FC2 $5 Off Steam Preorder

[TerranUp16]

Link

Preorder Far Cry 2 off Steam now and save $5. That brings the price down to $45 USD to play the game at launch- $15 under the 360/PS3 versions despite the game being PC-first and the PC version being the best of the three. So, if you *know* you're going to be getting Far Cry 2... Boot-up Steam and preorder now.

[~VanMavus]

I dislike Steam, I like physical disks... much easier to organize and take with you then having to take your whole computer or downloading it which takes about 10 hours or whatever.

Although I will be getting Far Cry 2.

[TerranUp16]

~VanMavus Wrote:I dislike Steam, I like physical disks... much easier to organize and take with you then having to take your whole computer or downloading it which takes about 10 hours or whatever.

!? While I already appreciated Steam for its convenience, I appreciate it all the more so now that I am at college in a (relatively sizable compared to other colleges I looked at) dorm. I have an enormous box stuffed with PC game boxes stored beneath my bed. It's a total pain in the ass and I really can't fit any more game boxes in the... box. There is a degree of organization, but I really don't have room for an actual rack or anything and there are multiple layers of games in the box so finding what I want quickly is bleh.

With Steam, I can play whatever game I have by just downloading and installing it. Most of the games download AND install within 10 minutes for me. Ridiculously more convenient, and as a result my Steam games get used far more often than my boxed games. Plus, Steam autopatches (I REALLY WISH I HAD GOTTEN THE STEAM VERSION OF COMPANY OF HEROES: OPPOSING FRONTS... I definitely will for Tales of Valor). Other than a paranoid fear that the Steam servers are going to go down before you can back-up your games on an external HDD... Plus, $5 for Prey? $5 for Far Cry? $7.50 for Max Payne and Max Payne 2? Effing insane.

[~VanMavus]

USD... and we don't have such a widespread high speed broadband network here. I'm only using 256kbps... the highest we have in town is 1500kbps. Those games end up being like $15.00 here, plus who would want to buy them now?

[TerranUp16]

~VanMavus Wrote:Those games end up being like $15.00 here, plus who would want to buy them now?

Max Payne 2? If you haven't bought Max Payne/Max Payne 2 already then you really should (imo, combined they sport one of the best video game stories ever and are definitely right at the peak of games that are not first-person and that do give their protagonist a personality- aka, games that are not HL/HL2/Bioshock/etc style). Not to mention that StarCraft and CounterStrike: Source still sport two of the most active online communities yet are each relatively old games. There are plenty of older games that are totally worth $5 because they're just flat-out great games. I'd much rather drop $5 or $10 or $15 on a really good old game than $50 on a meh new game.

[~VanMavus]

I prefer player crafted characters (eg. HL2/Bioshock/Fable2) where you make your own characters. I don't mind a preset character where you're a police officer or whatever but I much prefer my own story then the developers.

[TerranUp16]

~VanMavus Wrote:I prefer player crafted characters (eg. HL2/Bioshock/Fable2) where you make your own characters. I don't mind a preset character where you're a police officer or whatever but I much prefer my own story then the developers.

Well, Max Payne is a rogue cop... Anyway, player-crafted is a bit of an open-ended question. The characters in HL2 and Bioshock are premade but don't speak. However, you can create your own character in Mass Effect but they will speak and despite that you have a dialog tree it's still next to impossible to say what you want to. But anyway, for the most part the HL2/Bioshock style has greater potential, but a game like Max Payne/Max Payne 2 is truly amazing as it really manages to overcome the inherent shortcomings of having a precrafted character (imo, the bar for precrafted characters starts higher but ends lower- bad use of "player crafted characters" can be really, really abysmal but can also be really amazing; it's harder to really screw-up a precrafted character). It gets you inside Max Payne's mind in such a way that it treats you as both a first and third party, allowing you to analyze and vicariously partake in Max Payne's existence. Plus, it also out-Bioshocks Bioshock.

[~VanMavus]

The last sentence lost me... anyway I have no intention of downloading an older game now I have a newer system, something that has kept me from getting the games I truly desire. At any rate back on topic, I will be buying FC2 (if not only just to use the map editor ) but I will be buying a physical disk as I always do ( except in the case of HL2/Gmod which has given me enough experience with Steam's customer support for a lifetime ).

