Out of Africa: Far Cry 3 and the longing for simpler times

I enjoyed Far Cry 2 a fair bit; what I *didn’t* enjoy about it however was the respawning enemy checkpoints. There was no real sense of leaving scorched earth behind you when you destroyed one of them.

Absolutely loved the setting mind you.

Argh, you’re killing me Pat.

The opening of Far Cry 2 was great, and the environment and characters appealed to the rougher side of African reality, but kinda like the gameplay, it never really got further than the superficial.

I’m really not impressed by a game that takes African civil wars, some of the most mindlessly violent and criminal anywhere in the world, and turns it into a game that’s mostly about helping either totally deranged side by going camp to camp and killing everyone.

It’s not so much the moral aspect, just the fact that it isn’t nuanced in any way. You’re looking at brutal South African mercenaries, those exist. You’re looking at corrupt African supremacists, those exist, but there’s no nuance in any of the people you meet.

It just bounces off me as much as the gameplay did. It felt like so much copy paste, just taking down people in explosions of blood left and right as if they were zombies. For me it provided the opposite of immersion, I pretty much wanted to be as far from that game as possible.

The checkpoint thing is the big minus. I think that was the bit they just couldn’t work out, how to have an openworld action game set in scrubland where you could clear the world of action. I’m still not quite sure how it could have worked, really.

I started playing it again last night. The firefights are just amazing.

/little cry

Seven simple words: I hate Far Cry 2 a lot.

@2 – That’s really interesting to me. You’re right, completely, but I was just so compelled by what it wanted to be, and how far it was willing to go to be it, that I got properly suckered.

It didn’t feel exploitative to me, but rather they really were trying to portray was that situation would be like. It is superficial, definitely, but I’d like to think that was more a result of “game” than any kind of willingness to be gratuitous.

Far cry 3 is basicly rage, its just some people are to blind to see it.

Would you be have been so concerned were Ubisoft not simply using the Far Cry name for its brand identity rather than offering up a consistent experience?

To me, it jarrs as bad as Irational’s use of the BioShock name for Infinity.

Aside from what DSB said, random malaria attacks in the middle of a gun fight has got to rank high in the fucking shitty gameplay mechanic hierarchy.

Even if they put in some sort of malaria gauge and you had to obtain enough pills to keep above the symptom point and could control when you popped the pills, that would’ve been a gameplay mechanic. What they had was bullshit.

I loved the original Far Cry. Absolutely loved it.

I hated Far Cry 2. Absolutely hated it.

I love the direction they’re going for Far Cry 3. Absolutely love it.

I guess I just felt like it needed some kind of moral balance. I was in highschool with a kid who fled the Rwandan genocide, and I guess I just feel like turning a problem like that into entertainment, and not going very far to really cover it, is too much.

Really I guess the morals do bother me, as much as I hate to admit it. You’re going after a guy who’s selling weapons to both sides and fuelling the conflict, but you’re going after him by helping both sides slaughter eachother. How does that make you any better than the Jackal?

By playing, you’re actually undermining your own objective. You’re really not helping anyone. Even when you’re actually helping civilians, it’s to score yourself some drugs.

It would’ve felt a lot better if you had been contracted through an entrenched UN Peacekeeping base.

It’s just very consistently negative. A few of the playable characters are basically pulp fiction terrorists. In Jagged Alliance the same may apply, but they’re being used for good, and even the madman who murdered his whole family is offset by humor.

http://jaggedalliance.wikia.com/wiki/%22Unusually_Ruthless%22_Reuban

I really liked the art-direction of the game. Really, the world felt fantastic. It was exactly what i needed after watching Blood Diamond, which served as a huge inspiration for the game. The characters were interesting, but as DSB already mentioned; it didn’t go anywhere.

I liked how it started (Even though i never ever want to see that introduction again), i liked the fast-talking Jackal, the state of the country is pretty clear right away.

But one deep look at Far Cry 2 and it’s pretty clear that Ubisoft had no plan where to go gameplay-wise.

Malaria has no reason but force you to play even more of the same side-missions. 8 Characters to choose from, yet no difference, why not just let you play the one guy on the cover? The Buddysystem has no purpose when – in the end – they all die, either through the hand of the enemies, or through yours.

