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Jake

Idle Thumbs 143: This One's Fr4e

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I haven't actually played Far Cry 2  :fart:  but man I think Crysis is really just kind of totally mediocre? It's a wholly competent shooter...

 

And that's pretty much it.

 

I understand what it is that made some people love it, but to me all that stuff just felt like the typical shooter fare except you could turn invisible sometimes too and then play hide and seek for a while. And to be honest even the alien stuff felt mostly the same, except in slightly more confined spaces. Like, definitely worse, but not so much worse that it made the earlier stuff look better by comparison. I guess I'm kind of weird in this regard, though.

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The most fun I had in Crysis was honestly turning on the cheats and giving Beefy McRobotSuit super strength and punching cars into people and through houses.

 

 

Re: Malaria Gun Jamming could also be making preserves, with bullets and sickness!

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Also the lighting seemed dull and ugly. Maybe it was because I was playing on console?

Are you sure you weren't playing Far Cry Instincts?

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I haven't actually played Far Cry 2  :fart:  but man I think Crysis is really just kind of totally mediocre? It's a wholly competent shooter...

 

And that's pretty much it.

 

I understand what it is that made some people love it, but to me all that stuff just felt like the typical shooter fare except you could turn invisible sometimes too and then play hide and seek for a while. And to be honest even the alien stuff felt mostly the same, except in slightly more confined spaces. Like, definitely worse, but not so much worse that it made the earlier stuff look better by comparison. I guess I'm kind of weird in this regard, though.

 

The graphics blow most other shooters out of the water, the visuals inside the alien ship were incredible. The engagement ranges are longer and more realistic, the scale of everything is bigger, it doesn't rely so much on scripted sequences, its open-world (most shooters are really corridor shooters).  The AI felt more satisfying to fight than the typical shooter AI.  To me it feels like it relies on good AI and environment design rather than scripting.  The guns and mechanics were better than many shooters (better than Far Cry 2 or 3 imo).  It continually presents you with situations you can attack from multiple angles with multiple strategies.  Doesn't bog the experience down with stupid open-world filler activities.

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Are you sure you weren't playing Far Cry Instincts?

 

No, just look

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=far+cry+1+screenshot 

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=far+cry+2+screenshot 

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=crysis+screenshot  

 

Far Cry 1 had pretty basic graphics, but the environment was bright, green, and lush.  Far Cry 2 has better graphics sure, but the world is so incredibly brown, and often dark and dull.  For some reason it just didn't feel very immersive, felt like a video game.  Crysis is in a completely different league, has more graphical variety, and came out a full year earlier than Far Cry 2...

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The graphics blow most other shooters out of the water, the visuals inside the alien ship were incredible. The engagement ranges are longer and more realistic, the scale of everything is bigger, it doesn't rely so much on scripted sequences, its open-world (most shooters are really corridor shooters).  The AI felt more satisfying to fight than the typical shooter AI.  To me it feels like it relies on good AI and environment design rather than scripting.  The guns and mechanics were better than many shooters (better than Far Cry 2 or 3 imo).  It continually presents you with situations you can attack from multiple angles with multiple strategies.  Doesn't bog the experience down with stupid open-world filler activities.

I'm very familiar with all the arguments in favor of Crysis. They just don't fly with me. The game was nothing special, as much as everyone tells me it should be. All that sweet stuff under the hood just didn't ever find it's way to the surface.

 

Also, never lead off on a response to gameplay discussion with "The graphics"! Come on, that's a little awkward. Especially when the game under question is fucking Crysis. We all know Crysis looks amazing.

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No, just look

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=far+cry+1+screenshot 

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=far+cry+2+screenshot 

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=crysis+screenshot

 

Far Cry 1 had pretty basic graphics, but the environment was bright, green, and lush.  Far Cry 2 has better graphics sure, but the world is so incredibly brown, and often dark and dull.  For some reason it just didn't feel very immersive, felt like a video game.  Crysis is in a completely different league, has more graphical variety, and came out a full year earlier than Far Cry 2...

Far Cry 2 nailed it's enviroment, it's representative of the area it takes place in.

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I misread this sentence as "nothing to do with the Malaria gun jamming." A game with a gun that gave your enemies malaria would be the best/most terrifying thing.

 

I just want to add to this that if I could shoot someone in a video game with a malaria gun and then secretly follow them for awhile until they start vomiting and flailing around and then teabag them when they finally collapse, that would be the best thing ever. Even better if they returned to a base and infected everyone else with malaria and then you could go around teabagging everyone in the base. And better yet if all that teabagging re-filled your malaria bullets.

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I just want to add to this that if I could shoot someone in a video game with a malaria gun and then secretly follow them for awhile until they start vomiting and flailing around and then teabag them when they finally collapse, that would be the best thing ever. Even better if they returned to a base and infected everyone else with malaria and then you could go around teabagging everyone in the base. And better yet if all that teabagging re-filled your malaria bullets.

You should probably play DayZ.

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I'm very familiar with all the arguments in favor of Crysis. They just don't fly with me. The game was nothing special, as much as everyone tells me it should be. All that sweet stuff under the hood just didn't ever find it's way to the surface.

 

Also, never lead off on a response to gameplay discussion with "The graphics"! Come on, that's a little awkward. Especially when the game under question is fucking Crysis. We all know Crysis looks amazing.