[TerranUp16]

(Shrug) It's nice to play older games that are still effing awesome, extremely well-designed games at maxed settings, 1920x1200, 16xMSAA, 16xAF, etc... at 60fps (thx to vsync otherwise it would probably be 180fps).

[TerranUp16]

So... FC2 released today so I downloaded it off Steam courtesy of my preorder. I've been playing it for a few hours and have spoken to some of you- ranted really. Far Cry 2 has a bunch of ridiculously bad design decisions that can very quickly set off a rant (no prone or lean!? WTF). Its graphics are also rant-worthy, primarily because all the objects are blocky, the view distance is piss-poor, and the LOD culling is ridiculous. Yeah, I can run Far Cry 2 at ~45fps (it fluctuates between 30 and 60 often but I haven't seen it drop below 30fps yet) at DX10 max settings, 1920x1200, and 16xAF (no AA though) but imo it doesn't run better than Crysis/Crysis: Warhead- it actually runs significantly worse when you factor in image quality and LOD and draw distance (Crysis Warhead runs at about 30fps at a mix of Gamer and Enthusiast settings at 1920x1200 and 16xAF in DX10 mode on my GTX 280 and looks significantly better than FC2). But anyway, it also has its fair share of gameplay design wtf's that are at least on par with Crysis's aliens (though Warhead finally fixed those in the last mission and made them bearable the rest of the game) and thus far my impression of the expanded, "persistent" universe that Far Cry 2 offers is that I'd rather go with the linear progression of missions in Crysis because the driving around linear paths just kills Far Cry 2's pacing.

However, I don't want to rant too much because the game definitely starts slow so I want to get a bit farther in before really tearing into the game at all. It does have many positive aspects and I want to ensure that I cover all of those properly and that I get more context for its negative features before ripping into those too much. Still, I can't help but feel that Far Cry 2 just isn't on the same level as Crysis and if you're looking for a short-term recommendation on whether or not to go out and grab Far Cry 2 my best suggestion is to download the Crysis demo and play that if you haven't already and I'll update this as I dig deeper into the game.

PS- I began playing on Infamous (the highest difficulty level) in anticipation of Far Cry 2 using a difficulty scaling system similar to Crysis as opposed to the standard FPS difficulty scaling ala Call of Duty 4. Sadly, Far Cry 2 takes after Call of Duty 4 here so that is coloring my experience somewhat.

[~VanMavus]

"takes after Call of Duty 4 here"...?
What did CoD4 do for difficulty settings?

Eeep, well my xbox died so I'm returning Fable II tonight and was thinking about picking this up but I think I'll grab CoH and maybe the original Crysis (for the editor and mod possibilities), tell me how it fares I don't want to end up buying a piece of crap =/ not now that I can play good things.

[TerranUp16]

I don't think FC2 is a piece of crap- my apologies if it came across that way- but I also do not feel that it's living up to various expectations (I am so far agreeing with GameSpy's rating of 3.5/5) set forth for it and thus far do not feel that it is on the same level as Crysis (and definitely, if you don't have Crysis and CoH already, those should definitely be higher priorities than FC2). The AI in FC2 is definitely worse and combat definitely has more of an arcady/consolish feel compared to Crysis so from glancing through the Crysis thread again and much of the discussion there Crysis definitely has bested FC2 by those criteria. Anyway, going to dive in again so I'll keep you guys updated.

Btw, for difficulty, Call of Duty 4, the entire Halo series, etc... focus on beefing-up your enemies via stat boosting thus making the game more difficult but also pummeling you into one, specific, *correct* route. On the other hand, Crysis focuses on removing player handicaps (such as grenade indicators, crosshairs, suit energy, various realism settings, etc... and also by beefing-up enemy AI to actually be better and more realistic while not really beefing-up enemy health very much though enemy accuracy does get a boost but in Crysis that actually works to the game's advantage as it forces the player to utilize the nanosuit and stealth tactics more) and improving the realism of enemy AI so the net effect of increasing the difficulty in Crysis is that it shifts the game from being a one-man-army-run-n-gun to a brutal one-man-infiltration whereby the player is not forced into any specific routes and there is no one, right path but the player does need to be smart (using suit energy and cover and choosing targets and etc wisely are emphasized; so, in Crysis it's very possible to play the game on the maximum difficulty setting and to get the best experience, one that is challenging but one that is not brutally unfair and that does not constrict the gameplay possibilities).

