minutes, it should take at least 24 in game hours for a post to respawn or even more depending on how far it is from the faction's main base.

The last thing I can say about Far Cry 2 that I didn't care for was the lack of mod support. Ubisoft didn't release the SDK for this one so the modders didn't get to have their way with the game. I imagine some amazing things would of been done to this one and I would of loved to see what people would of come up with.

I do list a lot of negatives here but don't get me wrong Far Cry 2 is amazing and it didn't deserve the hate it was getting by some reviewers and my fellow gamers. The game is one of my all time favorites any praise it gets it deserves but I see room for improvement in Far Cry 3. I hope Ubisoft takes some of the legitimate negative aspects of part 2 removes them and molds what's left into an even more amazing game.

Maximum Review! Crysis and Crysis: Warhead

Crysis the system killer, the game that's suppose to bring a PC to it's knees. Even today four years after the game was released people still want a PC that can run Crysis at max settings. Recently I played through Crysis for the second time and I played Warhead for the first time yesterday.

Crysis is the story of Raptor team. They're sent to this island to investigate the Koreans who have some bad stuff going on. They've uncovered a relic and they're completely unaware of what they have in their possession. You play as part of Raptor team either Nomad (Crysis) or Psycho (Warhead) and you experience the same story from both of their perspectives. I really liked the way this was handled. There is a certain part in Crysis where Nomad and Psycho split up and this is where Warhead picks up. Both games reference each other with Warhead really bringing the Crysis references as you play through it. As far as the story goes though it's not something we haven't seen before. The military is sent to fight another military and then crap goes south when all of a sudden aliens!

Crysis is a FPS game, you run and gun your way through the jungle fighting your way to the end. This is where Crysis is probably at it's weakest as it's a basic FPS game, it doesn't really bring anything new to the table as far as gameplay. If you've played a PC FPS you've probably played a game like Crysis. The gimmick in Crysis is the Nanosuit which allows you to do some really cool things. You have the basic armor upgrade which is just like armor in any other game. You also get access to super speed which lets you run fast. You can cloak like the Predator which does add something to the gameplay. Cloaking and hiding from the enemy only to sneak up on them for a surprise attack is really cool. Lastly we have the super strength which is interesting. Not only does this give you the power to jump really high it also helps with your aiming. Putting on super strength helps with the weapon sway and reduces the recoil from your guns. I really like the way the strength was implemented in this and for anyone who likes to snipe it's extremely useful.

I don't want anyone to take me saying Crysis is just another FPS to take that to mean it's a bad game because it's far from that. Crysis is at it's core a really fun game, an extremely fun game. The thing I love about the whole thing is the feel of it. The way your character moves and handles his gun is just really nice. The weapon sway as you aim and shoot the little details like your iron sites becoming misaligned as you strafe is a great affect. Crysis unlike many FPS games models the whole character so you can look down and see your feet and legs, it just adds to the immersion.

You can't mention Crysis or Warhead without mentioning the graphics. Both games look amazing. They are both to me still the best looking games out right now. The jungles look amazing but the real star of this show are the snow levels. As I was playing Crysis I was in awe of the snow levels, especially the first one you're in it just looks so good. You do still need a decent machine to play these games at the max settings. While that doesn't mean what it use to meaning you can have a pretty hefty machine at a good price, you still need a good PC. One thing I heard about Warhead when it came out was how it ran better then Crysis but for this this wasn't the case. I had Warhead set up the same way as Crysis and for me it ran worse, with a lot of stuttering and hitching up. Your mileage may vary with this.

The differences between Crysis and Warhead aren't that varied. You get more weapons in Warhead but most of them weren't that useful to me. You have access to mines and claymores but I didn't use either of them my whole time through Warhead. One thing about both games I couldn't stand was how the default weapon was handled. You're given a version of the Scar and it's actually a good gun but the ammo is extremely limited, especially in Crysis. Once you run out of Scar ammo in Crysis you are forced to switch to the KPA assault weapon and I only remember one time where you get access to another Scar but by then you have so much KPA rifle ammo you won't want to swtich. Warhead gives you more Scar ammo to find but it's still to far and between to make much of a difference. It's like all those WW2 games where you're forced to use the German guns. To me it's not as much fun to use the same guns the enemies use all the time but it doesn't really break the game or anything.

