Far Cry 2 blowout
- Posted March 27th, 2008 at 18:30 EDT by Robert Zwetsloot
- 11,193 views
- 23 Comments
You stand at the edge of a cliff. Below you lies a sun drenched savannah, with trees and long grass swaying lazily in the wind as far as the eye can see. Somewhere in that distance you can see a small village, where people walk around and get on with their daily lives. You stare down the sight of your rifle, and spot your intended target harassing some of the villagers.
The dev, Patrick Redding, snaps us back to reality, with an anecdote regarding how the tester had not previously got this far. This is how good this game looks - it completely draws you in.
Such a thing should go without saying though. Even though FC2 is not being developed by Crytek, Ubisoft Montreal seem to be treating this like their own baby, and are carrying on the legacy of superb graphical quality. This is only scratching the surface of this game, albeit a beautifully crafted, lush surface. The gears and cogs whirring behind the scenes are epic, not only in terms of size, but in scope and idea.
You’re a mercenary or assassin in a 50 square kilometer undefined part of Africa filled with gorges, savannahs and jungles. The world the game is set in is more of a real world setting then the original Far Cry; speaking of which, there seems to be little to no connection between the two games plot-wise.
You’re ultimate mission is to take down ‘The Jackal’, a drug dealer and generally naughty boy. Or girl maybe? Mr. Redding didn’t really specify. But that is pretty much your only constraint, as the game has an incredibly non-linear structure, highly reminiscent of the Elder Scrolls series of games. You can take missions whenever you please, and can then fulfill them whenever you want.
You can pick up missions from ‘neutral’ villages, possibly ones in some form of DMZ. Here you can purchase supplies and weapons, some of which are black market goods.
The world this takes place in has been made very realistic, right down to the smallest of elements. Fauna runs on an engine called RealTree, where branches and leaves snap off and break due to such disturbing factors as, well, gunfire. They will then grow back over a period of time. We aren't being metaphorical; they will literally grow in real time.
Encampments you come across are highly destructible, with wood realistically splintering, breaking and catching on fire. The fire even spreads in the direction of the wind. With that said, if you feel like starting a bit of arson, get the hell out before you get caught up in it.
Weapons jam and degrade over time, with jams happening more frequently, and being more of a nuisance, the greater the degradation is. Weapons can either be fixed or replaced, but the basic idea would be to go into a combat situation with a fresh weapon to lower the chance and frequency of weapon jams. Vehicles are run on a similar system, as where as before a damaged vehicle would remain damaged and possibly become unusable, you can now fix the damage and be on your merry way. This will probably come in handy after outrunning angry villagers in a stolen Land Rover.
This leads us nicely onto the character AI in FC2. With the previously mentioned example of stealing a Jeep or Land Rover that some of the villagers are particularly fond of, the villagers may jump into a nearby vehicle and make chase, guns ablaze and all. They are highly voracious, and no less than driving like the Duke boys from Hazzard County will get them off your tail.
Once you’ve jumped the nearest dried-up riverbed (as luck may have it, there are a few in the Africa setting), and have homed down on an occupied village you feel the need to liberate from bad men, other AI aspects begin to come into play. Your opponents will ruthlessly hunt you down when you engage them. Cover will not remain cover for long, and hiding places are only temporary. AI characters may also retreat if wounded, only ... (continued on next page)
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Comments
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Steffantj1
- 6:43pm GMT - March 27th, 2008
- 1
Looks good, im only reading this because the GTA4 trailer article wont load :(
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InfernoReaper |
GrimDarkling- 6:53pm GMT - March 27th, 2008
- 3
I take back the statement I made on the last Far Cry 2 article. Now I'm itching to play this game.
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Shalashaaska |
Shalashaaska- 6:58pm GMT - March 27th, 2008
- 5
I'm sure the game will be decent, but it does really suck that it has NOTHING to do with the original FarCry... I was a huge fan of the original, and it would've been cool to at least see returning characters...oh well. And as for the removing bullets from oneself and healing oneself....it seems ubisoft has taken a bit of inspiration from Metal Gear Solid 3, which is a good thing. Hopefully this game will turn out better than the ambitious S.t.a.l.k.e.r.
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RedDragon7 |
Pheonix7- 7:42pm GMT - March 27th, 2008
- 8
Graphics look great and gameplay sounds intense... CAN'T WAIT!
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IONIXX |
IONIXX- 9:10pm GMT - March 27th, 2008
- 11
sounds amazing, but with argument about graphics running on 360 VS ps3, it says more about the devs than it does the console, why?, cuz the whole world knows that ps3 is better with graphics, and tha most devs are jus to lazy to put the ps3 graphics into it, so they turn and run it on the 360 instead.
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Emo-Mercenary |
Clarky-132- 11:18am GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 15
@ Gamer_DTK. This is a PS3 website, ofcourse it will be on the PS3 aswell!
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tabular
- 1:58pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 17
I won't be surprised if the PS3 version beats the 360 version in performance seeing as this game requires a next gen cpu such as the cell. It's a brand new engine so anything could happen. However I expect that much like Oblivian, DIRT or COD4 there will be some small benefits for PS3. And yes, this HAS been confirmed for PS3 on day 1.
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Untildeath89 |
willmakenewonesoon- 9:02pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 18
changed my mind :D. this game really seems deep and should be the game of the fall (if im not misunderstanding the fall date thing)
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Digital Logic
- 9:19pm BST - April 6th, 2008
- 21
If this game runs this good on the 360. What are we to expect on future games on the ps3 that are using 80% ,90% or even 100% of its power.
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frank_magnet |
Frank_Magnt- 12:09pm BST - April 7th, 2008
- 22
You surgically remove bullets from yourself? nice touch !
Slightly better than say The Getaway where leaning against a wall heals those shotgun wounds !
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