I was over on Giant Bomb and they had a thread about "Favorite Flawed Games." I really liked what I wrote about it so I wanted to put my response here.
You can check out the thread here - Giant Bomb Thread
I can think of a few games as I usually find myself enjoying the "flawed" games over the triple A super polished ones.
Far Cry 2 is probably the top of my list. With everything it got right the flaws are still present. Guard post respawns, broken stealth and for me at least the lack of co-op in a game that is just screaming for it. I can't think of another game recently that was just begging to have co-op. So many things are already there that make you wish you could play with someone else, it's like Ubisoft was teasing us with them. Instead of tacking on a competitive multiplayer they should of taken that time and effort and made co-op.
Next one I think of is Stalker: Clear Sky, that game is still buggy as hell. The first time I tried to play it I got stuck in an endless death loop because the game decided to kill me as I saved and I have no idea why. It wasn't radiation or an enemy attacking I was standing in an open field and just dropped as soon as the save did it's thing. I finally ended up using Clear Sky: Complete to play through it and then even ran into that Limansk crash bug. While I think Shadow of Chernobyl is the superior Stalker game when I was done with Clear Sky I had really enjoyed playing it and would consider giving it another go when it's time for me to replay a Stalker game.
I saw a lot of mentions of Too Human on here and while I don't really think that game is "flawed" in the since of it being broken it just didn't live up to the hype. Me, I absolutely loved it, I spent 60 something hours playing the living hell out of it until I found or traded for all the Elite armor pieces. I think at its core Too Human was a good attempt to bring a Diablo type loot gathering games to consoles, I liked the analog stick combat and the overall feel of the game. I just think when people hate on this one it's that they were expecting a game as unbelievably amazing as Diablo 2 and what we got was just a pretty good game.
A game I didn't see mentioned here yet is the newest Turok. While not the same Turok we know and love from the N64 days I still thought it was a fun simple FPS game. Every shooter we get doesn't have to be super military Call of Duty like shooter. Turok was like a throwback to the FPS games from back in the 90's and that was the main reason I loved it.
I guess the last game I want to mention is Cryostasis and really for the following reason. When I got to around level 12 the game would constantly crash on me until I messed with settings and worked through it. I've never had a game work better for me after I've turned the settings UP. Besides that another brilliant game more people should get a chance to play.
Showing posts with label Far Cry 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Far Cry 2. Show all posts
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Hardcore Mode or The Art of Losing Everything When You Die
The basic idea has been something that's been around in gaming for a long time. Going all the way back to the PC game Rogue, you adventure for as long as you want but if you die you lose everything and need to go back to square one. This is something I love to see in games, I look for any game that has this feature to try out and see how hard it can be. Before I even knew these type of games existed I would play many of my old school games in this fashion. I remember playing may SNES games were I would start over if I died and I always play my scrolling shooters in this way.
The game that really showed me other people liked this concept was Diablo 2. It had the Hell mode where you lost you character if you died. I can't remember if this was in the first Diablo as I didn't play a ton of it due to hardware issues at the time. I was blown away they included this mode, it adds a tension that at the time I had never experienced in a game. Yeah I was playing games like that before but actually being forced to lose your character and start over was just awesome to me.
We're starting to see this type of mode in more and more modern games. Torchlight has it and games like Spelunky and Dwarf Fortress take the roguelike approach to them. One big name game coming out, The Witcher 2 has a mode like this. You can save as often as you want but if you die it's game over, I cannot wait to try this mode out it holds so much potential for a challenge.
I want to mention another game that didn't feature a mode like this but it has a following in the "no death run" method of playing and that's Far Cry 2. I loved Far Cry 2 even with it's flaws but this is an interesting way to play this game. Exploring the jungles and forests of Africa never sure if there's someone waiting in the bush to snipe you it adds to the game play. Add to this if you never buy the upgraded weapons and just use the crappy stuff your enemies drop and you have an experience a lot of games can't offer you. Another game series that get's ever more exciting to play with this restriction are the STALKER games. They're already pretty unforgiving so add in the fact that your first death is your last and you get a real sense of how brutal the Zone can actually be. Try playing Shadow of Chernobyl with one of those realism mods on Master difficulty and only give yourself one death, you'll be going through the game at a snails pace just fearing death. It's can be so much fun, I want to see more of this in gaming.
I would like to see more titles ship with this option. I don't think games should only offer this as a game play choice because it will turn off some players but I would welcome challenge and I'm sure there's plenty of other people who would love to see this too.
The game that really showed me other people liked this concept was Diablo 2. It had the Hell mode where you lost you character if you died. I can't remember if this was in the first Diablo as I didn't play a ton of it due to hardware issues at the time. I was blown away they included this mode, it adds a tension that at the time I had never experienced in a game. Yeah I was playing games like that before but actually being forced to lose your character and start over was just awesome to me.
We're starting to see this type of mode in more and more modern games. Torchlight has it and games like Spelunky and Dwarf Fortress take the roguelike approach to them. One big name game coming out, The Witcher 2 has a mode like this. You can save as often as you want but if you die it's game over, I cannot wait to try this mode out it holds so much potential for a challenge.
I want to mention another game that didn't feature a mode like this but it has a following in the "no death run" method of playing and that's Far Cry 2. I loved Far Cry 2 even with it's flaws but this is an interesting way to play this game. Exploring the jungles and forests of Africa never sure if there's someone waiting in the bush to snipe you it adds to the game play. Add to this if you never buy the upgraded weapons and just use the crappy stuff your enemies drop and you have an experience a lot of games can't offer you. Another game series that get's ever more exciting to play with this restriction are the STALKER games. They're already pretty unforgiving so add in the fact that your first death is your last and you get a real sense of how brutal the Zone can actually be. Try playing Shadow of Chernobyl with one of those realism mods on Master difficulty and only give yourself one death, you'll be going through the game at a snails pace just fearing death. It's can be so much fun, I want to see more of this in gaming.
