Far Cry 3
Seems like I’ve been writing a lot about FarCry 2/3, but I never posted any of it to the blog for some reason. Now that I’ve actually finished the game (finally) I feel like I’m in a postition to actually share my thoughts on it.
Things FarCry 2 did right:
Beautiful Scenery – Nothing looks as pretty as FarCry 2. Probably not even the real thing! =)
Interesting weapons – FC2 was full of weapons exciting weapons. Uzis. M79 Grenade Launchers. Dragunovs. IEDs. Silenced Shotguns. Explosive Crossbows.
Fire – Fire was a dangerous weapon that would often backfire on yourself (no pun intended). Fire is cool.
Immersion – From the map that needed sunlight to be read, to the phone that would appear from a pocket somewhere, I always felt immersed in FC2.
Things FarCry 2 did wrong:
No outdoor friendlies – In the intro we must pass 50 ordinary civilians, and drive through a checkpoint manned by soldiers who don’t fire on sight. Why can’t we have this in the game? All the civilians left in the country are huddled in a handful of buildings. And I would really have appreciated if the ‘checkpoints’ were ceasefire zones. Random gunfights could still have erupted if you drove through too fast, and bandits in their own vehicles could still have been driving around ready for a fight.
Not enough modes of transport – It’s been said before, and it was addressed somewhat in the DLC, but there weren’t enough modes of transport in FC2. Only one (!) type of car, no pickup trucks, no vans, no flatbed trucks, no motorbikes (the quad doesn’t count), no bicycles, no inflatable speedboats, no jetskis… these could have all been in there without changing the fundamentals of the game.
Missions too far apart – For most missions I’d have to bus to one corner of the map, then drive for 5 minutes, then blow up one truck, and then have to make my way the whole way back to the HQ to pick up another mission. Would have saved me a lot of time, and therefore given me more time to ENJOY the game, if could have had a phone which would receive SMS missions or something. Could even introduce an interesting mechanic of having to fit the mission briefing into 140 odd characters, leaving some open to interpretation. You could go pay the contracter a visit to clear up the details of the mission or press on in your own way.
Psychic Enemies / No Stealth – You just can’t sneak up on people in FC2. If you cap someone from half a mile away with your uber sniper rifle, within about three seconds AK rounds will suddenly be smacking the ground right next to you. With a rifle, it should take a few shots before your enemies figure out where you are. Also, it would have increased realism for me tenfold to see soldiers firing at empty bushes where I had been a minute ago, or having weapon jams of their OWN. I could never sneak up on people and machete them, and no matter how silently I killed a guard every other guy suddenly knew about it. The machete brings me to another point
No Dedicated Melee button – Sometimes, I’d come up against an enemy and either have a weapon jam or run out of ammo, and have to either reload, unjam or switch to another weapon. If I wanted to melee the guy I have to switch to the machete while he shoots at me, and then hack him with it. One dedicated melee button would have been so invaluable. Fair enough, it takes time to pull out a machete, but being able to just clock a guy with the butt of the shotgun that just jammed would have been hugely helpful, and more realistic to boot.
Not enough freedom with weapons – Lots of weapons contradicted each other in ways that didn’t make sense. For instance, you couldn’t carry a pistol and an IED at once. That’s a bit odd? Surely I should be allowed to drop a weapon from one of my other slots instead? In that instance, IEDs should probably go in with grenades rather than being in weapon slots, but there are more examples of that kind of incompatibility. It was possible to have an explosive launching weapon in every slot, which was a bit ridiculous. I admire that it was possible, but making it possible meant that it made lots of other options impossible, such as carrying the MGL grenade launcher and any kind of sniper rifle or assault rifle or the shotgun. I’d much rather a weapon slot swap mechanism like in Halo or Modern Warfare
Not enough interaction – While the game was immersive, in that you felt like you were really in Africa, your only outlet of interaction was shooting things, picking up guns, opening doors and driving vehicles. You couldn’t pick up or mess with anything in a building except for Health packs and Weapons. In a town, you couldn’t talk to anyone who wasnt there to give you a mission etc. At the very least, I’d like to see a black market where I can buy and SELL weapons, first aid kits and other equipment.
So to sum up, here are some things I’d like to see in FarCry 3
Easy Stuff
- Friendly NPCs. tired of everyone being a raging psychopath
- More Vehicles. It only takes some modelling.
- Better mission management. a PDA for missions, Or missions via SMS messages. give our guy a blackberry held together by tape.
- Better weapon slot management. Go to a CoD / Halo style universal slot system.
- Proper working stealth. No more psychic enemies.
- Dedicated melee button. let me hit someone with the butt of a jammed gun. extra points if I can use it like a baseball bat.
- More health stuff (food, drinks etc)
Medium Stuff
- even more kinds of guns & weapons than before. Go nuts. more importantly, distribute them all over the place. I want to be able to pick up exotic weapons, not just buy them.
- ability to slap an IED on a vehicle and jump out of it. Rolling bomb!
- more interaction with the environment
- pay buddies to assist on missions; these are MERCENARIES, right? Why can’t I pay them to come do a tough mission with me?
- bribe people instead of killing; would be nice to pay a weapons shipment guy to deliver to my house instead of having to kill him.
- Stun / smoke grenades; Ok, flashbangs are useless outdoors, but smoke grenades could have been useful at times. Even just to create a distraction.
- Play dead. plenty of times I found myself surrounded by the bodies of guys I had just killed, when another patrol arrived shooting. If I could lie in the dirt next to the bodies until the patrol starts looking us over, that would have been wild.
- IED Booby Traps; Far Cry instincts went a bit crazy with unrealistic tree traps, but it would be nice to set up a tripwire or an improvised claymore here or there
Complex Stuff
- more freedom to what you’re allowed carry, maybe an inventory like STALKER.
- more chances to deploy ‘the element of surprise’; taking out the leg of a building on stilts, or sending a stampede of wildebeest in on top of your enemies would be nice
- buddies that hang around all the time, not just when you’re in a pickle.
- Search bodies; They’ll have diamonds, food, health packs, bullets etc.
- Drones. Modern combat is all about drone warfare, so I’d like to see the cheap african improvised version – RC cars, planes and choppers with bombs strapped to them.
- Customize weapons;  I want to put scopes, grenade launchers, laser sights, silencers etc. on whatever I like.

