Games

[Some guy]

http://far-cry.ubi.com/far-cry-3/en-US/

Here is a trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCsNmsnoyEQ

Here is the same video of the game but with a developer talking over it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuseKGafCvo

[Worm]

CG trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/stran ... y-3/726891

[icycalm]

And an Edge preview hyping the game:

http://videogamerx.gamedonga.co.kr/1912802

Didn't read it, just looked at the screens and skimmed the captions. If they've learned even a couple of things from the last game, it will be awesome.

[Worm]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02 ... reenshots/

Some of the same screenshots from the Edge preview, plus a few more:

[Worm]

http://engineroom.ubi.com/deferred-radi ... r-volumes/

This GDC talk (Friday March the 9th, 2012), details the approximation of dynamic global illumination used in FarCry 3.

They also mention some extra lighting effects for the PC version, which is nice to hear.

Direct link to the PDF: http://engineroom.ubi.com/wp-content/bi ... lowres.pdf

[Worm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXyScwNPyXg

No idea why they thought this was a good video to show off. We've seen this stuff in dozens of other games before. But I do like the vibrant colors.

[icycalm]

Farcry 3 - Welcome to Rook Island Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDegx6jEfe4

Cool shit. About the only thing I don't like is the script for the trailer guy. A bit too generic and cheesy for the kind of game it's advertising. Clashes with the somewhat-serious atmosphere that they are and should be going for. Hopefully the in-game script is written by different guys or whatever.

Most exciting upcoming videogame in any genre, along with GTAV. GTA loses out though because everything after III went progressively downhill, so it's hard to hold out TOO much hope for it.

[icycalm]

Launch trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubQuu8yUV2o

Everything looks way too awesome except the comedy angle they decided to introduce. I don't know if this is only for the trailers, but if it's in the game it will bring it down considerably. There was no comedy in Far Cry 2, and the game was all the better for it. Here you are supposed to "have never fired a shot", yet the moment someone hands you a knife you become fucking Rambo, going around and punching sharks in the face or some shit. In FC2 you were also Rambo, but at least you were playing a hardened mercenary who quoted Nietzsche or some shit. Still, I do like the way they copied the setup of The Beach -- that was an excellent novel and a movie. But they don't seem to have gotten the tone down 100%. It remains to be seen exactly how far (or close) they've gotten.

Also great is how they handled the co-op/multiplayer aspect. When I first saw (in the main menu screen shown in the trailers) that there'd be co-op I had mixed feelings. I love co-op to death, but Far Cry seemed like the first game I'd heard of in which this concept would prove detrimental rather than beneficial. It was a great feeling being alone in the middle of an African warzone hellhole in FC2, and a second player would have destroyed that angle in the sequel (except perhaps if you interacted with him only sparingly, as with the other, NPC mercs in Far Cry 2). But then I did a little googling and found that the campaign was still single-player only, and that co-op was confined to an extra mode, so I promptly forgot about it (because everything I've heard so far about co-op specific modes, as opposed to campaigns, indicates they are lame). But then this trailer came out and it makes clear that the co-op mode is not the usual throwaway afterthought: it appears to be a second full campaign designed for 4 players, and taking place right before the events of the main game. So you can play this, let us call it 4-player prologue, with your friends, then you separate to tackle the main campaign independently, and then you reunite again after you've all learned the game in and out and built up your respective characters (yay for the new leveling mechanics!) to do jungle island battle as a group against the rest of the internet online. It's the best thought-out joining of single-player, co-op and versus modes I've heard of so far, and if the rest of the game is as well thought-out as this we're all in for a real treat. They certainly seem to have fixed all of FC2's mechanical problems, if the trailer is any indication.

[icycalm]

There's a nice thread on NeoGAF about 2 vs. 3:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=503409

I read most of the first page. There's some good posts in there, and many more not so good ones. Try to spot who is sensitive to art and who is not.

To make clear on which side of the fence I am sitting: Far Cry 2 is the best game I've played since Grand Theft Auto III in 2001. It is the game of the decade 2001-2011, hands down (if we set aside GTAIII), and from what I've read about its sequel it still hasn't been topped.

And for the hipsters and the communists in the audience, please note that it was made by Ubisoft, after this multinational behemoth TOOK AWAY the franchise from its original developers, Crytek, who then went on, as is my understanding, to simply repeating their work in Crysis, and then dumbing it down for Crysis' first, and perhaps even second sequel.

In short, the development background of the best game of the last decade flies in the face of all hipster and communist theories about art creation. It was ordered by management, it was developed by a huge army of hirelings, it was expensive and violent and first-person and 3D, and it was awesome. And anyone who has a problem with that is a fag.

[icycalm]

And by the way the same applies to all the best videogames ever. In short, all your abortive attempts at theory are belong to me.

[icycalm]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... st45431000

I actually like how practically everyone tries to kill you in Far Cry 2, and I couldn't care less if it makes any "real" sense. The more enemies the better, so it feels like a real struggle to get from point A to B, and there are a lot more opportunities for fun things to happen. In that way, the game feels much more immersive than Far Cry 3. I don't equate immersion with realism in the least. I equate immersion with how well the game keeps my attention no matter what it does. So what if everyone in the world magically knows I'm the enemy? We've experienced this sort of thing for as long as videogames have been around.

In Far Cry 3 I'd just teleport to a nearby liberated outpost, drive 2 minutes and start the mission. Wow, talk about boring. The story missions is where most of the fun was in Far Cry 3. In Far Cry 2, 80 percent of my time is spent getting from point A to B, blowing up multiple outposts with well placed grenades and explosive chain reactions, getting into close calls and having my buddy rescue me when I'm in a jam, shooting a guy in the head a millisecond before he runs me over with his car, running for my life trying to find cover behind a rock to patch myself up, sneaking around slicing guys with my machete-- you get the idea. By the time I'm at the target I have one syringe left and I'm nearly out of ammo. I'm carefully picking off guys and scrounging for ammo using a worn out AK. And when I'm done I still have to find my way back and clear guys out of an outpost to save my progress and rest. Now that's fun for me.

I'm surprised when people say Far Cry 2's world is empty and boring because there's so much more going on at any given time than in Far Cry 3. There's more danger, and more reason to weigh your options regarding the best way to survive a situation. Far Cry 3 has oodles of sidequest things to do like hunt animals, do the Rakyat challenges, race, play poker, throw knives at a target, search for trinkets, liberate outposts, climb radio towers, etc. But all of these are "safe" options that give me barely anything to think about when doing them. For me it's mind-numbing to do all that stuff because it's so infuriatingly simple and boring. I tried each thing a couple times and just shrugged my shoulders afterwards. I only did hunts to get upgrades.

I'm playing these games back-to-back and I'm glad I played Far Cry 3 first, because 2 outclasses it easily.