Today is the day I force myself to play FarCry2.

[nonamermcgee]

I am going in, I am going to force myself to play through the first 2 hours. Too many people say how great it is, and I've only played the first 20 minutes or so (I ended up getting sucked into FO3 and L4D and never going back to it).

I will report back on if it's awesome later on or still overwhelming like it felt for the first 20 minutes.

[gdf]

I need to get this. Since Killzone 2 was disposed of within 24 hours I'm looking for a shooter to get stuck into.

[nonamermcgee]

Wow, I clocked quite a few hours there.

Several things I liked, a few things I definitely wasn't crazy about, but overall pretty neat. It definitely gets better past the tutorial phase.

[MonkeyWrench]

It definitely gets better once you start unlocking more weapons and upgrades, especially silenced guns and sniper rifles...oh and the grenade launcher. It makes light work of pursuing checkpoint baddies! It's a game of many stand out moments of emergent gameplay, interspersed with retarded design decisions (something Ubisoft excel at). I think in the end I had sunk around 30+ hours into it.

[Vorlonesque]

I had to pretty much make myself play it for a bit as well. I played it in short bursts and a couple longer ones initially, but a couple of things happened with FC2 for me when it first came out. It had the misfortune of coming out among a lot of other games that were all taking over my life at the same time, and I didn't have time to give FC2 the time it deserved. I also think I let myself do something that I rarely but occasionally do; I got myself too excited over the game before it came out and ended up initially dissappointed that it didn't part the clouds in the sky and rape me through said cloud firmament hole. I find when this happens I'm better off taking a step back and playing other stuff and then coming back with my new shiny low expectations so that the game really exceeds them and is this new thing that I was wrong about...its like a jedi mind trick except I'm doing it on my own mind (which apparently works due to the fact that I am a retard).

FC2 seems to be the sort of game that you really need to set aside a chunk of time to play...its not (at least not at first) the sort of game you can just jump into for a very short session and then just come back to later...not if you want to really get drawn in. I intended to do this for some time...and it was my intention to really get into the game before Christmas (when I was getting Fallout 3)...but it was in ever greater danger of being part of the ever-growing-pile-of-games-I've-barely-if-ever-touched-but-need-to-play. Largely due to the podcast and Chris Remo's enthusiasm in particular (he's soooo dreamy) I decided (read: felt guilty enough) to play FC2 again with the intention of getting through the tutorial section and into the real game in a sitting (I was already almost all the way to that point). I ended up playing for 4 hours or more (going way beyond my original goal) and I was totally engrossed (and still am).

I think the game really took off once I bought a gun so that I could actually manage to fight...and then when I bought an AK47 with all the upgrades...everything was good (I have a thing for AK47s). This has become one of my goto games and I'm constantly going back to it to beat a few more missions whenever I feel like playing something (sometimes I think "well I'll play for an hour, give or take 15 minutes"...and then 3-5 hours later I realize that this is Civilization all over again...because there's always just "one more thing" you can do). There's a lot of variety so its fucking easy to just mix it up...and I'm constantly getting into this and that and its literally left me sleep deprived on a few occasions (as great games often do...Fallout3 did the same thing recently...and Civ4 was the bane of my well-rested existence...and lets not even discuss online DM with the Quakes).

I should stop typing now, as my eye has inexplicably started burning like something is in it...and...fuck. FC is really good.

[MrChaz]

There is nothing great about a game which is horrible for 2 hours.

[twmac]

Well I played Far Cry 2 on the 360 recently and it had me gripped within minutes. There is something about the setting and the mood that instantly appealed to me, moreso than when I played Bioshock (which I still haven't gotten past level 2 even though I really liked it).

I sent in a letter the podcast, but I'll say it now. I'm glad that they banged on about this game until I caved and bought it.

[Yalbit]

I've been playing FarCry2 for a few weeks and I finally finished it last night. It has a good ending, and I don't think I would play it again.

Remo was right.

[Nevsky]

Just listened to the October 28th podcast, which featured the long spiel on Far Cry 2. My interest is definitely piqued, although I don't have the £$€s for it at the moment. Maybe if it comes down in price a little.

[Cheetohands]

Far Cry 2 is definitely on my "get it when it's 20 bucks" list.