[BLOG] Far Cry 2 - my first few hours
My goodness, this game is good.
I almost hate to say that I like this game, even love it. I didn't buy into the hype of FarCry 2 until, well, 4 days ago. I couldn't get excited about it. I was a HUGE fan of FarCry when it came out, but that game's bread and butter - Crytek - went on to develop Crysis. I love Crysis, it's one of my favorite shooters. Crysis was to me the true follow up to FarCry. It was superior in every way to whatever FarCry 2 could possibly pull off.
But Ubisoft has done a good job. Is it a better shooter than Crysis? The two can hardly be compared. About the only thing they have in common is pretty graphics and big open worlds. And guns. But what FarCry2 excels in is creating a very unique and fun shooter experience very much unlike those that we're used to.
The first thing that really struck my attention with this game is it's constant obsession with immersion. You're point of view is constantly stuck on the shoulders of your character. Everything they do from sitting in a jeep, typing at a computer, tending a wound, or taking a pill is all seen from the eyes of the character. And those animations are done beautifully. It adds a solid sense of perspective, never leaving the character.
The visuals in FarCry 2 are very good. Not top tier, but close. Crysis still reigns far supreme. But FarCry 2 does pull the stops when it comes to lighting. Shadows are very complex and well-defined. When the sun is shining bright, large plant leafs become transparent, and you'll see shadows casting through them. That's an effect that not even Crysis does. Day/night cycles in the game are impressive and progress at a very nice pace. In Crysis, day/night was cheated. They progressed the time of day to match up with situations in the game. FarCry 2 keeps time going at a constant pace the entire time you're playing. Fighting through the night and seeing the sun rise as you overlook a burning brush fire is quite the sight.
Crysis rears its beautiful head again once you start paying close attention to the visuals. You cannot deny the influence Crysis has had on games. It has raised the bar extremely high with what's possible in real-time graphics. After playing Crysis, FarCry 2's world feels much more static. When a grenade goes off inside of a shack I expect it to be blow apart. When I fire at a tree with a .50 calibre machine gun, I want it to snap in half. FarCry 2 does have it's share of breakables, but it's nowhere near the level of destruction in Crysis. We've been spoiled, you'll see a difference.
The character models are also a little 'meh' in FarCry2. They're not bad, they're just not Crysis. Again, I've been spoiled by the best there is. After seeing real time subsurface scattering implemented on character models in Crysis, I just sort of expect that tech to be there in a new game. Also missing graphically in FarCry2 is motion blur. It's a little harder for me to excuse motion blur, it's just about become a defacto standard in todays DX10 driven graphics architectures. The subtle addition of that tech adds so much to the realism of an experience, and it's sorely missing from FarCry2.
But enough of the graphics talk, how does it play? If you've played STALKER, you've already had a taste of the formula. At the games start it feels a little more linear than you'd expect based on the game's marketing. You'll soon realize that it exists for a short time just to give you the standard 'tutorial' section. After about 30 minutes of playing though, you literally walk out a door and you're told to find a job and that you've got one objective. That objective is to find The Jackal, a notorious arms dealer and drug trafficer, and kill him. At this point, what you do is entirely up to you, and you're presented with a massive world before you. It feels like STALKER on steroids.
And exploration yields good results. Diamonds are stashed all over the game world. If you find them, you can buy weapons and upgrades with them. There are safe houses to fight for, enemy encampments to blow up, coutryside to explore. You can do it all. And there is not one loading screen to get in your way (not that I've seen yet anyway).
Combat feels very intense and 'punchy'. Weapons have a powerful feel and sound to them. The open worlds lead to intense run and gun sessions, and the occasional brush fire has detered my tactics on more than one occasion. Guns also randomly jam (or explode!) as they age, meaning you have to keep your weapons in good shape or risk being caught with your pants down mid-fight.
If you go down in a fight it's not immediately game over. In an impressive sequence, your body falls to the ground, and you black out. You come to just in time to see one of your buddies leaning over your body, yelling to you. He picks you up, you black out. Gunfire fill the air still. You come to again, you see your legs as he drags you from the battlefield. Black out again, then you finally come to away from the battle. He gives you a pistol, tells you to patch yourself up, then get back into the fight. Very impressive and intense sequence that adds a lot to the realism of the struggle.
Speaking of patching yourself up, you have to literally heal yourself for critical wounds. Sometimes you use a knife to wedge a bullet out of your leg, or pliars to pull shrapnel from your wrist. I've even used matches to cauterize a wound. Crap, I've even SNAPPED my dislocated eblow BACK into PLACE. These are incredible sequences and most definitely not for the squeamish.
FarCry 2 is great. I've had a blast my short time with it. Give it a shot if you're looking for an action-filled shooter with a fairly different forumula. It's a nice mix up to the genre.
I must go, there are oppressed Africans in need of liberation. These safaris are beautiful, but deadly.
