Far Cry 2 (Part 2)

I have to say I'm really impressed by this game.  I've been casually playing it for the past week or so and I'm really enjoying the gameplay.  I feel sufficiently challeneged by the normal difficulty setting for casual play.  The AI seems able to adapt to whatever tactic I'm using (albeit soemtimes it takes a bit longer than others) and I've even been successfully flanked once or twice despite my efforts.

I've found the tactic that works best is to approach a target from a concealed position, start a fire on the opposite side of my target (if possible), and pick people off from a distance.  The game actually makes you want to use the environment as a tool and seems to promote tactical thinking.  So if you simply ride into a base, jump on your jeep-mounted turret, and spray bullets you may come out on top... but probably not... and almost definitely not if you up the difficulty level.

I still have a few gripes about the game.  For starters the voice acting is really unimpressive.  It's almost like they intentionally found people who do bad generic accents, and a few actual Africans, said "Read this; don't worry how it sounds," and decided to go with the first take... every single time.  It's OK though, you won't notice the unimpressive voice acting because you'll be too busy watching the buggy animations during "cinematic" scenes.  At one point I entered a room to get a mission, one guy was sitting down, the other was pacing around on the other side of the room... nope... just kidding... now he's moon-walking over to his Position 1.

One thing I do enjoy is the Buddy System.  I like the fact that I can do my own thing, and when I get in over my head a "buddy" comes to my rescue.  If he gets banged up too badly I can either save him or let him die.  The downside is that they're only good for rescuing you, and once you're on your feet they become pretty useless.

I've been playing four a few hours almost every night this week and I'm still under 25% in the game.  I find myself getting distracted from the main story by doing more side missions so I can unlock weapons, buy gear, and unlock safe houses.  I get the feeling this is a bigger game than I expected.  Perhaps this game should have been called GTA... Grand Theft Africa.

Finally Getting Around To It... And Farcry2 (sorta)

I think I've finally come up with a name/theme for my blog.  The only problem I see is that FGA2I is a pretty long name.  On the up-side, and as potential symbolism for the future of my writings, I thought of the name after the best poop I've had in weeks.

Now, I'll admit I'm writing this in haste (my pen/paper D&D session starts in 45 minutes and I haven't even had any coffee).  So this is going to be less of a review and more of a First Thoughts entry.  For starters, wow that's a long intro.  I felt like I was watching the intro to Xenogears or CoD4.  And what's with this Jackal guy?  He couldn't think of a good name so he had to borrow one?  And what the hell?!  I'm here to kill him... he knows this... so naturally he gives me a job?

The graphics on this game are fantastic.  I'm only playing it on my 360; but wow.  When I move through the brush I actually feel like I'm moving through brush.  The articles I read were right about the fire... it spreads like... well like fire.  I mean, you can actually use brush fires as a tactical weapon to help even the odds.  I like the weapon-quality factor.  I ran out of ammo, snatched the shotgun that laid near a recently felled enemy, and damn if it didn't jam.  It's a good thing machetes don't jam.

The game plays out like some African GTA.  Drive all over the place, get a mission from this guy, drive all over the place, get a side mission.  It's very open-world and you aren't forced to stick to a linear story.  One thing bothers me... everyone always wants to kill me.  I can't drive five minutes down a road without running into a guard post and three machine-gun toting jeeps.  It doesn't matter who you're doing a mission for.  Everyone wants to kill you all the time.  It's frustrating enough to make you want to kill someone.

Expect a "real" review in a few days.

Left 4 Dead? More like Left Off Orange Box.

OK, so here's my review... in one sentence:

It's a great expansion to Orange Box.

Remember Orange Box? All those great stand-alone games that didn't really have a plot; but were damn fun, nonetheless? This is like that. The graphics are fantastic; a nice marriage between Half-Life and Team Fortress. The gameplay is repetitive at times; but I'll get deeper into that in a minute. The game itself is short and, like Halo 3, is better thought of as a decent campaign used to teach you the techniques needed for when you play multiplayer. Unfortunately, multiplayer is basically 4v4 playing of the campaign, taking turns being survivors and infected, and playing each level twice.