I would like to see more titles ship with this option. I don't think games should only offer this as a game play choice because it will turn off some players but I would welcome challenge and I'm sure there's plenty of other people who would love to see this too.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Co-Op, I think we need more of it!
When most people think of online gaming they tend to think of the competitive side of it. Team Deathmatching it up in games like Halo and Call of Duty. I like many other people do enjoy the competitive side of multiplayer but in the end I really do prefer a online Co-Op experience. I've spent many, many hours playing COD4 and Team Fortress 2 online, Halo 2 sucked up a good chunk of time when it came out for the first Xbox. It even goes back to playing Quake over my 56k modem watching it chug under lag trying to play.
Like I said above though, I usually prefer a co-op experience over the competitive side of gaming. That goes back to games like Contra, Bill and Lance side by side fighting the alien invasion, Smash TV, Ikari Warriors all kinds of classic co-op goodness. We had those type of games for awhile then it seemed to kind of vanish in favor of the competitive games, I really started to notice it when the consoles went online. Online deathmatch just seemed to take over everything and a lot of people thought co-op was dead but we did see a resurgence.
Games like Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, even Halo has it. It feels so fantastic to be able to play through a game with a friend or even a random guy from online it's still a blast. But sadly, some games that I think really needed to have some kind of co-op in them did not have the feature.
Call of Duty 4 with all the awesome online multiplayer did not have a co-op mode. I think it could of been a better game with co-op. Infinity Ward had said they thought co-op would of ruined the experience but most of the time you're with a bunch of AI teammates which could of easily been replaced with some real players. Story line wise and with the way some of the levels are built you can still make the argument for not having co-op but it should of still been there. World at War had co-op in it and it was a lot of fun to play and didn't really take anything away from the game to play with three other people.
STALKER one of my all time favorite games ever but missing co-op play. Now Shadow of Chernobyl is a story based game, you're a central character doing your thing in the Zone but I have an idea. How about a co-op free roam mode? You can get into the game area and play with some friends but just explore the Zone, taking down Bandit camps with your buddies planning and being successful in your raids. STALKER has the competitive multiplayer which I've never played and I've never heard of anyone even playing it so why waste the time with it? You'd probably have more success with a co-op mode in this series.
And the big game, the one that made me want to write this article, that game is Far Cry 2. One of the core mechanics of Far Cry 2 is the buddy system. You have a buddy that will come and save you from combat if you lose all your health. They blast in guns blazing and pull you out of the fire. How amazing would it be if this was a real person? You could have a lot of people playing this game at the same time. The map is gigantic and without the loading screens it could be super immersive. The key point in Far Cry 2 that made me want co-op were the boats. You can ride these little fan boats around and they have two seats. One to drive and a gunner post. As I was riding down the river all I could think of is someone should be on that gun watching out as I drove but alas, it wasn't meant to be. If they make a Far Cry 3 and it follows the path of Far Cry 2 then it absolutely needs to have co-op.
Like I said above though, I usually prefer a co-op experience over the competitive side of gaming. That goes back to games like Contra, Bill and Lance side by side fighting the alien invasion, Smash TV, Ikari Warriors all kinds of classic co-op goodness. We had those type of games for awhile then it seemed to kind of vanish in favor of the competitive games, I really started to notice it when the consoles went online. Online deathmatch just seemed to take over everything and a lot of people thought co-op was dead but we did see a resurgence.
Games like Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, even Halo has it. It feels so fantastic to be able to play through a game with a friend or even a random guy from online it's still a blast. But sadly, some games that I think really needed to have some kind of co-op in them did not have the feature.
Call of Duty 4 with all the awesome online multiplayer did not have a co-op mode. I think it could of been a better game with co-op. Infinity Ward had said they thought co-op would of ruined the experience but most of the time you're with a bunch of AI teammates which could of easily been replaced with some real players. Story line wise and with the way some of the levels are built you can still make the argument for not having co-op but it should of still been there. World at War had co-op in it and it was a lot of fun to play and didn't really take anything away from the game to play with three other people.
STALKER one of my all time favorite games ever but missing co-op play. Now Shadow of Chernobyl is a story based game, you're a central character doing your thing in the Zone but I have an idea. How about a co-op free roam mode? You can get into the game area and play with some friends but just explore the Zone, taking down Bandit camps with your buddies planning and being successful in your raids. STALKER has the competitive multiplayer which I've never played and I've never heard of anyone even playing it so why waste the time with it? You'd probably have more success with a co-op mode in this series.
And the big game, the one that made me want to write this article, that game is Far Cry 2. One of the core mechanics of Far Cry 2 is the buddy system. You have a buddy that will come and save you from combat if you lose all your health. They blast in guns blazing and pull you out of the fire. How amazing would it be if this was a real person? You could have a lot of people playing this game at the same time. The map is gigantic and without the loading screens it could be super immersive. The key point in Far Cry 2 that made me want co-op were the boats. You can ride these little fan boats around and they have two seats. One to drive and a gunner post. As I was riding down the river all I could think of is someone should be on that gun watching out as I drove but alas, it wasn't meant to be. If they make a Far Cry 3 and it follows the path of Far Cry 2 then it absolutely needs to have co-op.
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