Far Cry 2 Review

tmeacham

Distinguished
Aug 27, 2005
408
0
18,780
Review by Travis Meacham.

Ubisoft's newest shooter Far Cry 2 sports an impressive graphics engine, realistic fire propagation and zebras. Find out of the interactive, open-world environments and African-safari flavor can make up for some repetitive gameplay and the many miles spent in a Jeep.

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/10/31/farcry2_review/
 

emp

Distinguished
Dec 15, 2004
2,593
0
20,780
You're a kind and brave man, Mr Travis, know that you have a place in heaven now for this. Anyone can feed poor children, or help the elderly, but not many can actually sit and play Far Cry 2 without barfing their guts out. A very generous, more down to earth score for this than what the other blind reviewers across the internet have awarded (I would've given it a 4.5 / 10)

I simply cannot fathom why Ubisoft having such a great franchise and having Far Cry at their disposal to understand what made it great, would instead end up releasing such a smelly piece of camel dong with a Far Cry 2 logo slapped on it. I guess Ubisoft will ALWAYS be Ubisoft... I wish they'd just go out of business...
 

SEALBoy

Distinguished
Aug 17, 2006
1,303
0
19,290
I didn't think it was a horrible game... yes it can occacionally get a bit tedious, and the story is pathetic, but overall from an action perspective (and it IS an action game), it certainly delivers.
 

dagger

Splendid
Mar 23, 2008
5,624
0
25,780


Only one time use though. The name will be worthless once Ubisoft is done with it. :na:
 

stemnin

Distinguished
Dec 28, 2006
1,450
0
19,280
I totally agree with Trav, though I would've given it an 8. I just got a new HDD installed last night (last one failed), haven't reinstalled FC2 yet, playing Fallout 3. Haven't had the chance to do much though.
 

rtfm

Distinguished
Feb 21, 2007
526
0
18,980


Is it really that bad? Shame cause it was the one game I was looking forward to :-(
 

dagger

Splendid
Mar 23, 2008
5,624
0
25,780


Yep, both gameplay and visually. :p
far-cry-2--20081007102912163.jpg

300-pm-embargo-e3-2008-crysis-warhead-screens-20080711103002408.jpg
 

dagger

Splendid
Mar 23, 2008
5,624
0
25,780


Dunia Engine is made to run on puny console hardware. It looks like crap compared to Cryengine. :p
 

medfreak

Distinguished
Dec 19, 2007
2
0
18,510
How the hell did the review come to the conclusion that Far Cry 2 comes anywhere similar to Crysis or Crysis Warhead in terms of Graphics? They are not even close. It is only a lot smother because it actually is showing a lot less. Use some custom configs for Crysis that would downgrade the graphical quality to Far Cry 2 level and you would get an experience probably as smooth as Far Cry 2.

Secondly my biggest gripe was the AI. In short it was HORRIBLE. The enemies were dead robots that were highly unreactive, and on many occasions just magically know your location from a few miles away. Stealth qualities in this game were almost non existent. You could be hugging the ground a mile from an encampment and the AI would still see you.

Finally, why the hell does an FPS game lack some basic qualities FPS games had for years now. For example a shaky weapon reticule that becomes more stable on going prone. None of that was in this game.

Crysis in a sense was a much better sequel to Far Cry than this game was.
 

Heyyou27

Splendid
Jan 4, 2006
5,164
0
25,780
The funny thing, I played it on the 360 the other day, and it looks bad for a 360 game!
 

dagger

Splendid
Mar 23, 2008
5,624
0
25,780


You haven't played many console games, have you? :na:

Trust me, that's not even remotely bad by console standard. :p
 

dagger

Splendid
Mar 23, 2008
5,624
0
25,780


With the long drives, fast outpost respawning, impossible to see where enemy is shooting from, and set save points? Still, yeah, gameplay is a matter of opinions, after all. :p
 

tmeacham

Distinguished
Aug 27, 2005
408
0
18,780


The set save points in the PC version are just remnants of the console code. You can F5 to quicksave anytime, anywhere and also do a full save at the main menu. If the PC version had limited saving I would have crushed it.
 

