Looking at: Far Cry 2

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Big Game Hunter.

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Rocket launchers are rare, but incredibly useful.

It's midday on the plains of an unnamed central African country. I'm on a hill overlooking a small guard post. I spot my objective, a box of medical supplies that I need to keep me alive. I check my equipment:
My trust .45 hangun, two mags of ammo.
My 1903 Springfield rifle, half rusted, about 12 rounds left.
My RPG7, one rocket.

I look at the map one more time and try a headcount of the mercenaries in the camp. I count three, but know from experience there's likely six or seven. I take a breath, sight down my first target, and open fire.

Moments later I emerge, bruised, bloody, but victorious. My rifle broke after a few shots, so I had to resort to my handgun. I snagged an AK47 off one unfortunate soul and had just enough ammo to put down the last remaining merc. I got winged more then a few times, and once had to stop to yank a stray bullet out of my leg with my pliers. There is no time for pain here.

I grab the meds from the cabinet, inject myself with some life saving drugs, and pull out my map. My objective is still several kilometers away, and I'll be doing this dance at least two more times before my mission is through.

You can only push a man so far...

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Rather than a static mini-map, you'll need to actually pull out a map to navigate around.

I've already spoken about the Far Cry series as a whole before, but the second game deserves particular attention. It's an odd game, flying in the face of other shooters and it's own offspring. It's a game that's worth examining and talking about, even seven years after it's release.

The setup for FC2's story is simple: you are a mercenary hired to enter a central African nation and assassinate an arms dealer known as The Jackal. He's a known sociopath that's been selling guns dirt cheap to the two major factions. You enter the country, faint, and are awoken by the Jackal lecturing you on how much you suck and how he can't be killed. Civil war erupts and, seeing as you have no other option, you decide to lend your services to the factions in exchange for information on Jackal's whereabouts.

What follows is a series of almost completely unconnected fetch or assassinate missions that see you trekking back and forth through the country, engaging in brief but violent gunfights with the local mercenary population. You'll take down targets, earn diamonds, buy equipment, rinse and repeat for ~15-20 hours.

The Big Suck

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Always make sure you have a friend on hand to save you in a firefight.

By today's standards, FC2 is somewhat antiquated. While not technically true, FC2 is widely considered the first open-world shooter, and as such it had quite a few stumbles. Most notoriously is the respawning enemy checkpoints, like the one mentioned at the beginning of this article.  These are littered throughout the world, often at road intersections or strategic hard-points, and most of the time they can't be easily avoided. This might not be an issue, since most checkpoints have less then ten enemies and always contain useful supplies, but they respawn so fast that it feels like you never make any difference. Occasionally you'll clear a checkpoint, finish a mission, and comeback to see the checkpoint manned again, despite the corpses of it's former inhabitants still lying around.

The other big complaint is Malaria. You start the game with it and it comes back several times. It's a shitty disease, sure, but here it's an incredible annoyance. When it flairs up you won't be able to see very well, you can't jump or sprint, and you'll need to pop some pills. That means taking your finger off the trigger and staying exposed for a few seconds. Worse is that you only get pills a few at a time, and when you run out you'll need to finish a mission to get some more. It can't be cured, and actually gets worse as the game wears on, making it a constant annoyance.

Let's talk about the guns too. Like I mentioned in my story, my sniper rifle broke after use, forcing me to resort to my side arm. That's not an uncommon occurrence. The weapons of Africa are terrible, jamming all the time and occasionally just flat-out breaking. Weapons bought from the friendly arms dealer are ok for a while, but will slowly degrade. Weapons picked up out in the field, however, start shitty and only go downhill from there. You'll find yourself aiming at an enemy's head, only to pull the trigger and have nothing happen.

Slapping You Around.

Here's the thing about all of this, is that they're there to reinforce the story and atmosphere. Africa is a shitty place at the best of times, but war-torn Africa is a whole new level of hell that's impossible to quantify. That's what FC2 is trying to convey to you, that life is pain, everything is terrible, and people suck. FC2 doesn't have a great story, but it does have a great way of telling that story.