Much as gamers like to pretend otherwise, graphics are king.  Firing up Super Mario World for the first time felt like pure magic when I was a kid. There is nothing like the experience of truly next-gen tech.  Mechanics are definitely important, especially once you get accustomed to a new level of graphical fidelity, but what I'm really after is immersion.  Crysis felt real to me, Far Cry 2 did not, simple as that.  Not really sure why.

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Much as gamers like to pretend otherwise, graphics are king. 

 

I... suspect you're going to have a hard time winning that argument here :)

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You'll never find me arguing that graphics are unimportant in video games, but KING is going just a bit too far.

 

I had a hard time responding to that statement without snorting in derision.

 

I think I'll just go ahead and snort anyway. In derision.

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The visual aesthetic of a game is one of the core components that makes up the experience of playing it, but whether that component is more important than its sound or its gameplay design is up to each individual player. That said, did you play enough FC2 to see the fire or rain effects? I'm playing it for the first time now, and my experience oscillates fairly rapidly between "eh this looks a little better than Half Life 2 maybe" and "HOLY CRAP THAT LOOKS AMAZING".

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I... suspect you're going to have a hard time winning that argument here :)

You're telling me you don't recall episode 78, where the Idle Thumbs crew spend half an hour debating whether the HDR in Far Cry 2 or Half-Life 2: Lost Coast is better, or episode 106, where they gave their game of the year award to BioShock Infinite because of its amazing graphics, or episode 121, where they ragged on Crusader King II's ugly character portraits and said they were done with the game until Paradox adds DLC that makes it not look like shit?

Really I think Idle Thumbs dot net is actually the website on the Internet where we would most expect people to think graphics are king. Someone who played Far Cry 2 on console and liked it less than Crysis because Crysis, the game where you can turn invisible and punch a truck to death, "felt real" more than a game where your guns jam at inopportune times and you have to use pliers to yank a bullet out of your thigh is pretty much a perfect fit for the Idle Thumbs forums!

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Much as gamers like to pretend otherwise, graphics are king.  Firing up Super Mario World for the first time felt like pure magic when I was a kid. There is nothing like the experience of truly next-gen tech.  Mechanics are definitely important, especially once you get accustomed to a new level of graphical fidelity, but what I'm really after is immersion.  Crysis felt real to me, Far Cry 2 did not, simple as that.  Not really sure why.

 

Like everyone else, I'd be more inclined to engage you if you didn't act like we're all frontin' when we say that we like how Far Cry 2 plays more than how Crysis looks. I certainly don't believe graphics are king. They tarnish so quickly and contribute less to a game's overall immersion than anything else. For me, Far Cry 2 is still a fascinating interaction of systems five years later, while Crysis has become an average-looking game with flat gunplay and an empty "open world" that becomes a ropey corridor shooter too soon and for too long.

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Crysis still holds the title of best turtle throwing simulator for me, other than that I got pretty bored halfway through

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Graphics for me tends to be the last thing I care about in a game.  I certainly like games to look good, but I'll play a fun or interesting  game with poor graphics over a good looking but boring or mechanically broken game.  Ideally you want both of course but when forced to choose I'll pick gameplay over looks every time.

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I don't know what you guys are talking about. Graphics are clearly king and that is why Killzone 3 is the pinnacle of console shooters.

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I actually had a weird Idle Thumbs flashback when playing Crysis 2 - I never played the first Crysis, but after playing 2 I realized I had the exact same experience they talked about with the original, where it was a really fun shooter until the aliens showed up and it became a terrible slog.

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I actually had a weird Idle Thumbs flashback when playing Crysis 2 - I never played the first Crysis, but after playing 2 I realized I had the exact same experience they talked about with the original, where it was a really fun shooter until the aliens showed up and it became a terrible slog.

Far Cry, Crysis, Crysis 2 all had this, right? (Except in Far Cry it was mutants not aliens?)

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Far Cry, Crysis, Crysis 2 all had this, right? (Except in Far Cry it was mutants not aliens?)

 

I was about to make a "definition of insanity" joke here, but then realized Crytek didn't develop Far Cry 3 so that doesn't really work :(

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Far Cry, Crysis, Crysis 2 all had this, right? (Except in Far Cry it was mutants not aliens?)

 

Of those, I only played Crysis 2.

 

 

I was about to make a "definition of insanity" joke here, but then realized Crytek didn't develop Far Cry 3 so that doesn't really work :(

 

I actually played Far Cry 3 recently, and that one definitely doesn't do this. The enemies get stronger toward the end, but so do you. Let me tell you, I stabbed a lot of heavies in that game.

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Ehhhhh I think it's maybe useful to draw a line here between "graphics" as in the graphics technology powering a game and "graphics" as in the overall visual experience. While I think the former is nice as a tool towards an end, the latter is extremely important, to a degree I don't think is being acknowledged here. Monkey Island is a beautiful game, even if its graphics technology is antiquated, and wouldn't even be half the experience it is now if it used blocky abstract graphics.

 

"Graphics are king" is a silly way to put it, and obviously whether FC2 or Crysis's world "feels" more real is a matter of opinion. The visual aesthetics of a game matter a LOT though -- it's just that usually graphics technology is only a means towards that end, and frequently one poorly applied, a hammer used in lieu of a paintbrush.

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Far Cry, Crysis, Crysis 2 all had this, right? (Except in Far Cry it was mutants not aliens?)

I really dislike games that do this. Turned me off to Far Cry, it turned me off on the modern Wolfenstein games. I know that's their whole schtick, but I still don't want to deal with femme nazi wizard dominatrixes. It bothered me a bit about the latest Tomb Raider too, although that was way more telegraphed mysticism right from the start.

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