[TerranUp16]

So, after playing some more... Once again, FC2 has its highlights. The mission I went on had me assaulting a convoy. I packed some IED's, an assault rifle, and an RPG. Now, the biggest problem is that I got the mission in the bottom right corner of the map... and the target is in the top left... and there are checkpoints and plenty of idiots with cars that want to ram me... and the checkpoints regenerate enemies when you leave their area of the map... So even getting to a bus station to get to another bus station is a total PAIN IN THE ASS. It REALLY is PISSING ME OFF. However, once I got to hunting the convoy, I figured out its path (yay, a GIANT CIRCLE! Apparently it's not planning on actually going anywhere...) and set-up my IED on the road. I let the first jeep pass by and then blew-up the truck and the jeep behind it w/the IED. I then took-out the RPG and destroyed the lead guard jeep. All in all, pretty fun and somewhat different from Crysis and partially a result of the more "open" nature of FC2. Of course, after this, I needed to get back... so I got rammed... ABOUT 6 TIMES... just to get back to the bus station. I also discovered that an outpost I had COMPLETELY ANNIHILATED (read- blew-up about five explosive barrels and started a forest fire) had been... rebuilt and restaffed? in the span of about 10 minutes...

[~VanMavus]

Hmmm... open but not very realistic,

I did get Crysis (1) but it plays alot worse then Warhead, like in Warhead I can play gamer with no problems no screen rate drops and in Crysis I can play High with a fair amount of choppiness, but they look exactly the same =/...

Anyway I also put $30.00 on Fallout 3 and I'll pick up CoH for about half price when I pick up Fallout 3

[TerranUp16]

I know that Warhead's Gamer settings were heavily optimized so when you're running pure Gamer settings vs. pure High settings in Crysis the former should run better. Though, Enthusiast vs. Very High still seems to be roughly the same ratio.

[TerranUp16]

Ok, so I've played a ton of Far Cry 2 by now... And sunk a ton of hours into it... And I'm just flat-out not satisfied. From certain perspectives, it's a good game. It has some very nice graphics and it is open-world enough that it lets you explore those and bask in them a bit. And when it comes to combat, it's not your CoD 4 pop and shoot affair but rather the slower, more predatory approach that Far Cry and Crysis have pushed forth. However, the level design often fails the game. Whereas Crysis lacked any true kind of open-world component as Far Cry 2 has, it made up for this with expansive, immersive, and open level design. This level design allowed players to approach objectives from multiple locations with innumerable tactics. Ultimately, Far Cry 2 just never matches this- it never matches Crysis's first mission or Crysis: Warhead's last... All the areas where Far Cry 2 brings these kinds of scenarios to light, the level design just doesn't allow for the same kind of open, tactical gameplay that Crysis does. In fact, despite Far Cry 2 being "open world", assaults feel decidedly linear compared to Crysis.

Of course, part of Far Cry 2's failing to match Crysis when it comes to assaults and missions stems from its weaker combat style. Far Cry 2 has no capacity for crouch or lean. These sound like non-issues but really speak to the style of Far Cry 2's combat. Cover is important, but when you're on the attack in Far Cry 2 you're not going to have much cover- you'd better really be on the attack. You can still use large cover to segment fights but the lack of prone and lean hamper this a bit (it's the little, stupid stuff where lean makes a difference such as when you know a guy with a shot-gun is around the next corner and all you want to do is lean out and blast him but instead you have to crawl out and expose your entire body to a giant shot-gun blast before you can get your reticule properly lined-up). Point is, whereas in Crysis more of the combat emphasis is on figuring out what to do while using cover/cloak to hide from enemies and then revealing yourself briefly to execute that before scurrying off to new cover and/or recloaking, Far Cry 2 is more about putting yourself in a relatively good position to have a good shot at taking out your enemies and then through stamina or aim or whatever managing to do that. Doesn't sound bad at first, but for a game that puts a major emphasis on stealth as does Crysis this approach just does not work as well.