Life is brutal short, and this is constantly shoved at you time and time again. There aren't any doctors in Africa, so you'll find yourself improvising, yanking bullets out with pliers, twigs, or even your teeth. If you have the stomach, here's all of the possible healing animations:

If you wince in pain from that, don't worry, that's normal. That's how your supposed to feel. You leave a trail of bodies in your wake, but every fight take a small piece of you with it. Life is pain.

Here's most of the guns of FC2 jamming. Try watching and not getting annoyed:

Infuriating isn't it? In that video it doesn't show any firefights, but imagine that happening with bullets flying past your head. That's life in Africa. Dirty, grime, and dust getting into your guns and turning even the most rugged of weapons into scrap heaps. Everything is terrible.

There's a complete sense of moral greynes pervasive throughout FC2. No one is a hero here, not even your player character. At the start of the game you get to choose from a small roster, it's a completely arbitrary choice with no effect on the gameplay. But none of your choices are particularly good, ranging from professional mercenaries, to AWOL soldiers, to smugglers and known criminals. This extends to the cast of characters you meet, from the selection of buddies that'll give you side quests and save your life in combat, to the various faction representatives that give you missions. People suck.

Day of the Jackal.

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Firefights are brutal and explosive.

Graphically, FC2 doesn't quiet hold up. When it came out in 2008 it was at the top of it's game, especially the PC version. In the face of more modern shooters like Metro Last Light, ARMA3 or even COD: AW it just looks dated and muddy. It's not a bad looking game, and it certainly has a great atmosphere to it, but it's a relic by today's standards and just can't hold a candle any more.

Where it fails graphically, it makes up with innovation. There are a staggering amount of first person animations in FC2, as evidenced in the videos above. Everything you do in FC2 feels real, from reloading and interacting with your weapons, to just opening a door or getting into a vehicle. This really helps to sell the immersion.

Even more innovative is they way FC2 handles it's world. There are things FC2 does that I have yet to see any other shooter do as well. Take, for instance, the time of day. Most games have it so that stealth is easier at night since you have the cover of darkness. In FC2 the AI's awareness changes based on the time, so during high noon they can see for a mile, but are usually distracted grabbing a drink or sitting in the shade. At night, they can't see anything, but because of this they're more alert and respond quicker to loud noises. Planning an assault also means picking the time of day, what weapons to bring, and how you're going to approach the situation.

The biggest selling feature of FC2's world is it's fire propagation system. Africa is a dry place, and as such fires can rage uncontrollably, burning down entire fields in the blink of an eye. Set fire to an enemy position to flush them out, or cajole them into a killing field. It's unfortunate that the fires end at arbitrary lenghts, mostly to stop you from burning down the country with one Molotov, but it's fun to play around with regardless.

Far Cry 2 isn't a game for everyone,and certainly not for fans of it's own sequels. It's a hard, ruthless game that challenges you and never plays fair. I hesitate to call it the shooter equivalent to Dark Souls, but there's no denying the difficulty of this game. It's a shooter for people who are tired of being the supersoldier, tired of instantly winning and being told "good job". It's the anti-shooter, making you hurt for your prize and spitting on you when you win. It's an odd relic of the past, and a truly one of a kind experience.

Looking at: Far Cry 4

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The Late, Great, Far Cry

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One new addition is Far Cry 4's drop-in, drop-out co-op. There's also Honey Badgers. 

I mentioned in my look at the Far Cry series that Far Cry 3 was, and still is, one of my favorite shooters of all time, right up there with Doom 2 and COD: Modern Warfare. It's an incredibly enjoyable game with a huge open world, tonnes of activities to keep you busy, a well controlled upgrade system, and one of the more interesting stories in recent shooters. I've played FC3 several times now and I still enjoy every moment of it.