Seems like I’ve been writing a lot about FarCry 2/3, but I never posted any of it to the blog for some reason. Now that I’ve actually finished the game (finally) I feel like I’m in a postition to actually share my thoughts on it.

FarCry 2 was not perfect. It had flaws. Some would say it had more flaws than good points, but I have to say I enjoyed it for the most part. I’m going to cut right to the chase and list what I think it did right and wrong, and what should change for the sequel (if it ever gets made)

Things FarCry 2 did right:

Beautiful Scenery - Nothing looks as pretty as FarCry 2. Probably not even the real thing! =)

Interesting weapons - FC2 was full of weapons exciting weapons. Uzis. M79 Grenade Launchers. Dragunovs. IEDs. Silenced Shotguns. Explosive Crossbows.

Fire – Fire was a dangerous weapon that would often backfire on yourself (no pun intended). Fire is cool.

Immersion – From the map that needed sunlight to be read, to the phone that would appear from a pocket somewhere, I always felt immersed in FC2.

Things FarCry 2 did wrong:

No outdoor friendlies – In the intro we must pass 50 ordinary civilians, and drive through a checkpoint manned by soldiers who don’t fire on sight. Why can’t we have this in the game? All the civilians left in the country are huddled in a handful of buildings. And I would really have appreciated if the ‘checkpoints’ were ceasefire zones. Random gunfights could still have erupted if you drove through too fast, and bandits in their own vehicles could still have been driving around ready for a fight.

Not enough modes of transport – It’s been said before, and it was addressed somewhat in the DLC, but there weren’t enough modes of transport in FC2. Only one (!) type of car, no pickup trucks, no vans, no flatbed trucks, no motorbikes (the quad doesn’t count), no bicycles, no inflatable speedboats, no jetskis… these could have all been in there without changing the fundamentals of the game.

Missions too far apart - For most missions I’d have to bus to one corner of the map, then drive for 5 minutes, then blow up one truck, and then have to make my way the whole way back to the HQ to pick up another mission. Would have saved me a lot of time, and therefore given me more time to ENJOY the game, if could have had a phone which would receive SMS missions or something. Could even introduce an interesting mechanic of having to fit the mission briefing into 140 odd characters, leaving some open to interpretation. You could go pay the contracter a visit to clear up the details of the mission or press on in your own way.