It’s a civil war, but people only shoot at you. It’s not even clear who’s who. The map is fantastic, but there is no reason for exploration, yes you can hunt for diamonds or golden ak’s, but that’s about it.

And let’s not even talk about how many hits enemies could take, how fast your weapon would start jamming or how many miles you had to drive to your objective.

Far Cry 2 was my biggest disappointment in gaming because it came so close to greatness only to have it snatched away by some incredibly poor design choices.

I never had much hope that Far Cry 3 would fix the problems of Far Cry 2, largely because no one ever acknowledged they were problems in the first place.

I’ve ranted about FC2 enough, I wont go over it again, it makes me sad.

@10: Did you finish Far Cry 2? Because i swear that’s exactly what the Jackal said at the end, that he and you were as much part of the problem as the two sides.

@13 Nope, haven’t finished it. I made it to the second big city and did a few missions there.

It just seemed pretty obvious

@14: http://youtu.be/v89XVVEEVH4 It’s all very confusing.

@14/15 – There’s a twist at the end, DSB. The Jackal’s not what you think.

Fair enough if they set it straight at the end, but the problem is I don’t feel like taking it far enough to get there.

Even if it’s “only” 10 hours of senseless acts for terrible people, that’s pretty much enough.

It’s a lot longer than that, for sure. About 30, I think.

I cleared the game to completion, trusty Deagle, Sniper Rifle and Flamethrower all the way through.

I adored it, it could enrage me at alot of time but I just loved what it was attempting. I loved carving my own little stories from its wonderful world.

From nicking a jeep and running over Zebra to heart in mouth sneaking through a scrubland thats on fire by my own hand. So many little details that made it shine amoungst turds, the self fixing that actually takes time and good balance between regeneration and health kits. Everything feels grubby and dirty from your interactions with the other mercs which always leads to them dying one way or another to the actual arms you see out in the World covered in dirt.

Its grounded so much that the meta ideas it brings forward can be a little lost, alot of what Clint Hocking was attempting just had’nt been done before. And now its gone, I don’t think anyone will be trying to do anything like Far Cry 2 again for quite awhile.

One of the things I like most about it is how strongly it polarizes opinion. As per this thread.

@19 – Agree with all of that. The last sentence made me do an actual sad face.

FUUk it Pat you make me want this game.
I played fc1 and just couldn’t get in to it.

Far Cry 2 was a very pretty game, and I was very excited to play it.
Once I sat down and did so, I lost interest within a few days or so.
I liked the original Far Cry better, but even that I never finished it.
I played the Xbox/360 versions too and felt the same.

It isn’t a bad game, I guess its just not my cup of tea. I love open world games, but couldn’t get into it.

I’m glad though that Pat and others enjoy it so much, as I look forward to trying Far Cry 3. Lots of games of different types and styles out there for everyone, as it should be.

I was pumped for FC2 for the 360. They really hyped the game in their dev trailers showcasing the variety in the gunfights. However, one thing ruined the entire game. It was the endless vehicle fights from point A-B. Like ridicuously annoying. Just that made me stop playing.

Also, the online multiplayer was entirely tacked on besides making your own maps. W/o a dedicated community willing to play the MP, why put so much effort into allowing us to create maps that no one will play? Oh you want to make an amusement park ride for us? Well, good for you. I want to play MP.

I definitely way for the reviews to hit the net before hyping up this game. I urge you all to do the same. Ubisoft FC dev’s are ridiculous. FC2 was horrid. Worst. SP. Ever. So many gamebreaking GAMEPLAY mechanics are dumb!!! Nice way to ruin a game.

Oh look, go from here to here, kk, will do…(2min later)…gets chased by 2 cars with guns so I have deal with these kids till I get to the next “area” rinse+repeat.

I love Far Cry 2 precisely because of those controversial design choices (respawning checkpoints, relentlessly hostile world, interchangeable factions, challenging emergent gameplay etc.) which put off a lot of people.

