Allow me to continue the Far Cry 2 debate. I'm the TC, I have the right to do it:x
I must have been playing a different FarCry 2. The game I remember had no storyline progression or dynamic world whatsoever; for simplicity of programming, every single soldier would recognize and declare war on you as soon as they saw the lights on your closed-top jeep. You'd choose sides, and yet you'd do all missions for both sides and both would still fire on you wherever you went without ever having seen or recognized your face. All missions were clones of one of 4 or 5 basic mission types, and you would do them over and over again. The way the armory and gun stores worked was unrealistic and contrived. "Convoys" would run in circles around an arbitrary point indefinitely, waiting for you to destroy them. All the villages felt completely dead other than the gun-toting mercenaries sitting around all day and night. The storyline was poor. This game abused the open-world setting as much as possible by throwing in as much generic, repeated content as possible. It was the epitome of graphics-over-gameplay... it looked great, it felt and looked like Africa (the wilderness did, anyways), the guns sounded and looked great... but that's as far as the praise goes.F1_2004
The armory and gun stores are unrealistic, but fun.
I never get tired of planning my missions, and I love it when everything goes wrong and I must improvise. It's a pure shooter set in a world built for a hybrid game. With all its faults, Far Cry 2 is a much better sandbox experience than Crysis, and in some ways even better than Stalker's random madness. It doesn't reach Stalker's cult status because it's not cool to like a game from a major publisher.
They're not even gamebreaking faults - seriously, who cares that the convoy runs in circles? How is it different from Warhead's hovercraft pursuit? Are you not employing the same tactics in taking it down as if it would've just went across the map? All the villages feel exactly like the villages in Stalker. I don't understand why some just can't accept that only the leaders of the faction know you're working for them. You're like the goddamn Batman in Nolan's movies, everybody's against you! Why is this so hard to accept?
I don't need a storyline, only a context - and the context, the background story, is amazing. I write the story. The buddy system is absolutely brilliant. Have you ever had to choose between shooting or saving your friend after, or in, or even before a new fight?
Graphics are gameplay in most games of today. Imagine Far Cry 2 in Trespasser clothes. In Source clothes. No fire propagation (which is just as important as the physics of Crysis), no weather system, no shadows, no bullet penetration... How come so many people always separate graphics and atmosphere from gameplay is a mistery to me. Some games simply don't work without proper support, and this one is one of them. I know it, I played about 15 hours on a system that only met the minimum requirements. When I finally afforded a new system, I was amazed. Instantly immersed.
Every time I start Far Cry 2, it's like I'm travelling to Africa. I'd even say that the best part of the game is simply wandering around, and the combat is just for spicing it up. I boot the game very often, even for only 15 minutes. I simply don't care about respawning checkpoints or weird economy. These are the same kind of features that so many hermits accepted in Stalker - annoying bits that somehow grow on you and you come to accept as natural.
The most annoying complaint I see is that you drive too much. Well that's why there are so many checkpoints! You can blast your way through them, you can engage in Mad Max sty1e car combat, or you can plan an assault. Ubisoft was right when it said that Far Cry has three main hooks: driving, shooting and flying. I admit the flying is a bit broken - but my God, what a pleasure it is to feel the wind rushing past your ears, to raise above the jungle or the savannah... and then to fall like a very concerned brick, 'cause you'll land right on top of an unsuspecting enemy jeep.
You know, with the exception of destructible environments (seriously, wtf happened to them?), Ubisoft delivered everything that it promised. But again, gamers hyped themselves for an imaginary game and then got angry when reality didn't live up to the fantasy.
Anyway, judging by the example of Assassin's Creed, the sequel will be much improved.
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