Or at least a good start…ADHERER

I am a big fan of the FarCry/Crysis line of games. I love First Person Shooters (FPS) and find it quite cathartic blowing the heads off of virtual bad guys. I’ve adored all of the Call of Duty (especially CoD4!) and Medal of Honor games as well. So, if you are like me and like those games, believe me when I say FarCry2 will blow you away.

Okay, let’s get real here for a second. The game play in FarCry2 is not the most inspired thing ever. Some of it is tired and nearly boring. And there are some nits. But I will get to those in a minute.

First, I have to talk about how bleeding gorgeous this game is! I am absolutely stunned! I can’t believe that they did so much. I feel like they reached into my gaming PC and upgraded the hardware. The game is that gorgeous. I have a pretty beefy rig for one that’s about a year old now… 3GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 8800GTs in SLI, 2GB RAM, 24″ monitor running at 1920×1200. That last spec is my fave. I am willing to turn down the pretty to keep the resolution as high as possible. Crysis seemed to tax my machine a little. With things turned up, it was beautiful but felt a tad sluggish. And in a mad balls-out firefight, sluggish equals death.

But I decided to leave many of the parameters relatively high for FarCry2 and then dial down as necessary. Well, I haven’t dialed anything down at all yet. Most everything is set at “Very High” with a few “Highs” on some things that don’t seem super necessary.

But let me tell you how the people at UBISoft have gotten a lot of things very right. Light, shadows, day/night cycle, weather, flora, all are stunning. The fauna, not so much. A zebra actually head-butted my technical and died on the spot. Very odd.

But let’s talk about the light and the shadows. Oh my God! It is so stunningly beautiful that you will forget it’s a game. It looks like a nature documentary. Trees actually cast shadows that look like the shadow of a tree, leaves and all. And those shadows also fall on other objects, including your own arm and gun (which is about all you see of yourself, no real HUD to speak of) as well as the vehicle you’re driving, if you’re in one. And the vehicles… man, they are quite detailed. The Jeeps even have floormats that say “JEEP” on them. Too bad the radios don’t work. In any case, I have yet to find anything in the game that doesn’t cast a realistic shadow. Some games have certain objects that don’t cast shadows at all and that makes the VR seem more virtual and less reality. And the light is incredibly realistic as well. There are a few places where I see that something is lit, but I can’t tell what the light source is. And every night has a big bright full moon, so things glow in the dark (no flashlight necessary and doing missions at night is not much different than doing them in the daytime).

Okay, let’s move on to the day/night cycle. This is amazing. It’s not the first time this sort of thing has appeared in a game, but it is the first time in an FPS. Sure, FarCry and Crysis had some missions in the daytime and others at night, but you didn’t really have the choice. Here, you do. Although, as I said, there doesn’t seem to be much difference. I haven’t purchased the Camo Suit yet, so I stick out like a sore thumb and can even be seen at night by the bad guys. But then again, I have done at least one mission without having to fire a shot. That’s a big plus. Other games that supposedly allow you to go stealth when you want are bogus, in my opinion, because there’s always one bad guy that sees you and then telepathically calls his buddies in and then you just have to kill them all. As well, silently killing someone seems to alert the entire continent to your actions. In any case, you have the choice of tackling missions at night if you like.

Flora. Oh my, how gorgeous. Trees and bushes and grass. The Grass is thick and waves with the breeze so realistically you won’t realize that you’re in a game. Seriously, there was grass in Crysis and FarCry, but it was clumpy and faded with distance (short distance, I might add). Bushes bend and wave in the breeze (which might be caused by a frag, by the way… that effect looks awesome!) and can be cut apart by gunfire. Trees are pretty indestructible, but they wave in the wind and some branches can be cut away by gunfire or actual fire.