I also mentioned in that article how I was afraid for the Far Cry series. Ubisoft has had a recent trend of massacring it's PR, and it's shoddy handling of the once great Assassin's Creed franchise shows what can happen when they attempt to annualized a series. Far Cry 4 is, technically, the third Far Cry game in as many years, with FC3 in 2012, Blood Dragon and 2013, and now FC4 earlier this year. Thankfully Ubisoft haven't announced a new Far Cry game yet, but we'll wait and see. As for FC4? It doesn't ruin the franchise, but the seeds are certainly planted.

The Familiar

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Hunting remains largely the same, but beware enemy hunters that turn the wild life against you.

Anyone who played FC3 will be instantly familiar with FC4, mostly because they're essentially the same game. It's still an open world shooter with tonnes of activities to keep you busy, a well controlled upgrade system, and one of the more recent villains in recent history. That last one has changed a bit, and I'll explain later. There's really not much different then FC3, and this is one of the most annoying things about FC4. It's all the same,

I'd like to state right now that I didn't not hate Far Cry 4. That is to say, I sort of liked it. But I mostly liked it because, at it's best, it was just a newer, slightly better version of Far Cry 3. When Far Cry 4 was really, really good, it's because it was just apeing the things Far Cry 3 did really, really good. It was incredibly fun to unleash a wild animal on a group of unsuspecting enemies, just like it was in Far Cry 3. It was thrilling to sneak through a camp and systematically take down targets one by one, just like it was in Far Cry 3. It was a blast hunting down that dangerous animal to complete the upgrade I'd been working so hard on, just like -you get the point.

The New

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Elephants can be ridden into battle, with hilarious results.

That isn't to say Far Cry 4 is devoid of new additions. For one, it's hero, Ajay Ghale, is decidedly better at being a super soldier then Jason Brody was. This time around you start with the ability to slide, use sidearms while zip-lining, and cook grenades before throwing. He also has several new abilites that put him ahead of Brody, like the ability to fire sidearms while driving, and moving corpses out of sight. These two come pre-loaded, and don't require unlocking, which is for the best since they're both incredibly useful throughout the game.

Unlockable skills this time around are arraigned into only two trees: the Elephant, focusing on offense and syringe mixing; and the Tiger, focusing on stealth and firearms usage. Rather then unlocking once a level, you now save up unlock points and gain skills as you wish, with higher end skills costing more points. It's a nice change up, and there are enough useful skills peppered through that it's worth it. Skill acquiring has also been slightly re-worked, and I rarely found myself waiting around with unspent skill points like in FC3.

FC4 uses most of the same guns as FC3, to little surprise, but does boast a few new additions. This time around there's a designated side-arm slot specifically for one-handed weapons. While this seems annoying at first, it's purpose makes sense, especially given the ability to shoot while driving, and you quickly get used to it. Besides, it's really useful after unlocking the one-handed grenade launcher, a weapon so hilarious to use I saw little reason to ever be apart from it. There's other great new weapons, like the Autocross rapid fire silent crossbow, the .700nitro double barreled hunting rifle, or the LK-1018 lock-on rocket launcher.

 Where the weapon selection really shines is FC4's host of signature weapons. All of them require certain conditions be met, and earning a signature weapon is a great reward. There's the silent variation of the AK47, a one-handed flip-cocked version of the shotgun, a fully automatic pistol with an insane firerate, or a 400-round machine gun that never gives up. All of these are great, and working towards unlocking them is a good way to experience the world of Kyrat.

Kyrat, Land of 1000 Mountains

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Kyrat is a pleasent change from the lush Rook Islands.

An idiot once said of Far Cry 3 "Like Skyrim with guns" and while that ridiculously stupid statement meant nothing for FC3, it seems rather apt for FC4, at least as far as Kyrat is concerned. Rather then FC3's lush jungle island, Kyrat is located in the shadow of the Himalayan mountains, is a decided...far cry from Rook Islands. Kyrat is a cold, and desolate place, evoking obvious imagery of Nepal and Mongolia. There are temples scattered around, and holy sites from the local religion. It's a spiritual place, one that begs to be explored.

