Jake

Far Cry 2

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I just started playing this game today. I got a little frustrated at one part of the sort-of-tutorial, since the mission giver indicated that I was supposed to meet someone at a weapon shack but I was instead supposed to buy a weapon to progress, but after that I started to see what this game is really about. I mean, REALLY about.

 

On that note, I learned the hard way that:

- Just driving into camps to fight them head on is a bad idea.

- Just driving THROUGH camps to avoid the fight is also a bad idea.

 

Anyway Far Cry 2. This will probably be my next two weeks.

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Hey so uh, is the game known for crashing frequently at random? Or is that something I should try to fix?

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Hey so uh, is the game known for crashing frequently at random? Or is that something I should try to fix?

 

It's always been rock solid for me. One of the newer Nvidia drivers caused some slowness, strangely, but I've never had it crash.

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It's always been rock solid for me. One of the newer Nvidia drivers caused some slowness, strangely, but I've never had it crash.

Huh. It just closes out, no error message or nothin'. It usually happens when I'm using the Steam overlay, or when I open a door. But just now it did it when I was running around doing shit.

 

Let me try a restart, see if it's some goofy RAM issue.

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Huh. It just closes out, no error message or nothin'. It usually happens when I'm using the Steam overlay, or when I open a door. But just now it did it when I was running around doing shit.

 

Let me try a restart, see if it's some goofy RAM issue.

 

A quick Google says that there's a memory leak using DX10, mostly with ATI cards. Switching to DX9 fixes almost all cases of it.

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A quick Google says that there's a memory leak using DX10, mostly with ATI cards. Switching to DX9 fixes almost all cases of it.

Oh sweet, then switch to DX9 I shall because why not. I just hope this fire propagation doesn't hurt from it because molotovs are African savanahs' best friend.

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This might turn out to be a long post but I started an account at Idle Thumbs just to finally talk about Far Cry 2. Specifically, I'm starting to wonder if I played and experienced Far Cry 2 all wrong. My experience with the game and its missions seems to have been far different from what I hear described on the podcasts Idle Thumbs and Tone Control. I still enjoyed the game immensely for its focus on open-ended gameplay, I just feel like i utilized that differently.

 

Generally, my experience with FC2 was far less chaotic. Not really chaotic at all in fact. I lost no buddies in combat and never had to be rescued. After the first half of the game I actually only encountered one buddy (can't remember her name, the chick with the short black hair and grey T-Shirt, Nasreen according to the Wiki) on land for the entire rest of the game. I saw Frank once just chilling out in a cabin but that was it. I think the reason my playthrough of FC2 went so "smoothly" is because I was extremely cautious throughout the whole thing.

 

I basically played stealth the whole game, mostly only using the sniper rifle and machete. More importantly, I devoted a probably unreasonable amount of prep time to each mission, even the side missions: the path I took there to get the desired entrance with the least resistance, my escape route, equipment, etc. I never had to deal with weapon degradation because I grabbed fresh guns before every mission, and once at the actual mission I'd spend like five minutes looking at a map planning the best way to sneak in and out without being seen. As a result of all this I basically never experienced those crazy firefights people talk about on the podcasts. If I did end up in the middle of one I usually hid in the bush and either snuck away or took everyone down silently. I guess this is still taking advantage of FC2's emergent gameplay since I even had the freedom to play like that at all.

 

The truly bad thing though is that I kinda ended up ignoring the entire storyline. The main reason is because for some reason I couldn't actually hear any of the dialogue. I don't remember if it was I couldn't adjust the voice volume independent of the master volume, but for some reason 95% of the dialogue and storyline became unintelligible to me. I didn't even know why the most important events in the story were even happening. I just shot whoever my handlers told me to shoot with absolutely no regard to the politics of it all. Maybe that could also be interpreted as being the perspective of a mercenary.

 

When I upgrade to my next PC I definitely plan to start a new file and pay more attention to the game, perhaps play more into its systems. I felt like I spent my whole first run through FC2 circumventing a lot of the game.

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I don't know that seems like a perfectly reasonable approach to the game. I personally had a ton of trouble being stealthy even with silenced weapons so I applaud your ability to do so.

 

Also Clint Hocking address it in Tone Control, the gun degradation is only an issue if you never use fresh weapons, so basically a non-issue. Though I may have had a few of fresh guns lock up on me IIRC.

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Haha, I had a lot of the same stuff happen, minus the voices. I NEVER saw my buddies in the wild, except for a mission here or there. 

 

I think my favorite missions were the caravan ones. I seriously loved plotting a route, planting some C4 and waiting for those dummies to roll over it. As a result I figured out a weapon loadout and stuck with it.

 

I wish games in general gave me LESS choice and forced me to use different weapons and party members. 

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Yeah, I'd say you did a good job playing FC2 the way you did. I think what we all love about the game is the way it supports all these different approaches.

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Yeah I always took fresh guns and always used the sniper and silenced mp5. Still had masses of fun and actually finished it.

 

I wonder how many people have finished it on this forum?

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I definitely did not finish it and explained my reasons over the last few pages. But I did get a lot of value out of it and would love to see more games take such bold stances in their design.

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Yeah I always took fresh guns and always used the sniper and silenced mp5. Still had masses of fun and actually finished it.

 

I wonder how many people have finished it on this forum?

 

How long does it typically take people? My playthrough ended up being 40 hours but I think I did every last mission in the game. I know I didn't find all the diamonds or tapes though. I also never used fast travel.

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How long does it typically take people? My playthrough ended up being 40 hours but I think I did every last mission in the game. I know I didn't find all the diamonds or tapes though. I also never used fast travel.

 

I took around 25-30 hours, but I used fast travel. I did the ambush missions until I unlocked the barret 50 cal, man that gun could stop trucks with a couple of shots.

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Also, adjusting the difficulty according to your ability changes the game a lot. For me, it's completely different on Medium compared to the next difficulty. More hectic, harder to predict, more rewarding. The hardest difficulty was a bit too much.

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I probably spent about 60 hours, but I got every single diamond. I also played around with just about every weapon, because I really got a sense of the "gun feel" of certain guns and had clear preferences by the end of the game. While I did play a good part of it with the sniper and silenced MP5, I also had a great time playing it loud. I loved cranking up a truck to full speed, transferring to the grenade turret, and blowing up everything; at which point, I could clean things up with loud and proud assault rifle.

 

I was probably playing on the medium difficulty, because the latter approach resulted in my death maybe... 25% of the time. 

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I just had my first buddy die on me. Poor Fiona!

 

So I decided I need a new best buddy to give me missions. I went to Mike's and there's Warren, just kinda standing there. I brought him a bag of pot and he's my new best buddy.

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are there really buses riding around? the whole time? i've only made it to the second map, but i never noticed that. 

 

If there actually were buses, I like to think they'd be driven by the same psychotic AI. Can you imagine the terror of a massive bus running off the road to get you?

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The buses don't actually exist, the bus stops exist

 

Whoa, man. This sounds way more philosophical than was probably intended. Like, "the territory is not the map."

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