Back to the story for a moment Warhead tries to be different than Crysis. While Crysis is a pretty straight forward war story with aliens Warhead also does this but they try to get inside the character of Psycho. We're given some back story and some characters from his past to bring us deeper into his world. None of this was hinted at in the first game so now all of a sudden Crytek is expanding on a secondary character from the first game. It didn't make a lot of sense to me. They try to portray Psycho as a emotionally damaged soldier but it just doesn't work. I don't know how I would of handled it but the way it's presented is just weak. I can sum Psycho up in three words, he is British.

Crysis is awesome. It looks great has great combat and some really cool set pieces. Warhead is good but what Crytek tried to do with it for me hurt the game. trying to flesh out a character in an expansion when the first game didn't have anything like that just feels out of place. Maybe if the first game had gone into the past of Nomad or something, I don't know. You should play Crysis and if you love it then check out Warhead to get more of the story. If you play Crysis and you only liked it or are indifferent then pass Warhead by.

Crysis - 9 out of 10

Crysis: Warhead 6 out of 10

And all of a sudden... Monsters!!! (SPOILERS!!!)

I'll start off with saying this, I'm going to spoil some games here. The first Far Cry and both Uncharted games are top on my list. I guess by reading the title and this first couple of lines has spoiled something already but I can't help it.

Anyway, most games have a clear cut setting and purpose to the game. You're in this area or environment and you're going to be killing this certain enemy or whatever. Now some games can take a twist and throw you in a completely different direction and it's for the better. The first Doom comes to mind as a game that did this well. You're in a marine base fighting soldiers and some demons but by the end you're wading through Hell killing what I guess is suppose to be the devil. While Doom isn't know for it's story telling it was the first game that came to mind when I was thinking about games that did this change. But really there isn't a whole lot of games that do what I'm about to say. This thing I hate so much I usually refer to as "All of a sudden, monster."

First up Far Cry. I liked Far Cry I played it when it first came out and I thought it was a good FPS. Controls felt great and for the time it was an amazing looking game. You spend a big chunk of time going through the jungle killing soldiers not the most original thing but it was fun. Now it's been awhile sense playing this but I don't remember a big setup for what happens about halfway through or more towards the end of the game but it happens. All of a sudden you have to fight monsters, these mutated super soldiers things gone wrong. (It totaly hints at these monsters. I just loaded the game again and it shows them to you in the opening cinematic, I still hate that they're in the game) It completely ruined the game for me. I don't remeber if this was a twist I knew about going into the game but it still ruined the game for me. I killed one or two of these things and then closed the game and uninslalled it. I thought it was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen.

Then a few years later I played a little game called Uncharted (This all applies to Uncharted 2 as well), you're Nathan Drake in the jungle hunting treasure and smoking dudes along the way. Now I know this was never brought up before it happened but BAM! You're fighting zombie monster Nazis out of nowhere near the end of the game and it makes no damn sense. I was so close to the end of Uncharted when this crap happened I finished the game but in the end I thought it made the game just seem stupid. Uncharted 2 does the same gimmick but with these blue guys with bows and the same thing that makes these blue men powerful making the final boss just cheap and not fun to fight at all.

Another game from Crytek was Crysis and this game did the here are some monsters in the form of aliens but they were hinted at very early on and not just thrown at you with no rhyme or reason.

Now why does this bother me? For one if it doesn't match with the story it's just unneeded. In the case of the two Uncharted games it just wasn't needed, ever. They would of been better games without all that supernatural out of left field crap. But my one big time complaint with this happening is the game is never balanced for it. The whole way through these three games the challenge is fair and the guys can be taken down with your guns easily. The monsters appear and they are always way to powerful. In Far Cry after I killed a couple of the Trigen monsters I was completely out of ammo with none in site and more of those things in my way. Same thing in Uncharted 2 fighting the blue dudes. I know they're all suppose to be monsters and have poweres but half of an AK-47 magazine to somethings head should kill it, or how about you put the needed ammo around as you fight them. It's just ends up frustrating me, not at the challenge I like a good fair balanced challenge but when it's plainly broken it's just not right. What got me thinking about this stuff is I'm considering firing up the first Far Cry to try and finish it but having to deal with those blasted Trigens makes me not want to bother. I did finish both Uncharted games but in the end I thought the stories were crap even though I love the characters and how they interact with each other. I don't want to get into that right now so I'll end this here.