That is, until you try to actually explore it. Rook Islands was mostly open, and used hills sporadically to break up the terrain. Kyrat is mountainous, and allows only the occasional open field or body of water. While this is a great change, it makes traversing a real pain. I spent more time trying to figure out how to get to my destination, than actually going there. Even with the addition of a grappling hook it's annoying, since the hook is contextual as hell. Thief had the ability to deploy and use ropes at will, and that was released in 1998. Blessedly, there's still the ability to fast-travel to certain sites, and the wingsuit can be purchased only a few hours in rather then halfway through, but traversing Kyrat remains one of the more annoying parts of FC4.

The spiritual idiot, and his shrieking partner

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Like Red Dead Redemption, FC4 features dynamic events to keep the world alive.

Speaking of annoying, let's talk about FC4's plot and characters. They're terrible. Ubisoft continues to not be able to write protagonists, as Ajay Ghale's motivations are even worse then Jason Brody. As Ghale, you are sent back to Kyrat, you're homeland, to spread your mother's ashes as her final wish. Your mother was part of The Golden Path, a group of rebels attempting to overthrow the dictator. Ghale is kidnapped, and finds himself rescued by The Golden Path, then gang-pressed into becoming a super hero for them.

Here's the thing, Ghale has no reason to get involved, beyond "It's my parent's fight, so now it's my fight". It's not like he's searching for his lost parents. His father is dead, and he knew his mother his whole life, so that's not the reason. The Golden Path rescues him, then tells him if he wants to fulfill his mother's wish he'll need to fight. Except that he doesn't, because he's just a tourist, and the military has no problem with him.

SPOILER WARNING: SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH
It's made even stupider by the "secret ending". At the beginning of the game, you're told to wait while the villian makes a phone call. If you actually wait, he comes back, you spread your mother's ashes, and you go home. The entire conflict is pointless, and Ghale has no reason to fight.

Worse then the story are it's characters. The Golden Path is led by Sabal and Amita, two people so forgettable I had to look their names up on the wiki. Sabal is a backwards thinking patriot that wants to return Kyrat to it's spiritual roots, and Amita is a business minded leader that oozes that old "I'm a woman in a man's world, so I must fight" trope so much it's annoying. Neither of these two are interesting at all, and having to choose which of them to support is like choosing math class or geography, they both suck.

Then there's the supporting cast. Longinus, the biblical minded arms dealer is probably the most interesting, just because his performance is so over the top it becomes magical. Bhadra, Amita's daughter(?) who's some sort of goddess reincarnated that's never given a back story. Willis Huntly returns for a short while to be a complete asshole American sterotype. Finally there's Yogi and Reggi, two stoner idiots that represent the worst version of drug culture, and everything they say is terrible.

Love and Hatred

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Interactions with Pagan Min's army does a good job of showing how evil they are.

Then there's the villains. There's Pagan Min and his three liutenants: Noore, Yuma and Paul. Noore is the weakest of the bunch, being the whiny curator of the ancient coliseum, but her backstory is interesting enough and her motivations make sense. Paul is an interesting character, a man that will talk with his wife and daughter about mundane "dad" stuff, while slicing a hostage's head off and feeding it to dogs. Yuma is a freaky bitch that likes to use psychological horror to scar her prisoners, and is just overall really, really scary.

Finally, there's Pagan Min. FC3's Vaas was lauded as an excellent villain, but people were upset that he didn't receive enough screen time, and was killed off halfway through. Min, however, is fantastic, a mixture of ego, violence, fashion, and delusion all rolled into one purple suit. His connection with Ajay is unique, and despite attempting to destroy him, he regularly calls Ajay just to have pleasant chats. He treats Ajay as a son, and talking with him is usually the highlight of the game. All of this is no doubt thanks to the always wonderful Troy Baker, who does a great job of bringing Min to life and making him seem evil and intriguing at the same time.


Not Far Enough

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Spiritual journeys will pit you against demons as you uncover Kyrat's past.