Another potential benefit that Far Cry 2's more open design can allow for is greater mission variety. For example, I previously mentioned a mission where you need to take out a moving convoy. So you can scout ahead of the convoy and pick-out a nice ambush point and slap down some IED's while you heft your RPG as you wait behind a nice big rock. And pulling this off an be pretty awesome and exhilarating. But, it's something I also did in Crysis: Warhead. And the problem is, despite that Far Cry 2 gives you a 50kmx50km squared area and it *could* use all of this to really amp-up the immersion of such a mission and the difficulty of such a mission, it doesn't. What it does is it just keeps the convoy going in a predictable circle in a small area until you blow it up... These convoys are supposed to be delivering arms, supplies, etc... and there are plenty of places on the map where these could be going to. Yet the game makes no use of this whatsoever (despite that it is one of the major advantages the game has over a game like Crysis: Warhead). Worse yet is that these kinds of missions are just templates that are reused shamelessly. Side missions and main missions alike utilize these templates and they just kill immersion. Consider Mass Effect. Mass Effect, like Far Cry 2, shamelessly reused locations (yes, in Far Cry 2, you will often have to clear out the SAME EXACT PLACE three times in a row for three different missions...) for its side quests. And it was annoying and frustrating as hell (particularly for the Moon mission because that was the first time I had encountered that building style and that music and it all fit extremely well with the atmosphere of the mission and made it feel unique but then I ran into that exact same building and etc again on a different planet and it totally killed the Moon mission...). However, Mass Effect's main quests were completely fresh and original and made for most of the game's highlights. Far Cry 2 does little to distinguish between side quests and main quests and doesn't tap into the main storyline as Mass Effect did and this really hurts Far Cry 2.

But, the biggest issue with Far Cry 2 is flat-out the "open world". It's not open. It's largely confined to roads and waterways- very restricted roads and waterways. The few more open areas are typically hemmed in via some way or another or are overly contrived and can rarely be made use of effectively. There are some nice side passages every now and then, but they're relatively few and far between. The game is structured to force players into checkpoints and/or "zones" (zones are where most missions take place and they are stocked with a lot of enemies and you generally need to clear them out to get through them; checkpoints are like much, much smaller zones but are still very annoying). While clearing these out the first couple of times can make for some nice gameplay, by the time you're clearing out the same zone or same checkpoint for the fifth time it just gets stale and annoying and this is where the combat's failing really come to light (as well as the AI's) as it just does not make for very reusable, reiterable gameplay as Crysis's does. The end result of this is that it really kills the player's desire to even want to go anywhere or do anything because they're going to need to sink time (and VERY LIMITED ammo) into dealing with this crap. But if checkpoints aren't bad enough, road patrols are worse. You'll be driving around and randomly some idiot will ram into you and fire his MG at you and you need to get in your MG and take the driver and gunner out and then go out and repair your car and then get back in and... It's just annoying and repetitive and compared to the actual missions, gunning a couple of easy targets down with an MG is just not fun. This really deters the player from wanting to do anything and really makes the game feel not very open at all- and it doesn't speak well for the game when the instant transportation system (bus stations) are preferred to driving, boating, or hangliding to get where you want to go...

The persistent weapons and larger choice of weapons perhaps begin to justify an open world approach as opposed to Crysis's more linear approach, but the game only lets you carry your knife and three other weapons (one from each of three categories which becomes amazingly frustrating; my most effective load-out so far has been IED's, Dragunov sniper rifle, and a PKM machine gun, but I would really prefer to swap in an AK-47 for the PKM but can't...). And, of course, linear games have incorporated persistent weapon purchases just as well as FC2 has (and of course, in FC2, purchasing or equipping any weapon requires you to drive to a weapon store... which means dealing with checkpoints and road patrols and other time-eating but stale crap). And this is just Far Cry 2's biggest problem. A few pieces of bad design just completely trash the game's persistent open world and thereby toss away over three quarters of the game and turn it into the biggest pain in the ass ever. And it wastes your time.

