Far Cry 2 Catch-All

SpyNavy wrote:

Downloading from STEAM now!

Yep... and the concern as to whether I made the right purchasing decision is already setting in. The talk of the repetitive, neverending hordes of bad guys on jeeps has good me spooked. On the other hand it can't be any worse than "Don't just stand there STALKER, come in!". At least you can kill the jeep guys.

SpyNavy wrote:

Downloading from STEAM now!

I'll race ya!

Well I still got my 19" 4:3 monitor but I am getting a 24" wide screen soon. This is kinda lame though.

It turns out that I am remarkably weak.

Hopefully by the time the newness wears off there'll be mods for some of the more annoying gripes. The widescreen thing doesn't bother me. It's likely similar to the way Bioshock was: the game was designed with 16:9 in mind but just added vertical area for 4:3 displays.

edit: it is odd that they'd do this with all the hullabaloo around Bioshock doing it, however.

stupidhaiku wrote:

It turns out that I am remarkably weak.

Hopefully by the time the newness wears off there'll be mods for some of the more annoying gripes. The widescreen thing doesn't bother me. It's likely similar to the way Bioshock was: the game was designed with 16:9 in mind but just added vertical area for 4:3 displays.

edit: it is odd that they'd do this with all the hullabaloo around Bioshock doing it, however.

Ah, well. I suspect there will be an FOV hack out by tomorrow afternoon.

I have my 360 copy in hand, though... I'm trying to hold off on opening it. I mean, I JUST opened Fable 2 yesterday. arrrrgh

stupidhaiku wrote:

The widescreen thing doesn't bother me. It's likely similar to the way Bioshock was: the game was designed with 16:9 in mind but just added vertical area for 4:3 displays.

edit: it is odd that they'd do this with all the hullabaloo around Bioshock doing it, however.

That was beyond a doubt the most annoying thing about that hullabaloo. People with widescreen displays were complaining at a game that was actually genuinely designed for the widescreen display format.

Irongut wrote:

I have my 360 copy in hand, though... I'm trying to hold off on opening it. I mean, I JUST opened Fable 2 yesterday. arrrrgh

Ok, i'm shaking the box ever so gingerly. It sounds like there is more than one disc in there? Can it be? Curiousity grows.

Maybe, the disc is loose.

Maybe I should check.... Just to be sure that everything is ok.

Irongut wrote:
Irongut wrote:

I have my 360 copy in hand, though... I'm trying to hold off on opening it. I mean, I JUST opened Fable 2 yesterday. arrrrgh

Ok, i'm shaking the box ever so gingerly. It sounds like there is more than one disc in there? Can it be? Curiousity grows.

Dude, I bought 3 games yesterday. Suck it up soldier! Money grows back on trees or something right?

Ok Swat, you TOLD me to open it and I don't want to cause conflict right now... so I might just check that the dvd isnt loose afterall.

f*ck you guys. I always jump on game bandwagons because of your reviews, and since I have no self control, I just rush out and get the game. Now I have Fable 2, Farcry 2 and soon Fallout 3. My social life, personal hygiene and perhaps employment may be over. If I lose my job due to games, can I still be a gamer with jobs member?

Irongut wrote:

Ok Swat, you TOLD me to open it and I don't want to cause conflict right now... so I might just check that the dvd isnt loose afterall.

Well, you have to make sure it's ok right

Make sure to get a good whiff of that game manual. Gotta love that new game smell. Someone's gotta bottle that stuff up and sell it as cologne.

I bought this on Steam for the PC, but will be getting it (via Gamefly) on the 360 for my multiplayer brothers.

Ahhh, the manual smells... so new.

Played about 15 minutes so far. I can only speak for the PC version - but the graphics are flippin' awesome. From the locales I've seen, the graphics are a bit more subdued and more realistic than the ultra-lush Crysis, but the lighting/shadows/texture are wicked.

The intro is great. Gives you a very nice view of your surroundings and is extremely impressive. The character models themself are pretty top notch. Not Crysis top notch, but close.

More impressions later, but so far I'm a bit giddy to go around lighting brush fires

MaverickDago wrote:

f*ck you guys. I always jump on game bandwagons because of your reviews, and since I have no self control, I just rush out and get the game. Now I have Fable 2, Farcry 2 and soon Fallout 3. My social life, personal hygiene and perhaps employment may be over. If I lose my job due to games, can I still be a gamer with jobs member?

Welcome to my hell. This weekend means i'm buying FIFA 09, Fable 2, Farcry 2, and either Saints Row 2 or Mass Effect. Mind you, i'm doing all of these things before I pay the car note.

[size=1]Yes, I know. I'm an idiot.[/size]

Swat wrote:

Played about 15 minutes so far. I can only speak for the PC version - but the graphics are flippin' awesome. From the locales I've seen, the graphics are a bit more subdued and more realistic than the ultra-lush Crysis, but the lighting/shadows/texture are wicked.

The intro is great. Gives you a very nice view of your surroundings and is extremely impressive. The character models themself are pretty top notch. Not Crysis top notch, but close.

More impressions later, but so far I'm a bit giddy to go around lighting brush fires :)

Swat, what kind of hardware are you running?

Podunk wrote:
Swat wrote:

Played about 15 minutes so far. I can only speak for the PC version - but the graphics are flippin' awesome. From the locales I've seen, the graphics are a bit more subdued and more realistic than the ultra-lush Crysis, but the lighting/shadows/texture are wicked.

The intro is great. Gives you a very nice view of your surroundings and is extremely impressive. The character models themself are pretty top notch. Not Crysis top notch, but close.

More impressions later, but so far I'm a bit giddy to go around lighting brush fires :)

Swat, what kind of hardware are you running?

4870x2, running everything on Ultra High, 8xAA @ 1920x1200. Didn't see an option for in-game AF yet but I might try manually cranking it in the CCC.

Swat wrote:

4870x2, running everything on Ultra High, 8xAA @ 1920x1200. Didn't see an option for in-game AF yet but I might try manually cranking it in the CCC.

Ah, I might've known. Curse my aging machine!

Argh.

Steam wrote:

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Aging machines be not afraid. My 3.2ghz dual core 3gb RAM 8800GT (granted, the graphics card is not incredibly old) Windows XP machine runs this at 1920x1200 with everything set at "very high" with no performance issues whatsoever. It's better than Crysis and especially Crysis Warhead, which runs worse than the original on my machine. I have to set everything at "mainstream" and reduce the resolution to enjoy it.

The gameplay? I'm not sold on yet. If I hadn't played both STALKERs I might be singing its praises, and it's much more polished and user friendly than STALKER. But the same depth isn't there. At least not yet. Gunplay feels sluggish, again possibly because I haven't done any upgrading yet. On the upside, enemy AI isn't terrible like reviews had led me to expect, and enemies go down just fine without having to pump a bunch of shots into them. I think there's just a disconnect with shooting someone wearing a t-shirt more than once and them still being alive. But it's not as bad as I was expecting.

Why can't I pick up guns and sell them back to the gun dealer? Why are there briefcases with diamonds strewn across the African savanna and why haven't the poor, war-torn people bothered to, you know, pick them up and exchange them for food? Why is my "second-best buddy" the one to come and save me and my "best buddy" the one bugging me with phone calls and criticism in the middle of firefights? They should maybe switch those ranks around.

I have a similar setup to Montalban, only a 2.7ghz cpu w/3gb and 8800gt, and am running on highest settings at 1680x1050 with a great framerate. I've only played about 40 mins so far so I don't know about the gameplay, but it seems solid enough. Looks like lots of staking out camps before moving in for the kill, which is one of my favorite activities (in games).

And yes, the phone calls remind me of Dead Rising. I'm already annoyed by the things.

I went to go open a door to a hut and accidentally threw a molotov cocktail (damn q button!). Needless to say, the nearby bush caught on fire, then the tree, then the entire area around it. Pretty scary, but very cool indeed. The flame physics are pretty spot on, and not the usual fire we've come to accept in games.

Yes, the random diamond suitcases are rather odd. Also, the gun thing is odd too. I think if you can suspend a little bit of disbelief it will help, it's not an entirely realistic game although parts of it do feel that way, which is probably why these things seem a bit more jarring.

45 minutes in and nothing too spectacular story wise, but I love the atmosphere. I think one of the reviewers said it took a few hours to finally get to the meat of the story, etc.

On a side note, there's some weird menu lag with the mouse. Also, it can be running smooth as can be then all of a sudden dip harshly FPS wise - in areas that you wouldn't think would cause an FPS hit, like the inside of a hut - then when you go outside - bam, back to full FPS. You'd think it would be the other way around. Other than that though, it's smooth as butter.

The character arm/gun models are pretty unimpressive so far. But I'm sure with upgrades the guns/gunplay will get better. It's no Crysis yet, that's for sure (weapons wise).

stupidhaiku wrote:

And yes, the phone calls remind me of Dead Rising. I'm already annoyed by the things.

F*cking Otis!

For people who bought it on STEAM, do you guys have the benchmarking tool that came with it?

Ulairi wrote:

For people who bought it on STEAM, do you guys have the benchmarking tool that came with it?

Don't see the option anywhere, but I'd be interested to run some benches on it.

Swat wrote:
Ulairi wrote:

For people who bought it on STEAM, do you guys have the benchmarking tool that came with it?

Don't see the option anywhere, but I'd be interested to run some benches on it.

Just checked, and yes the Steam version does come with a benchmarking tool, a pretty decent one at that. Just look up the Far Cry 2 directory under wherever you installed Steam. I'll post my results later.

Montalban wrote:

Aging machines be not afraid. My 3.2ghz dual core 3gb RAM 8800GT (granted, the graphics card is not incredibly old) Windows XP machine runs this at 1920x1200 with everything set at "very high" with no performance issues whatsoever. It's better than Crysis and especially Crysis Warhead, which runs worse than the original on my machine. I have to set everything at "mainstream" and reduce the resolution to enjoy it.

Damn you! I was skipping this based on a combined drm and "my aging videocard might not run it super well" platform and you've thoroughly sabotaged the latter half of that. Now it's that much harder not to pick it up

What do you guys use for cleaning out the old nvidia drivers? I remember driver cleaner from back in the day but I doubt they are still good.

Edwin wrote:

What do you guys use for cleaning out the old nvidia drivers? I remember driver cleaner from back in the day but I doubt they are still good.

I'm a big fan of Guru3D's DriverSweeper myself.

Swat wrote:

I went to go open a door to a hut and accidentally threw a molotov cocktail (damn q button!). Needless to say, the nearby bush caught on fire, then the tree, then the entire area around it. Pretty scary, but very cool indeed. The flame physics are pretty spot on, and not the usual fire we've come to accept in games.

Indeed. I used the flamethrower just for a laugh, paying no attention to the wind, and found myself pretty much cornered by flaming brush within about a minute.

And yeah, those screenshots and trailers weren't Ubisofts typical bullshots. The game really looks that good. (I'm running on the same settings as Swat except only at 4xAA.)