FarCry2

[Fragony]

Far Cry 2 is excellent imho. It's a bit flawed but at least it tries something new. The action is great and it's quite the looker. Good action + fantastic settings equals good game.

[Adrian II]

Far Cry 2 is excellent imho. It's a bit flawed but at least it tries something new. The action is great and it's quite the looker. Good action + fantastic settings equals good game.

Eh?

What exactly is new about it, except the pyrotechnic effect? The CryEngine is capable of far more physical effects, as witnessed by Crysis and Crysis Warhead (which by the way is spectacular, boys and girls). The action is repetitive and the freaking guard posts become first boring, then intensely irritating. The scenery is fantastic, sure, but it is not essentially different from (let alone better than) Crysis.

And FarCry at least had a nice story which you developed as you went from level to level (and some levels in FarCry were hard to pass even in Normal mode). FC2 has a lame sort of angle, not a story in the real sense, and it never leads to anything. The 'missions' are totally predictable and easy as hell. Going stealth is not an option (even though it is advertized as such) because the enemy always immediately spot you. The NPC's fire guns and mortars through trees and houses and they have nitrous cars that spontaneously pop out of rocks and savannahs. This means you can't plan your attacks. It's no use to play smart at all, because the AI will just pop open another can of mercenaries whenerv it feels like it. So you just walk (or drive) into a place and start shooting until everyone is dead. That's dumb, Fragony. Very, but very dumb.

Oh, and you can't lay the French girl, not even after she works herself into a sweat doing sit-ups in your safe house. That really p'd me off, I tell ya.


Edit
I do hope that Crytek will develop a line of smart shooters in future. If any studio can, they are it. They have the shooting part pretty much covered with the 'what you see is what you play' CryEngine. So they can afford to concentrate on better story lines and bigger sandboxes, with RPG-like character development worked into it.

[Fragony]

Mission structure, doing favors, it doesn't really work out. But it's not that bad a game, better then the first in humble opinion, the horror elements really felt out of place.

[DisruptorX]

Indeed.

While its not perfect, it is far superior to the first Farcry, and you can actually pull off some great stealth tactics. For instance, you fire at enemies, then duck into cover, and circle around to shoot them in the back while they spray your previous location. You couldn't do that in Farcry 1.

It does have issues, such as the annoying checkpoints, and neither "faction" actually fighting each other, just you. But as far as shooters go, there's not much out there with good single player, other than STALKER.

[Adrian II]

[..] you can actually pull off some great stealth tactics. For instance, you fire at enemies, then duck into cover, and circle around to shoot them in the back while they spray your previous location.

You must have played a different game then.

Let me give you an example. I approached the Dogon Village in stealth, staking it out carefully, making sure I stayed low, out of sight and out of the sunlight. Nonetheless I was 'spotted' by a gentleman in the back of the village who started firing mortar rounds at me through the walls of the Dogon houses. Excuse me, but that is ridiculous.

Equally ridiculous is the fact that you are killed as soon as an enemy assault truck hits yours.

I'll tell you what's fun and 'do-able' in the way of stealth. Once you are at about 98% of the scenario, the towns' garrisons are lowered and they do not respawn any more. This means you can shoot 'em one by one if you play it smart and exterminate the entire garrison that way. It takes the proper weaponry, skill and patience, but that's what real stealth is about.