Far Cry 4 isn't a bad game. There's a lot to love about it. What it is, is a bad sequel, and a bad Far Cry title. One of my favorite things about the Far Cry series was how different each game was from it's predecessor. Far Cry was an ahead of it's time sci-fi 80's action flick, Far Cry 2 was a deadly serious gritty Africa simulator, and Far Cry 3 was a huge, open toybox letting you stick C4 on a pig for fun. Far Cry 4 is just Far Cry 3, tweaked and re-worked. Far Cry 4 would be a great game, probably one of the best modern shooters, if only Far Cry 3 didn't exist.

Like I said, it's not a bad game, but there are numerous bad elements to it. The story and characters are annoying, and the cutscenes unskippable. Hit-detection at long-ranges is faulty, which makes sniping a crapshoot. There are a variety of bugs, ranging from the hilarious to the annoying. The world of Kyrat is interesting, but annoying to explorer. There's an odd abundance of insta-fail stealth missions and terrible tailing missions a-la Assassin's Creed.

All of this aside, there is a great game in Far Cry 4. An incredibly open toybox waiting for you to explore and exploit it. It's just to bad that the great game is Far Cry 3.

Looking at: the Far Cry series

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The ultimate shooter package?

Far Cry has always been one of my favorite shooter series, up there with STALKER, Half Life, and Doom. Each game in the series is something new and different, and they're all really damn fun to play. Far Cry 4 is coming out in just a few short days, so in anticipation of it here are my thoughts on the series, going through game by game.

Disclaimer: I won't be talking about the console spinoffs of the original game, just the main three games and Blood Dragon. None of the spinoffs are particularly that good anyway.

Far Cry

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A Far Cry from other shooters.

2004 was a pretty good year for PC shooters. We got Unreal 2004, Doom 3, Half Life 2, and Far Cry. If it wasn't for Half Life 2, there is no doubt in my mind that Far Cry would've been the best shooter that year. It was an interesting and ambitious game that certainly drew a lot of attention away from the other shooters.

Unlike every other shooter, Far Cry was all about openness. You weren't confined to tight quarters, but rather given huge, open maps with a variety of different ways to reach your objective. Coupled with that was some truly impressive AI for the time, with enemies that could communicate with each other.

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One of the first things you see, setting the tone for much of the game.

In terms of... well, everything Far Cry 2 was a love letter to cheesey, over the top 80's action flicks. You play as Jack Carver, former marine now running a Caribbean tour for reporter Val Cortez. When Carver's ship is blown up, and Val is captured, he finds himself surrounded by evil mercenaries and crazy scientists that all need a good killing.

It's a dumb, fun yarn with almost no plot development worth noting. Where it really fails is in the last quarter or so when the island is over run with alien mutants, turning the game into a really crappy sci-fi shooter. It's fun, and the idea of an open world shooter certainly caught enough attention that a sequel was inevitable.


Far Cry 2

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Blood, Guns, and Malaria.

If Far Cry was an 80's action flick, Far Cry 2 was a Gulf War documentary. Gone were the lush Caribbean islands, replaced by the arid deserts and muggy rain forests of central Africa. Gone was the good guy/bad guy dynamic, replaced with fifty shades of moral grey. Gone was the curated experience and focused plot, replaced with a truly open world and a series of barely connected missions.

Far Cry 2 set the standard for the series, in that every iteration of a Far Cry game should have nothing to do with the previous. There are no references to Far Cry, outside of fan speculation. This is a completely different game, and it kind of hates itself.

Rather then an actual character, you play as a mostly faceless and nameless mercenary, sent into an unnamed central African country to hunt down an arms dealer known as The Jackal. Jackal's been arming both sides of a brewing conflict, and sure enough the civil war breaks out within hours of your arrival.

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Far Cry 2 features a realistic fire propagation system, allowing you to set things ablaze.

You're not a hero this time around, for a few reasons. First of all, you're barely alive, with Malaria slowly eating away at you. Second, you're a mercenary, only working for the money. Third, you suck at your job, since the Jackal tracks you down first and threatens you if you follow him. Trapped in a shithole with no way home you decide to sign up with both sides of the war and try and make a living, all while staying alive.

