well, i left the sun scorched and desolate brown landscape where i shot everyone i met in the face of Fallout 3 behind and entered.. the world of FarCry2, which is pretty similar but has more foliage, lots more foliage in places, and vehicles! but, you wander around a sun baked desolate environment and still get to shoot everyone you meet in the face. i haven't seen any super mutants yet though, but lurking around at night does put you on edge, with the rustling leaves and odd sounds.
to be fair the only similarity it has with FO3 is that it's a sandbox game and the colour brown is big in the scheme of things. i have only dipped my toe in the water so to speak so don't think it's fair to judge the game just yet. the tutorial was 1 1/2hrs long, but i did wander off to meet some of the locals during that time, and i spent a further few hours doing a couple of small missions. i have turned the cross hair sights off and what with the HUD sliding out of view, only coming up when a health prompt or reload is called i found i could really detach and let the game grab me.
i found myself thinking the controls are what Resi Evil 5 should have used, but each to their own. the thing i really do like is it never takes you out of the game, you want to read a map, you read a map and can still peek over the top of it and look around, drive a car maybe? you get in and look through the window, health injections the same, open doors etc. it's a nice touch and it works. think of how Mirrors Edge (without the falling 20 floors to your death though John managed it last night when he fell off a rocky outcrop, noob! -haha-) made you feel, you instinctively knew where you were in relation to the game world, more of this in future games please.
the enviroment is very well crafted, trees sway in the breeze, insects buzz around the place, the sun rises and set's and the shadows are the bestest i have seen in any game. vehicles handle well and old guns jam, i didn't actually think the game would look so good as with most sandboxers they tend to have to trade detail for size but this dosn't seem to be the case here. well done Ubisoft. 5hrs in and i like it. will look at the level editor (another big draw for me) over the weekend sometime i think. £14 well spent, check out BlockBusters as they are having a 50% off/ex-rental sale right now.
Tone, I just couldn't get into FC2. Gave it a good few goes, but the thing that narked me most was the enemies respawning at the checkpoints.
ReplyDeleteNice grass though :)
@ pablo - i think they patched that so they don't respawn as quick as they did, not having played it before the patch i don't know though. but the respawn/rebuild thing can be handy as the ammo, health bottles and all that respawn too. i know it was a game breaker for some but i've just kind of embraced the idea. i guess i needed another sandboxer to break my Fallout3 addiction and i'm enjoying my african holiday so far, whether it'll go in to the realms of my +100hrs club i don't know yet, only 3 games have ever made it into that hallowed domain.
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