That being said, this article seems to be overstating the case regarding comparisons of FC2′s gameplay with what we’ve seen of FC3 so far. It’s not so much that these two games will be more similar to each other than Patrick Garratt thinks (for all we know they might very well not be). It’s more that the functional difference (even when so-called “immersion” is what’s being subjectively measured here) between a massive unnaturally glowing door and a “press X now” cue is not that great. And however you slice it, 2008 is not actually a very long time ago and even the specific genre of open world action games hasn’t changed dramatically since then. The kind of language used in this article might have been appropriate if the subject matter was, say, Syndicate-1993 versus Syndicate-2012, but in the context of two such comparatively near-contemporaneous releases as FC2 and FC3 the strong adjectives seem a bit extreme to say the least.

Even so, if FC3 is more linear than FC2 than, yes, we clearly have lost something 4 years ago. Button prompts, rock music soundtracks and a decidedly traditional UI isn’t what ultimately determines whether that is the case or not, of course, but it would be a shame indeed if Garratt’s (not unreasonable) basic assumption turns out to be well-founded.

100% agree. Re-installing fc2 again.. thank you.. this weekend is gone..

If you want to talk about losing something, looking at Far Cry 2 seems pretty wide of the mark to me.

Far Cry was a superior game in my opinion, and pretty much the only one where Crytek managed to mix their tech fetishism with actual gameplay.

The AI was smart, the levels were smart, it was pretty open, but you still went from A to B without fucking around too much.

For me that was a game to really get lost in and wrap your head around. Far Cry 2 is a base shooting gallery, placed in a grid of jungle and swamp corridors intermingled with deserts and assholes of every color.

It has merit, Africa is woefully underexposed in games, but to me Far Cry 2 wasn’t the game that was going to inspire people to go there.

Far Cry is the game I installed after looking at the last Far Cry 3 footage.

Okay, I just had to register and say: thanks for writing this
I always thought I was the odd duck thinking this was a great and unique game. Yes it’s flawed, but the atmosphere, setting, the whole gritty, unforgiving feel was so great.
I recall moments of being lost in the jungle, low on health and supplies and running to safety. Then, hiding somewhere in the bushes and hearing voices, barely surviving another gun fight and making it off with a stolen jeep. Spotting enemies in the far distance and planning a route around them, making it to a safe house in the dark and the pouring rain. The way the look of the environment changed with the position of the sun, the old school sounds of the modem when you order weapons.
I could go on for ages, but in short: it was raw, mature, harsh and it felt so damn rewarding when you did something right.

@ 27
This is what makes vg247 special imo.
You took the time out to comment on a game you loved.
classic.

Gamers site for gamers.

@ 28 +1 When im describing this website to someone i always call it a community. There definitely is something more personal on here than Joystiq and the likes.

FarCry 2 and Idle Thumbs are indelibly linked in my mind.

It’s a game that I have a lot of respect for. It has some pretty fundamental problems, but I really appreciate the conviction behind its design decisions; it’s a lot like Demon’s/Dark Souls in that respect. It’s also interesting how adaptive it is to the player, a process which is perhaps too transparent: you wouldn’t really realise your experience differed to others without talking things through with them.

FarCry 2 is a really rewarding experience but it’s also a prohibitive one. It’s certainly not for everyone, although I think the current gaming climate has led to people who might have enjoyed it throwing in the towel early: games are so deferential to the player these days, so pre-occupied with making you feel like a “bad ass”, whilst FC2 grants you a lot of actual responsibility and agency so long as you play within its rules. Obviously not every game should look to emulate that approach, but such diversity is incredibly value for the industry as a whole.

As an aside, I recommend turning the music off in the options. No disrespect to whomever wrote it, not having it on just ups the atmosphere; it brings the environmental ambience to the fore.

Great article Pat…I agree 100%, really not looking forward to Far Cry 3 any longer…Far Cry 2 was so much more based in reality and was full of exploration, you could just go around looking for diamonds forever…also the gritty realism was amazing with weapon degradation…

Unfortunately, companies take the pulse of the industry essentially by looking at how well Call of Duty is doing, and that is completely wrong…CoD does what it does well, but copying it does not get you anywhere, didn’t we already learn that with Homefront? I think Ubi and other companies forget is what makes a game truly great is it being a unique experience that can’t be compared with other games…

I know this is over 9 months old, but I just have to say this:

“Far Cry 2 didn’t even have an aiming reticle.”

Yes it did. I was just playing it a couple days ago (before I picked up Far Cry 3). There might be an option to turn it off (not sure… Never actually looked for it), but if there is, the reticule is turned on by default