I almost hate to say that I like this game, even love it. I didn't buy into the hype of FarCry 2 until, well, 4 days ago. I couldn't get excited about it. I was a HUGE fan of FarCry when it came out, but that game's bread and butter - Crytek - went on to develop Crysis. I love Crysis, it's one of my favorite shooters. Crysis was to me the true follow up to FarCry. It was superior in every way to whatever FarCry 2 could possibly pull off.
But Ubisoft has done a good job. Is it a better shooter than Crysis? The two can hardly be compared. About the only thing they have in common is pretty graphics and big open worlds. And guns. But what FarCry2 excels in is creating a very unique and fun shooter experience very much unlike those that we're used to.
The first thing that really struck my attention with this game is it's constant obsession with immersion. You're point of view is constantly stuck on the shoulders of your character. Everything they do from sitting in a jeep, typing at a computer, tending a wound, or taking a pill is all seen from the eyes of the character. And those animations are done beautifully. It adds a solid sense of perspective, never leaving the character.
The visuals in FarCry 2 are very good. Not top tier, but close. Crysis still reigns far supreme. But FarCry 2 does pull the stops when it comes to lighting. Shadows are very complex and well-defined. When the sun is shining bright, large plant leafs become transparent, and you'll see shadows casting through them. That's an effect that not even Crysis does. Day/night cycles in the game are impressive and progress at a very nice pace. In Crysis, day/night was cheated. They progressed the time of day to match up with situations in the game. FarCry 2 keeps time going at a constant pace the entire time you're playing. Fighting through the night and seeing the sun rise as you overlook a burning brush fire is quite the sight.
Crysis rears its beautiful head again once you start paying close attention to the visuals. You cannot deny the influence Crysis has had on games. It has raised the bar extremely high with what's possible in real-time graphics. After playing Crysis, FarCry 2's world feels much more static. When a grenade goes off inside of a shack I expect it to be blow apart. When I fire at a tree with a .50 calibre machine gun, I want it to snap in half. FarCry 2 does have it's share of breakables, but it's nowhere near the level of destruction in Crysis. We've been spoiled, you'll see a difference.
The character models are also a little 'meh' in FarCry2. They're not bad, they're just not Crysis. Again, I've been spoiled by the best there is. After seeing real time subsurface scattering implemented on character models in Crysis, I just sort of expect that tech to be there in a new game. Also missing graphically in FarCry2 is motion blur. It's a little harder for me to excuse motion blur, it's just about become a defacto standard in todays DX10 driven graphics architectures. The subtle addition of that tech adds so much to the realism of an experience, and it's sorely missing from FarCry2.
But enough of the graphics talk, how does it play? If you've played STALKER, you've already had a taste of the formula. At the games start it feels a little more linear than you'd expect based on the game's marketing. You'll soon realize that it exists for a short time just to give you the standard 'tutorial' section. After about 30 minutes of playing though, you literally walk out a door and you're told to find a job and that you've got one objective. That objective is to find The Jackal, a notorious arms dealer and drug trafficer, and kill him. At this point, what you do is entirely up to you, and you're presented with a massive world before you. It feels like STALKER on steroids.
And exploration yields good results. Diamonds are stashed all over the game world. If you find them, you can buy weapons and upgrades with them. There are safe houses to fight for, enemy encampments to blow up, coutryside to explore. You can do it all. And there is not one loading screen to get in your way (not that I've seen yet anyway).
Combat feels very intense and 'punchy'. Weapons have a powerful feel and sound to them. The open worlds lead to intense run and gun sessions, and the occasional brush fire has detered my tactics on more than one occasion. Guns also randomly jam (or explode!) as they age, meaning you have to keep your weapons in good shape or risk being caught with your pants down mid-fight.
If you go down in a fight it's not immediately game over. In an impressive sequence, your body falls to the ground, and you black out. You come to just in time to see one of your buddies leaning over your body, yelling to you. He picks you up, you black out. Gunfire fill the air still. You come to again, you see your legs as he drags you from the battlefield. Black out again, then you finally come to away from the battle. He gives you a pistol, tells you to patch yourself up, then get back into the fight. Very impressive and intense sequence that adds a lot to the realism of the struggle.
Speaking of patching yourself up, you have to literally heal yourself for critical wounds. Sometimes you use a knife to wedge a bullet out of your leg, or pliars to pull shrapnel from your wrist. I've even used matches to cauterize a wound. Crap, I've even SNAPPED my dislocated eblow BACK into PLACE. These are incredible sequences and most definitely not for the squeamish.
FarCry 2 is great. I've had a blast my short time with it. Give it a shot if you're looking for an action-filled shooter with a fairly different forumula. It's a nice mix up to the genre.
I must go, there are oppressed Africans in need of liberation. These safaris are beautiful, but deadly.
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