Weather is really nice. Occasionally a rainstorm will kick up. I actually find myself spending more time under shelter because it feels so real, even though I know my virtual mercenary can take a little rain. But the visibility diminishes, the wind kicks up, blowing trees and grass and bushes violently, and you just get the sensation that you’re in a true rainstorm. Although, I am not sure if it has any effect on gameplay. Oh, there was also a sandstorm, which was pretty realistic when compared to the West Texas Dust Storm I was in as a teenager.

The fauna isn’t all that much. I’ve seen zebras and goats and other little animals. No lions yet. I did see something large once… like a hippo, but it was a ways away so I couldn’t tell what it was.

There are other little niceties. Like weapon malfunctions. Wear and tear will make a rifle jam, and apparently it will make an RPG just spit the rocket onto the ground in front of you, where it spins about madly and then explodes. That was interesting. The characters look very good, but not as good as Half Life 2, of course. The AI is pretty good. NPCs will get in vehicles or man mounted weapons. I’ve even seen them throw frags where I used to be, but since I’d moved, they got a rude awakening of a bullet in their backs. But they take a lot of gunfire to down. It’s like they’re all wearing bullet-proof vests, even the bare-chested ones. Some I have hit ten or more times in the chest and they just lie down, gurgle a bit, complain, and then get to their knees to fire a pistol at you, or else limp away, easy targets. Headshots are instant kills, though. Vehicles can be repaired, which takes time, so if you’re doing it in combat, you’d better be careful (but you can buy manuals that make it easier to fix them quickly… same for guns; buying the manual makes them not rust and jam). I like the searching for diamonds, although it seems little odd that there are apparently over 200 briefcases with diamonds in them just scattered across the landscape, and in the most difficult of areas to find. Sometimes, they’ll be at the top or bottom of a cliff, seemingly unreachable. I’m hoping that a jetpack appears later in the game. Oh, and if you toss a frag into an area where an ammo cache is, watch the fireworks!

Okay, so there it is. The game is set in this magnificent setting that is extremely beautiful. It could just be an exploration game and it would be amazing. Oh, did I mention? Each map (there are at least 2 that I know of) is like 50 square kilometers and no loads! That rocks!

But on to the gameplay. This game plays more like an adventure game than a shooter. You take on quests and side quests, some advance the story and others just help you out in other ways. The main quests are formulaic, but overall pretty good. Nothing to get seriously giddy about, but most all of them follow this formula: you get a mission, then a buddy calls you (their ESP must have told them you accepted a mission) with advice and a counter-mission. Basically, they say, “since you are doing that, do this for me instead and you’ll get both done.” Doing the missions gets you paid, although you get paid in advance, so the reward is that you can get another mission. Your buddies just give you “history” but not much help. Although there is typically one buddy that will appear when you “die” to pick you up and help you fight off the bad guys. But those buddies don’t show up all the time. And let’s get real: death = reload. The buddy angle is nifty, but not that big a deal here.

The side quests are truly uninspired. Essentially there are two type of missions: those for arms dealers and those for unknown off-continent types (who disguise their voices on the phone). The arms dealers are your friends as they sell you the guns you need. But the oddball thing is once you buy a gun, you can get as many of them as you want. Essentially you “unlock” the gun. But you have to have the gun available for purchase, which the dealer only does if you do a mission for him. And so far (I am about 50% done with the game at this point) they have all been missions to track and destroy a convoy. You have plenty of time since the convoy goes in a racetrack pattern, so once you see where they go you can set an ambush. It was very fun early on as all I had were IEDs. I would lay some on the road and wait for the convoy to pass and BOOM! Tons of fun! And if you don’t get them all, then you have a firefight on your hands. But now, I’ve unlocked the grenade launcher so I just hide behind a big rock and take out the truck in the convoy. It’s almost too simple. And then I either take out the escort technicals or else I switch weapons and have a good ol’ fashioned shootout with them. Or sometimes I jump in my nearby vehicle and jet away.