Unlike Far Cry, the map is actually open this time. There are two locations, North and South, and they're both massive. You'll travel through fields of grass, dense jungles, and arid deserts in your hunt for the Jackal, and the world is visually impressive overall.

Where Far Cry 2 really fails is in it's balance. It's brutally unfair at times, with weapons jamming, and the constant need to pop Malaria pills to stay alive. Enemies respawn mere moments after clearing a camp, and new weapons take a long time to acquire. This isn't always a fun shooter, but it is immersive.

That's really the selling point of Far Cry 2, it's immersion. All of the negative points, bleed into this, and you'll truly feel like your in an African country. Weapons jam because they're old and warn. You're slowly dying of Malaria, whether or not your in a gunfight. I strongly suggest playing Far Cry 2 on the highest difficulty setting to really get into the game.

Far Cry 3

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A return to form, and a new way forward.

Far Cry 3 was something of a return to form from Far Cry 2, while also an attempt to remedy it. It's a sleeker, smoother game, and still stands as one of my all time favorite shooters.

You're back in the tropics this time around. As Jason Brody you find yourself in the Rook Islands, down near Thailand. A botched skydiving trip brought you here, and the heavily armed pirates that kidnapped you and your friends are keeping you here. You'll have to fight your way off the island, slowly rescuing your friends and truly putting yourself to the test as you face off against the insane Vaas and cruel Hoyte.

Far Cry 3 plays like a best-of compilation of the first two games. The world is this great, lush, vibrant tropical setting from the first game, with the fine tuned open world shooting nature of the second game. It also throws in RPG mechanics for good measure, with Brody earning XP for doing various actions that he can spend to upgrade three skill paths: Stealth, Combat, and Movement. The skills are cool, and most of them serve really practical uses, but the progression system is crippled by attaching itself to the story progression, meaning there's several instances where you can't spend any gained points.

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Far Cry 3 has a re-worked stealth system, allowing you to play the predator.

As for the story, the first half is really good. There has been some debate back and forth about Jason Brody as a protagonist, since he comes across as an arrogant douche for much of the story. I liked him, and found that as he lost more of his humanity to the island he became more interesting. But the real stand out is Michael Mando's Vaas Montenegro. Rather then explain the brilliance of Vaas, I'm just going to link to his spine-tingling appearance in the original E3 demo, a performance left largely unchanged in the final game.

Unfortunately the latter half of the story doesn't fare so well, replacing the scrappy David and Goliath feel of the first half with an Asshole VS Asshole type feel. It's not necessarily bad, but considering how good the first half is, it's a damn shame.

Far Cry 3 is the best of the series, pretty much by virtue of being the third game. It's fun, wacky, and crazy, but apparently not crazy enough.

Blood Dragon

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YES.

Holy shit.

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Fuck YES!

That's really all that can be said about Far Cry Blood Dragon. We all thought it was an April Fools joke. But no, it's real, and it's really damn good.

It's a neon soaked love letter to 80's sci-fi action, with lasers, robots, and shitload of blood soaked f-bombs. It's wonderful, funny, and batshit insane in the best way.

You play as Rex "Power" Colt, voiced by 80's action star Michael Biehn (Aliens, Terminator, The Rock), an eyepatch having cyborg commando sent to hunt down and kill his former master. There's robots to shoot, scientists to rescue, and ladies to woo, and even a training montage for good measure in there.

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SO MUCH YES!

I won't spend to much more time on Blood Dragon, since in every way outside of the story it's just a re-skin of Far Cry 3. A glorious, insane re-skin, but a re-skin nonetheless.

Far Cry 4 and beyond

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The insidious Pagan Min, villian of Far Cry 4.

That's all I'll say about the Far Cry series. Far Cry 4 is out in a few days, although for budget reasons I'll probably not be talking about it for a while. I hope it's good, and that the Far Cry series remains as good as it has been.

I'm fearful because of Ubisoft's recent bouts of fucking up. Far Cry is a series that deserves to live on, often braking away from what other shooters are doing, and focusing on fun, open world, single player experiences. Please, Ubisoft, don't become a far cry of your former self, and keep the series good.