Now when I talk about repetitive, I mean that there isn't much to this game. For the survivors, gameplay goes something like this;
Run.
Shoot.
Run more (or maybe sneak and then run).
Shoot.
Safe-house.
Load.
Rinse.
Repeat.

When you play campaign, as a survivor, you make your way through completely interchangeable hallways, buildings, streets, sewers, hospital floors, and alleyways trying to get to a "Safe-house." The atmosphere is great, the graphics are really good; but, in all honesty, none of the levels really feel much different from the others. Instead of navigating through a house and some alleys, I’m navigating through a hospital and some hallways. Instead of sprinting across a parking-lot to find cover behind some car, I’m sprinting across train tracks to duck into a train car.

Bugs and Errors and Glitches... OH MY!

Dear Ubisoft,

Suck my left testicle.  Now that that is out of the way, lets talk about why I hate your game.  I hate your game because you were so short on real content that you put collection-missions in EVERY FUCKING PART OF YOUR FUCKING SHITTY ASS FUCKING GAME!  Even the main story requires collection missions!  That's just fucking lazy.  Just a word of advice, when you make flag collection and templar killing the backbone of your game, since the story is so fucking short I can beat it in a few hours, maybe... I dunno... have the fucking common fucking sense to make sure you don't ship your fucking game without all the glitches fucking fixed.  Just a thought.

It's really bad when someone who has the dedication to create a site just to help people collect flags and kill templars decides to put this as the first entry into his FAQs:

Q. I can’t find Flag/Templar number X, is this a glitch?
A. While glitches do happen all too often in this game, not being able to find a Flag/Templar is often not a glitch. Before deciding that you have a glitch, you should go through each Flag/Templar in order making sure to line up your screen exactly with the picture on the map. More often than not, people find that they were in the wrong place and marked of a Flag/Templar that they have not collected.

Now, I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking maybe I messed up when I was trying to kill templars and find flags, maybe I missed one or was looking in the wrong place.  NOPE!  I MADE A FUCKING LIST AND CHECKED OFF EVERY FUCKING FLAG IN THE KINGDOM... except the one that doesn't spawn... even after I've cleared my cache, rebooted, and lost my fucking mind.  But you know what, I've opened Pandora's Box and I'm not stopping until I've closed it.  I'll start an entirely new game and go through every collection, one by fucking one, and beat you at this shitty fucking game.  But I'm not going to do this until I can somehow get the game for free.  That's right, your game isn't even worth $10 or however much it's on sale at Wal-mart for.

See, here's the thing, I really really want to make games... but when that dream finally starts becoming a reality I'm going to use this polished fucking shit-ball as an example of "What not to do."  

Oh and just a note to anyone reading this; don't waste your money or time on the strategy guide.  It comes with maps for the collections; but they're as fucking useless as a dick with no pee-hole.  The rest of the book is even less helpful since a 5yr old with Down's Syndrome could beat this game.  If you want any actual help, look online, or go to the following site for help with the flags (he had the brains to make maps and include text/images to help you find what you're looking for):

http://www.assassinscreed-maps.com/

Jade Raymond would like us to know the game was made by a multi-ethnic multi-religious group working harmoniously together...

I say that's because they were too busy smoking up during "team building exercises" to spend any real time making a game worth more than $15.

Flags and Rats and Templars... OH MY!

I am about to start my flag/templar hunt in Assassin's Creed and lemmie just say it now... fuck this game!

I get it.  You want me to explore your "vast and impressive world."  You've created a fucking gotta-catch-em-all graffiti hunt achievement that keeps me from being done with this game unless I play ball.  Well fuck you, Ubisoft!  I'm playing ball. I know I won't like it; but I'm doing it so I'm done with your shit.  And when I'm making games that outsell this over-hyped piece of turd, I'm going to give players actual reasons to explore.  I'll make exploration fun.  The incentive will be exploring.  You'll want to explore my worlds because you know you'll have fun doing it. I won't tie some collect-them achievement to it, I'll be smart enough to tie exploration into the story's development.  So for now, while I'm still a nobody, fuck you.  Fuck your flags and templars.  Fuck GTA's flying rats.  As far as I'm concerned, once I'm in, I'm gunning for your asses... and when I find your asses I'm shoving flying rat flags up your out hole.