Psychic Enemies / No Stealth – You just can’t sneak up on people in FC2. If you cap someone from half a mile away with your uber sniper rifle, within about three seconds AK rounds will suddenly be smacking the ground right next to you. With a rifle, it should take a few shots before your enemies figure out where you are. Also, it would have increased realism for me tenfold to see soldiers firing at empty bushes where I had been a minute ago, or having weapon jams of their OWN. I could never sneak up on people and machete them, and no matter how silently I killed a guard every other guy suddenly knew about it. The machete brings me to another point

No Dedicated Melee button – Sometimes, I’d come up against an enemy and either have a weapon jam or run out of ammo, and have to either reload, unjam or switch to another weapon. If I wanted to melee the guy I have to switch to the machete while he shoots at me, and then hack him with it. One dedicated melee button would have been invaluable. Fair enough, it takes time to pull out a machete, but being able to just clock a guy with the butt of the shotgun that just jammed would have been hugely helpful, and more realistic to boot.

Not enough freedom with weapons – Lots of weapons contradicted each other in ways that didn’t make sense. For instance, you couldn’t carry a pistol and an IED at once. That’s a bit odd? Surely I should be allowed to drop a weapon from one of my other slots instead? In that instance, IEDs should probably go in with grenades rather than being in weapon slots, but there are more examples of that kind of incompatibility. It was possible to have an explosive launching weapon in every slot, which was a bit ridiculous. I admire that it was possible, but making it possible meant that it made lots of other options impossible, such as carrying the MGL grenade launcher and any kind of sniper rifle or assault rifle or the shotgun. I’d much rather a weapon slot swap mechanism like in Halo or Modern Warfare

Not enough interaction - While the game was immersive, in that you felt like you were really in Africa, your only outlet of interaction was shooting things, picking up guns, opening doors and driving vehicles. You couldn’t pick up or mess with anything in a building except for Health packs and Weapons. In a town, you couldn’t talk to anyone who wasnt there to give you a mission etc. At the very least, I’d like to see a black market where I can buy and SELL weapons, first aid kits and other equipment.

So to sum up, here are some things I’d like to see in FarCry 3. Devs, if you’re reading, I’ve split it into categories of levels of difficulty for you =)

Easy Stuff

  • Friendly NPCs. tired of everyone being a raging psychopath
  • More Vehicles. It only takes some modelling.
  • Better mission management. a PDA for missions, Or missions via SMS messages. give our guy a blackberry held together by tape.
  • Better weapon slot management. Go to a CoD / Halo style universal slot system.
  • Proper working stealth. No more psychic enemies.
  • Dedicated melee button. let me hit someone with the butt of a jammed gun. extra points if I can use it like a baseball bat.
  • More health stuff (food, drinks etc)

Medium Stuff

  • Even more kinds of guns & weapons than before. Go nuts. more importantly, distribute them all over the place. I want to be able to pick up exotic weapons, not just buy them.
  • The Ability to slap an IED on a vehicle and jump out of it. Rolling bomb!
  • More interaction with the environment
  • Pay buddies to assist on missions; these are MERCENARIES, right? Why can’t I pay them to come do a tough mission with me?
  • Bribe people instead of killing; would be nice to pay a weapons shipment guy to deliver to my house instead of having to kill him.
  • Stun / smoke grenades; Ok, flashbangs are useless outdoors, but smoke grenades could have been useful at times. Even just to create a distraction.
  • Play dead. plenty of times I found myself surrounded by the bodies of guys I had just killed, when another patrol arrived shooting. If I could lie in the dirt next to the bodies until the patrol starts looking us over, that would have been wild.
  • IED Booby Traps; Far Cry instincts went a bit crazy with unrealistic tree traps, but it would be nice to set up a tripwire or an improvised claymore here or there

Complex Stuff

  • More freedom to what you’re allowed carry, maybe an inventory like STALKER.
  • More chances to deploy ‘the element of surprise’; taking out the leg of a building on stilts, or sending a stampede of wildebeest in on top of your enemies would be nice
  • Buddies that hang around all the time, not just when you’re in a pickle.
  • Search bodies; They’ll have diamonds, food, health packs, bullets etc.
  • