Far Cry 2 Catch-All

Ok a couple more quick and dirty impressions.

+ Healing yourself, using pliers to extract slugs, injections = the awesome.
+ When you "die" being dragged away by your friend is a pretty neat sequence.
+ Using grenades and molotov cocktails to take out enemy vehicles? Holy sh*t.

I ran through an enemy post, they jumped into their jeep and took chase after me. I whip out of my car, toss a grenade - it catches their car as well as mine, massive explosion, literally knocked all the leaves off the trees in an impressive fashion.

I'm finding the AI pretty good so far. I've had mixed results with taking down enemies. If I'm hitting them in the chest with my handgun, it takes about 5-6. Aiming for the head, 1-2. With a sniper, 1 in the head.

I really want to upgrade my guns, these first couple ones suck pretty bad.

I'm having trouble deciding which factions to do work for, I don't want to screw myself in the end going the wrong route, so I'm choosing what one seems best for my situation at the moment I guess.

Are any of you Nvidia-card owners running the game with the 180.42 beta driver? I heard it was best for DX10 users to run this for FC2 and I'm wondering if it helps at all for DX9 peeps.

I actually tried the 180.42 driver and just got a black screen requiring a restart (couldn't alt-tab, ctrlaltdel, anything). I rolled back to the previous driver and it worked fine. I'm on XP so obviously DX9 so I'd be cautious using it.

The plus side is performance isn't bad at all.

I just installed the latest driver from 10/15/08.

93_confirmed wrote:

Are any of you Nvidia-card owners running the game with the 180.42 beta driver? I heard it was best for DX10 users to run this for FC2 and I'm wondering if it helps at all for DX9 peeps.

I am running the beta driver on XP with no ill-effects so far (i've only played for about an hour). I didn't try the game without it, so I can't speak to whether it improved my performance.

Vista64/E8400/4870x2/1920x1200

Note: Only ran one loop for these, multiple loops show a +/- of around 3-4FPS

DX10

Ultra High, No AA

Min: 32.35
Max: 59.36
Avg: 42.15

Ultra High, 4xAA

Min: 20.47
Max: 47.17
Avg: 30.76

Ultra High, 8xAA

Min: 10.38
Max: 47.99
Avg: 19.54

Very High, 4xAA

Min: 22.25
Max: 54.49
Avg: 35.01

DX9

Ultra High, 8xAA

Min: 14.84
Max: 52.24
Avg: 22.00

Ultra High, 4xAA

Min: 25.72
Max: 55.39
Avg: 35.31

How do I get this game to run in window mode? There isn't anything in the options and the benchmark does run in windowed mode.

Edwin wrote:

How do I get this game to run in window mode? There isn't anything in the options and the benchmark does run in windowed mode.

My benches ran in fullscreen. I didn't see an option in the menu in-game for windowed mode - yet when I alt-tabbed, it activated. I did the ol' alt-enter to go back into fullscreen and it worked.

What's with the guard posts? You cannot drive anywhere without being attacked every 30 seconds.

Swat, what setting did you go with?

Mine avg out about 30FPS with DX10, 4X AA, Optimal. I've got an Intel 9550, Vista64, 1900x1200, 4870.

Edwin wrote:

How do I get this game to run in window mode? There isn't anything in the options and the benchmark does run in windowed mode.

Try going to your GamerProfile.xml (Documents\My Games\Far Cry 2) file, finding Fullscreen="X" and set that to 0. I had the opposite problem, FC2 was launching in windowed mode, and I had to set it to 1 for it to start full-screen.

I like the game, but the guard posts are getting me down. I don't object to the idea or the frequency, but if their respawn rate was longer, it would be that much better. It is silly to fight the same guard posts both going to an objective and coming back; much less if you have just traveled down the road a bit and turned back. They seem to respawn once you get a short set distance from them, if it was an in-game day or such, getting everywhere wouldn't be so tedious. It seems like there also could have been both friendly and unfriendly guard posts, depending on your status with the factions, instead of the "We didn't tell our soldiers you are working for us, so expect to have to kill them, constantly." I'm still early in the game though, so perhaps that will change later on.

What's with the guard posts? You cannot drive anywhere without being attacked every 30 seconds.

Well, it is a war-torn country. Real world, these guys would shake you down for money, guns, etc.

Gameplay-wise, kill them all and then wander around until you get the "scouting" achievement. That post shouldn't bother you again.

Ulairi wrote:

Swat, what setting did you go with?

Mine avg out about 30FPS with DX10, 4X AA, Optimal. I've got an Intel 9550, Vista64, 1900x1200, 4870.

I stuck with Ultra and 4xAA. Visually (numbers aside) it seems to be a straight up 40-45 FPS with the slight dip in firefights, and even more when you throw fog/smoke/etc into the mix. 8xAA just taxed it too hard, and I couldn't tell the difference at those resolutions.

Such a purty game.

Oh, and I love those guard posts. Nothing better than driving into them, jumping out, smashing the outpost to bits, running over a dude, tossing in a grenade or two and just watching the fun unfold

How big is the download from Steam?

Well, I've played enough now to have some initial impressions. The environments are amazing, and the sound is excellent. The character models are decent, but not incredible. I'm not terribly impressed with the immediate "shoot on sight" that everyone seems to have when I approach a guard post. As a new arrival to the country, I'm not sure why I'm suddenly so recognisable, or why I'm targetted. I'm currently operating for the first time in the night environment, and it's very good. I much prefer stealth rather full-frontal assaults, so I'm hoping that missions at night will be more friendly to that style of play.

I do have one huge gripe though. I realise that most game developers have no military experience whatsoever, but dammit it shouldn't take six bullets to take out a guy in a t-shirt. A bullet to the head shouldn't make a guy just stagger before he starts shooting back. Hell, make a mode where it's one-shot one-kill all the way around, and really boost the line-of-sight stealth aspects. Maybe this will improve as the game goes on, but damn it's bugging the hell out of me right now.