The other side missions are always assassinations. And usually the target is in town, where there is a cease fire, but as soon as you grease your target, all hell breaks loose. And that’s even if you do it in secret with your machete, instead of something that makes noise. Very unrealistic, but it can be fun. Kind of makes it seem like a sniper rifle on the outskirts of town (assuming the target is mobile and outdoors) would be the best thing to do, since you have to leave town quickly after breaking the ceasefire.

Finally, my other nit is the guard posts. These dot the landscape, mostly along roads or at intersections. You can’t avoid them (cliff walls and jungle pretty much dictate where you can and can’t go) and there’s no real bonus to taking them on. Here’s how it works. You roll up to a guard post, pop to the MG in your technical (assuming you’re smart enough to drive one instead of a Jeep or a car or a buggy) and start gunning away. There’s usually three to five bad guys there. You could try to drive through, but if they have a vehicle (most do), they’ll jump in it and chase you. Which is interesting, but kind of lame since their trucks are always faster than yours. So if you kill them all, you can scour the post for what “type” of post it is. Essentially, each post has ammo, fuel (for Malatov cocktails), first aid, or explosives (grenades). The game keeps track of how many guard posts you’ve scouted (and sometimes it’s tough to scout them… you have to find and then walk up to the crate or whatever to get it unlocked). But all that does is label it on your map. The guards will be back in a little while, so there’s no reward there. And like I said, you can’t really avoid them. It sure would have been nice if you could bribe them or something; or maybe they could switch to a “friendy” faction since you took it out. But nope, everyone (except your buddies who only show up every now and then) is out to kill you. They cover that by saying you’re on “secret” missions for the factions, so even the members of those factions still want to kill you. Not very well thought-out, in my opinion.

All in all, the game is gorgeous and a lot of fun. But there is a fair amount of tedium involved. Like most adventure games, most of your time is spent going here to see so-n-so, then there to kill whats-his-name, then over there to bring the stuff to thus-n-such. And the locations are rarely convenient. There’s almost always at least two or three guard posts between you and them. The roads are winding and treacherous, or you can take a boat, which seem to be scarce in most areas. And if you don’t have a vehicle, well then your walk will be a long one. And it’s not like you can scale cliffs, so there’s no shortcuts to being on-foot. And it’s not like you can sneak past guard posts on foot. So there’s no benefit to not having a vehicle. But they’re everywhere, so just jump in one and go (no one seems to mind).

In the end, I am so happy that there has been somewhat of a blurring between the FPS and the adventure genre here. As an adventure game, it is far from the best one ever. As an FPS, well, it comes up short in many areas there as well (the guns aren’t very realistic, but are super-plentiful). However, it is the most gorgeous game I have ever seen, so perhaps someone can take that engine and make a truly riveting game out of it.

Areas for improvement:

1. More-varied missions. It’s great that the game isn’t on rails (forcing you to do things in order) but hey, why not have entry into a location trigger a more-guided (which are generally more engaging) sub-mission?
2. More-realistic missions (why would a convoy just go in a circle forever?).
3. Time of day is awesome… but why can’t I check my watch unless I’m about to set an alarm to wake me up? Sometimes I can’t tell what time it is, so I don’t know which direction (by the sun) I’m facing (unless I check the map). Also, it would be nice to know how long until sunrise or sunset.
4. More missions that pretty much require doing them at night. Night vision would rule the roost. I realize it’s Africa and high-tech is scarce, but it would be great to be the better-equipped merc that’s taking on large numbers of emenies using the superior technology.
5. Distractions? I would love to be able to set a charge on a fuel tank, sneak to the other side of the map, then detonate the charge to draw the guards that direction. Who knows? That may actually work. But there doesn’t seem to be much incentive to do anything other than just find them and shoot them.
6. Silent things should be silently rewarded. If I knife a guy and no one sees, I should be able to go about my business until the body is discovered.
7. WTF are safe houses for? Sleep only passes time. My character has been awake for 3 days with very little sleep; there should be a penalty for that. And if we’re “living” in this world, why doesn’t food come into play? My character hasn’t eaten in 3 days either.
8. Transportation. There are 5 bus stations around the edges of the map (one of them in the center) that only help a little. And why is every journey long and filled with firefights? If that’s the goal, then make the missions have multiple firefights. Semi-random and unavoidable encounters don’t truly let us play “our way”.
9. Why can’t we have many missions at one time? The arms dealers won’t give you a mission if you already have one. Having many missions makes the travel more bearable because you can probably find a mission nearby to do.
10. What’s with the gun wear? I like the concept, but a new gun that rusts in less than a day? How about making it where part of going to a safe house is the repair/maintenance of your gun? I pick up a good gun from a bad guy and it’s crap because it jams half the time, and never at an opportune moment. That makes finding a good gun on a bad guy impotent. At least let us purchase the manual for any gun (not just those we’ve unlocked) so that we can repair it.
11. Factions. There are two factions. Why not allow us to choose sides and then those guys help us and the other side shoots at us? That would make for a lot of replayability. In fact, why not make the missions more robust? Say, each mission can be succeeded or failed. Success helps your faction gain ground in the storyline; failure makes them lose ground. As it is, the character is just passing through this world, not having that much effect (except what the NCPs say you’ve helped with). That would truly make this a game instead of just an interactive story.
12. What’s the deal with choosing your character? No one calls me by name. I rarely see my own body (which is just the clothes I am wearing, so what’s the difference?). My character never speaks (I chose the Irishman because I wanted to hear his lilt, but he never says a word). And he never appears in any cut scenes or anything. So why have the different characters?
13. What’s with the weapon malfunctions? A gun will rust away in a few hours, but my swimming in a nasty river for a km or so doesn’t hurt it?
14. Why does everyone want so desperately to kill me? If I’m in a technical (with a machinegun) and they’re in a Pinto, why would they try and take me on?
15. Why can we only carry 3 weapons, 1 each from 3 classes? Sometimes it would be nice to have a sniper rifle, but I don’t want to go back to a safe house or arms dealer to get one, then take out my target, and then return to switch weapons again.
16. Weapons crates are interesting (after you unlock them, you can store a single weapon at a safe house, and it will be available at any other safe house). But it would be so much better to have a weapons crate on a vehicle. Like, you could drive up to a mission site, get out the sniper rifle, take out the enemy snipers and several of the guards, and then go back to the vehicle to get the assault rifle to go in and finish the job. Basically the game punishes diversity. I guess you could carry a sniper rifle and then carry a MAC10 or light MG in the other slots. But for medium-distance encounters, nothing stops a bad guy like a nice AK-47.
17. Maybe make weapons or ammo (or other resources) more scarce, for the player and the NPCs. MGs have infinite ammo, ammo is generic (funny how NATO 5.56 can be easily used in a 7.62 AK-47), vehicles always have gas, bad guys drop weapons and ammo all the time (to the point that I rarely pick up their ammo unless I had a bad firefight and am running low). It would be fun to find a good gun every now and then, except that when you do, it’s all rusty and is bound to jam up soon. Think about other adventure games and how great it is to find the awesome swords.
18. Weapon upgrades. Like Crysis, why not allow us to purchase scopes, laser sights, etc.?
19. Prone. Please let us crawl on our bellies. Otherwise, stealth is out.

Wow, that’s a lot of improvements, isn’t it? Well, there are definitely some shortcomings in the game. If it were me, I would like to see a full delving into the mercenary lifestyle. First you get a job, or a series of jobs that you can accept or decline. Next, you scout the location and make a plan. Then you make a list of the equipment you need, which you have to buy and comes out of your profit. So, yeah, you could roll in in a tank and easily complete the mission (as long as it’s not a stealth mission), but how much does a tank cost? Finally, you execute the mission and gain the payment if you’re successful.

That would make for such a compelling game. Non-cerebral types could just grab their M-4 and go in, guns a-blazin’, but planners could reap the rewards of their effort, while saving money.

Okay, now I’m planning my own game… that’s another rabbit hole we’ll get into at another time.