ammezz

Distinguished
Nov 1, 2008
2
0
18,510
I think this game is great, I enjoyed crysis, but I think I'm enjoying this more. The driving gets old, but it's easy to see why it's in there, they created an open world. The AI is much better than Crysis. Crysis enemies would just stand and shoot, it was never hard to take them out. While the AI in fc2 isn't perfect and is highly predictable, it's pretty good. The enemies at least split up and will flank you (albeit every time), but they have caught me off guard on a few occasions. The graphics are great, and the game does run better overall than crysis. Dagger that's a funny screen shot you chose, of course it can look like crap using that one. Visually this game is impressive.
 

d_kuhn

Distinguished
Mar 26, 2002
704
0
18,990
FC2 has been significantly overrated by the media for some reason I can't quite figure out. If you look at a meta-review site you'll find the media reviews averaging 8 or so out of 10, but player reviews closer to 5 out of 10 (which is where it should be).

It's not that it's a horrible game... it's just not a great one. It's solidly mediocre in every way other than graphics (which are great for the most part). Gameplay is redundant redundant redundant...
.
.
.
redundant.

There are no significant advances on gameplay relative to other similar titles (going back to the quite excellent and underrated "Operation: Flashpoint"). In fact. OFP is in almost EVERY way a better game than FC2... and it's what; a thousand years old?

There are some new minor touches such as gun wear, but how they were implemented is more of a hindrance to immersion rather than a supporting element, and like most of the "realism" touches seems more designed to stage-gate the game rather than to enhance it. AI isn pretty decent but built in cheats given to the opponents to enable them to give you a decent fight are also immersion killing (like the fact that even if you have the zippy dune buggy any NPC in a POS gremlin can run you down with ease).

I find respawn games to in general be a sign of poor design, but in this one they COULD have done it more realistically (reinforcements get dispatched from one of the cities after you take out a checkpoint), but instead they do the usual 'Pop in from nowhere'. It would allow you to get a bit of a payoff as the checkpoint wouldn't be restaffed as soon as you leave the area (avoiding the redundant taking out of the same checkpoint over and over)

The diamond hunt mini-game is silly and redundant, forcing you to run blow a lot of time for a minuscule payoff. Why not have the Player find slips of paper with GPS codes instead of silly proximity blinking lights. And give him a dozen diamonds per cache instead of 1, and put them out in remote areas so the player has to see all the wonderful artistry that went into the environmental work (Class 1 quality there, too bad the rest of the game isn't). I did it a few times but very quickly got bored with the idea and decided if it becomes important as the game progresses to hunt from such small quantities of diamonds I'll just download a hack to give myself the 300 I would have gotten from tracking down all those annoying suitcases.

Missions come from a number of sources but again... redundancy is the name of the game. Cell towers, weapons dealers, resistance cells don't even pretend to variety... giving you the EXACT same missions over and over again... and again... and again. Main plot missions have some variability so far, which (along with the fun of just wandering around sightseeing) has kept me from just chucking the game entirely.

The Malaria thing is another concept that could have been a cool element... but malaria isn't a chronic disease... you get it, you take meds, you get rid of it. In this game it's used to force you to take resistance missions, and it's more like VD... you can't get rid of it (no payoff for doing the missions).

Hint to game makers: if all a player can do through their actions is maintain the status quo... you're just creating an annoyance for them instead of creating a challenge to be overcome.

The plot itself is another serious problem, you're a merc... but for an open ended game this one does a pretty good job of FORCING you to insure your character has no actual personality. You're just a robot who automatically takes missions and executes them, the why's are thrown in as pointless window dressing because you don't really have a CHOICE about it. You HAVE to play both sides, you HAVE to take redundant resistance missions, you take out checkpoints and NPC's over and over with no thought whatsoever to what their role is in the plot... because it doesn't matter - everyone is a target because the back-story is just that - a disconnected story that doesn't really affect what you do in the game.

Open ended gameplay is my favorite style of game, but these folks need to take some lessons in keeping such games engaging... Far Cry 2 had (has) HUGE potential, but weak repetitive gameplay and plot problems are serious flaws that make this title an also-ran.


 

dagger

Splendid
Mar 23, 2008
5,624
0
25,780


Isn't that simple? The original Far Cry set the bar too high. :p
 

d_kuhn

Distinguished
Mar 26, 2002
704
0
18,990
The original Far Cry was definitely the better of the two... the single player game got a bit disjointed in the last 5 levels or so but up until then it was brilliant, right up there in ID games territory and just a step or two behind the Half Life series (Half Life is to the FPS what the Lord of the Rings is to fantasy... the yardstick by which other are found wanting).