All said though, this is a really impressive game, and I'm hoping that the story is worthy of the atmosphere.

I agree with Coldstream's assessments of the game.

Thin_J wrote:

How big is the download from Steam?

~3.5 GB

Okay so I played for about 2 and half hours so far and I have to say that I am really loving this game. My favorite thing about it has to be the animations! There is so much momentum in the movements its just feels right.

The guns feel like they give great feedback but killing enemies is a pain. This game is gorgeous. I'm playing on a beefy rig and I compared the game to my friend 360 version and the PC textures look a million times more clear.

The only bone I have to pick is that I cannot have multiple missions at once. It is a huge world and I would love to finish a bunch and collect my rewards.

I cant wait to play more but alas, I'm a working man and I need my sleep.

The ballistics and widescreen is killing me! I may have to wait for a mod or something.

It's possible that enemies are set to take more damage so that when you finally unlock better weapons, you notice a difference and it's that much more of a gift. Just a theory. For now, shotgun to the face. Only takes one.

There's too many hostiles in this game. I hate how I cannot go anywhere without tripping over someone that wants to kill me for no apparent reason.

Just played about an hour's worth and I'm regretting the purchase already. Yeah, the game is pretty on my high-end rig but the story, gameplay, and combat are rather meh. I arrive in the country and immediately everyone wants to kill me before I've even built up a reputation there. The controls feel very sluggish and the lack of a prone option is killing me when I'm trying to hide from enemies. The malaria disease is an interesting idea on paper but I don't want to be burdened with having to fetch f'ing meds all game long. Seriously. The main thing that's bothering me right now though is I'm told that I can approach these quests using stealth yet I'm armed with an unsuppressed pistol and SMG and an RPG. Yeah, I have a machete but I really don't want to run around a camp having to melee everyone in the throat. Why can't I throw a suppressor on my firearms?

I'm going to give this game a few more hours of playtime but I don't know if I can last the duration. I really feel like Crysis spoiled my PC gaming perspective and that's what's making this game harder to get into. I really loved everything about Crysis and I guess deep down I wanted this to essentially be Crysis+Africa-aliens+awesome animations-nanosuit=Awesome but my mathematical formula is severely flawed here.

BadJuju wrote:

There's too many hostiles in this game. I hate how I cannot go anywhere without tripping over someone that wants to kill me for no apparent reason.

I love it, makes it feel all dangerous like

On a side note, I think i've burned about half of Africa in the last couple hours of playing. I feel kind of bad. A Zebra also charged my vehicle and apparently dropped dead on the spot, that must have been one massive headbutt.

As for ballistics and weapons, I think that might be the case. With my first purchased sniper rifle the baddies go down on one shot, chest, head, etc. With my 9mm variants, it takes a few - and i've noticed the accuracy is all over the place. So I'm hoping with the upgrades and such it will feel a bit tighter, right now I'm using way too many explosives to get the job done.

93_confirmed wrote:

I really loved everything about Crysis and I guess deep down I wanted this to essentially be Crysis+Africa-aliens+awesome animations-nanosuit=Awesome

It's funny, a few times I've already tried to re-stealth or go maximum strength only to realize I'm not playing Crysis.

I'm really loving it. It's running on my rig with reasonable frame rates at very high settings and no AA. I've set it at 1440x900 so I can crank up all the bells and whistles, but the engine really is a marvel and it definitely runs better than Crysis.

My hardware is:
OCed Opteron 165 (2.25 GHz)
8800GTS 640MB
3GB RAM

I do find myself occasionally wishing for stealthier weapons, but I know those become available later on. The core combat is immensely satisfying in the meantime. My first big shantytown firefight was breathtaking, with fire spreading from molotovs, debris flying from grenade explosions, enemies flanking and surrounding my position, and even a dramatic weapon jam (not as annoying as I thought it would be).

Tom Chick's review compares Far Cry to an arthouse movie as opposed to the big budget action flick of a game like Crysis or CoD4, and it definitely sometimes has that vibe. I find it really appealing--the atmosphere is impeccably crafted, the writing is smart, the freedom is exciting without being overwhelming. The STALKER comparisons are apt--it's sort of like a less obtuse and punishing version of that approach, built by a well-funded and world class team of designers. Like an arthouse film, though (or STALKER for that matter) I can see that this game is not going to push everyone's buttons the way it's pushing mine.

Anyone know what FM 25-82 is? Nutz, that is gonna bug me until I find out.

The brown-looks-good-on-everything is going to get old. Otherwise it's a great game.

Is anyone playing the pc version having any trouble with the frame rate? It could be a cacheing(sp?) problem. I can run cod4 on highest setting and get kickass frame rates.

Definitely have a good time with it so far, though the whole malaria crap can go take a flying leap.

I think I'm getting this for my birthday on Monday. Really, really want to buy it tomorrow when it comes out in the UK, but I shouldn't. Gah.

I'm probably one of the few playing on the 360 versus the PC. I only got an hour or so in last night. The graphics are beautiful. I did turn the gamma up a bit, it was too dark feeling. The driving perspective feels a bit off to me, i feel like I'm driving at an angle.

Finding diamonds is a little easier now that I have the mechanic down, but I'm not convinced I have gotten comfortable with the 'scout out a location' function yet. I'm curious to see if that knife I have turns into a viable weapon for taking down enemies via stealth later.

Honestly, I dont know enough about the factions, so I'm just going with the flow mission choice-wise. It is a challenging game, even on normal. I think I need better weapons, weapon upgrades, and ingame skills at this point. I was a little surprised how punishing it is.