[PC] [360] [PS3] Far Cry 2

[Nikolai]

A few [sic] words on Far Cry 2's guard posts:

Far Cry 2 without its maligned guard posts would be a much worse game, all else remaining equal. Both reviews quoted in the opening post mention guard posts as a particular annoyance in the game, tedious and distracting from real enjoyment of the game. It seems like a common criticism of the game, a flaw obviously remedied by removing the guard posts. I wouldn't have played the game so modified even half as long as I played Far Cry 2, and no, that's not because guard posts are filler.

Let me explain. Each guard post presents an opportunity. The layout of the camp, the surrounding terrain, the men manning the post, and so forth have been set. But so much control over the engagement has been given to the player; the approach, the time of day (and weather conditions), the weapons at his disposal, and even the objectives are set by the player. Every assault on a guard post can be a new scenario for the player interested in mastering the weapons at his disposal, developing tactics, exploring the land--or just trying to do something badass.

I'll be more concrete. Before I assault, say, a guard post in the veldt of Far Cry 2's Africa, I survey the camp. Three buildings and three men stand at a crossroads. There's high ground to the north--wait, is there a sniper there, too? Can he cover all the approaches to his position? He'll make getting close to the post difficult. How do I solve that? Wait for night? Provide a distracting fire or explosion? Get a vehicle and plough into the flesh of the battlefield as quickly as possible, using the camp itself as cover from the sniper? Do I attempt to counter-snipe? Even if I get rid of the sniper, the approach will be difficult. I could try crawling through the tall grass to get near--the truck trick will work--sniping--or I could rain mortar fire on the sorry lot of them. Perhaps I don't even want to wipe them off the map--what if getting through with no hassle is my goal?

This freedom rewards planning. I would probably get by fine just running up and dropping all four of these militants (the game could be harder sometimes). The reward doesn't come from better chances of survival, necessarily, but first from controlling the variety of the mission (if I prefer sniping missions, I can literally do hundreds of them in a single Far Cry game; or I could do a hundred action hero, guns blazing and bombs bursting type missions within the same game!) and second from dealing with the consequences of your choices. In a different game--Halo, say--if a combat situation puts me at a disadvantage, I say to myself, "that's the way it was designed, better slog through." In Far Cry 2, I can tell myself "you suck, do something different next time." And I do.

It's worth noting that Far Cry seems to have sacrificed good mission design for this freedom--the only missions which stand out in my memory are the ones that I made spectacular through planning and execution. A better game should have taken the missions as an opportunity to add variety and challenge--adding more exciting objectives, more ways of securing an advantage, less forgiving pitfalls for poor surveillance, perhaps. The best sort of game should have treated all the guard posts so well. Instead, many missions seem to degenerate quickly into unavoidable run and gun fire fights at worst and merely assaults on big guard posts at best.

Without the guard posts, Far Cry could easily have become merely a fine FPS. Instead, it offers a combat simulator. The difference between the two is much like the difference between a shooting game at a carnival and a wargame like paint-ball or laser tag. In one, the only real concern is shooting things. In the other, tactical decisions affect the outcome, inviting some experimentation and creativity.

So Far Cry lets the player learn and experiment. It may be a weakness of the game that it does not force the player to continue improving past a certain point--I find myself adding challenges to keep myself entertained, e.g. do it without getting shot at all, kill each guard without alerting the others, use only the knife (I do prefer stealthy tactics, if you can't tell). That brings me to the failings of the guard posts.

The first is that guard posts don't seem to escalate in challenge over the course of the game. I may be wrong about this on a technical level, but I just don't feel that assaulting a guard post near the end of the game is any more challenging than the ones that came before it. Between the first assault and the last, my skill as a player has (hopefully...) increased. It becomes less fun to experiment as I know the outcomes of different strategies, as I feel like I need no advantage a different strategy could offer. I would have liked to see more thought invested in the construction of camps to offer additional challenge, a smaller order, I think, than calling for better AI. Some sturdier fortifications at some camps, more and better placed snipers at others, guard posts actually built on hilltops, some urban guard posts, innocent bystanders to work around... Improvements like these could have made the guard posts more challenging, if implemented well, without that "guards take six head shots to kill" effect poorer games use to approximate challenge.

Second, being forced to fight through guard posts robs combat of the joy of planning, experimentation, and careful execution. It becomes as tedious as the reviewers in the opening post mentioned. It feels like busy work. I think this could be improved by making the guard posts work more logically--as part of a war simulation. The haphazard placement of the guard posts increased my frustration with travelling through them. Wading through militiamen and rebels guarding nothing in the middle of nowhere for no good reason was stupid and I knew it. Instead, guard posts should only be placed to protect things--bridges, towns, major roads, train stations, etc. but not patches of sand along a zebra trail. That way, I could actually avoid them if I wanted to, by planning a decent route, and my intelligence isn't insulted.

Another improvement might be wiping out guard posts. It was great that the guards kept respawning when I wanted to kill something--if they never respawned, I could never try a different tactic in an assault on the same place, ruining the experimenting. But having them respawn within minutes of me wiping them out both robbed me of the pleasure of having some lasting effect on the world and increased my irritation with being forced to fight. How to reconcile the two: see above. Make the guard posts matter to the factions supposedly waging a war. It would make sense if important guard posts were sent reinforcements quickly--it would make sense if ones nearer population centres or concentrations of a faction's forces got new garrisons within a reasonable time--a day? Let the less important, smaller, more remote guard posts languish for a few days--then replace them. But do not respawn them when I leave the sector for sixty seconds!

This got to be lengthier than I imagined and less complete. I hope I made my point--the guard posts are the places where the player can appreciate Far Cry 2's strength as a combat simulator, where he can experiment in ways very few shooters allow. Despite flaws in their implementation, the guard posts are the best part of Far Cry 2.

[free2game]

Far Cry 2 seemed like an interesting failure. The settings was fairly unique, the graphics and design were good. The whole problem was all of the massive design missteps. It seemed too dumbed down, too simple for it's own good. It needed more gratifying and realistic shooting mechanics and variety. The amount of variety was horrible. I guess because they wanted to make sure it looked as good on consoles as it did on the PC, they cut back on the scale massively. Every firefight in the game was against 5-10 people, never more. Every mission was basically the same thing, it was silly how formulaic it was. Every single mission was, go to a group headquarters, hear some poorly mixed voice acting say what to do, then you could get the option of doing something else before it that gave you no benefit or had no meaningful context for one of your "buddies", and then go to an area and kill 5-10 people. There's a few exceptions, but that was 90% of the game. That and driving for 10 seconds, having your car shot and begin to smoke, kill the people on the car, and continue on, repeat. That combined with the respawning checkpoints made the combat seem even more mind numbing, because you were always running into it. I don't see how anyone thought this was a good way to design it. The idea of making it open world wasn't bad, but so many aspects of it were half assed. Adding some depth like conversations, an actual faction system (there were supposed to be two rebel groups but you couldn't tell them apart in any way and everyone outside of a city shot at you), weapon/character customization, and a more non linear story would have helped some. It seems like a concept that has a lot of potential, but were just poorly executed. The idea of sort of Heart of Darkness type story with you chasing a mad arms dealer is a great one that's unique in the videogame world and full of dramatic opportunity, but then execution rears it's ugly head and you have a story that you can't follow, about characters you don't care about, and twists you're indifferent too. Just with the setting there was a lot more gameplay [Banned. --icy] ideas you could have, being a part of a combined arms assault, highjacking food/arms shipments, rescuing journalists, tracking down a valuable artifact as part of a multi-part mission, performing recon, planning a raid to kill another faction's leader, protecting a village from warlords, a train robbery, smuggling, revenge, etc. Maybe you did do a lot of these things, but non of it felt thematically different and it all boiled down to, go to area, kill 5-10 guys. Hopefully the long development cycle of the sequel has given them a lot of time to realize these flaws and hopefully the next one will be more well rounded.