But, even if you get through all of this, the supposedly persistent and alterable storyline just doesn't really work out that way. Taking factional sides and completing missions don't tangibly alter the storyline and you still get funneled down certain paths (hell, Mass Effect's Paragon and Renegade paths diverged more than anything you can do in FC2 and were far more effective). In the PC version of the game, this is all the more evident. While your buddies can die from trying to save you, this can easily be undone via F9- aka quickload. Far Cry 2 w/out quicksave and quickload would be a nightmare, but still, that functionality cheapens the effectiveness of the buddy system (plus, having a buddy save you requires you to sit through at least thirty seconds of non-playable activity which really I'd just rather skip via quickload). So actually having your buddies die because of your ineffectiveness... generally just doesn't work out that way in practice. And speaking of your buddies, their animations and voice-overs are all very sloppy and rushed and meh. I would gladly trade the interactivity that Far Cry 2 grants me for one of Crysis's similarly meh as far as storyline goes but much better animated and better looking and more enjoyable fixed, linear cut-scenes.

Thus, for Far Cry 2, it's really a game that could have been great, but because of various design and production flaws is a decidedly meh game. It's always fun to blow stuff up and kill stuff and etc and Far Cry 2 can provide these but only at great expense, angst, and time. Many of what should have been Far Cry 2's standpoints are instead its weakest aspects and have us clamoring unduly for good, old, "linear" Crysis. That should not be. The move to an open world should have been a good one and definitely can be a good one and really is the way forward, but Far Cry 2 is a poor vanguard for that.

Is it worth picking up? Maybe. It's still somewhat entertaining but also extremely frustrating. If you haven't picked-up Crysis and Crysis: Warhead already, those should be much higher on your priority list. I'd even slap Mass Effect PC and Fallout 3 PC and dozens of other open world action RPG's ahead of Far Cry 2 and perhaps even Call of Duty 4 depending on how much you like FPS's/what kind of FPS's you like.

[~VanMavus]

Fallout 3 is awesome. V.A.T.S is the only draw back... I want to aim down the sites, not from the hip =.=

Anyway I don't think I'll be picking up FC2 unless a friend lets me have a go (if anyone has bought it that is).

Plus I'm going to get CoH next time I get something (I didn't want to spend an extra $30.00 on CoH because I'm getting new internet next week or so).

[TerranUp16]

Grab the CoH Gold Pack off Steam if you can for like $30- should definitely be your next purchase, xD You''ll definitely want to work on procuring that before Tales of Valor hits.

Funny thing about FC2 is that Ubisoft refused to release a demo because "no single part of the game can properly showcase it". I guess, in a way, I should commend them for that as no doubt a demo would just take you with an assault on one of the larger locations in the game world and that would likely instill a rather favorable impression (in fact, if they were to offer the ability to select weapons before the mission and etc it might even create a template of what everyone would prefer FC2 was like b/c they effed-up the open world aspects so badly) so their not putting out a demo could arguably reflect positively on them not wanting to deceive gamers. Of course, without a demo, one only has reviews and their promises to go by and there really are only a few reviews (such as GameSpy PC's review which gave the game a 3.5/5) that tell it like it really is, so gamers are left with the impression that Far Cry 2 is like an open world FPS RPG with Crysis-like tactical combat but that really is not quite the case.

[~VanMavus]

TerranUp16 Wrote:Grab the CoH Gold Pack off Steam if you can for like $30- should definitely be your next purchase, xD You''ll definitely want to work on procuring that before Tales of Valor hits.

I'm not downloading off Steam.. ever. I like my physical disks.
Do they have CoH Gold Pack in REAL LIFE?

[TerranUp16]

~VanMavus Wrote:

TerranUp16 Wrote:Grab the CoH Gold Pack off Steam if you can for like $30- should definitely be your next purchase, xD You''ll definitely want to work on procuring that before Tales of Valor hits.

I'm not downloading off Steam.. ever. I like my physical disks.
Do they have CoH Gold Pack in REAL LIFE?

Yeah... I don't know where, but yeah... Friend from India got the physical gold pack so it exists.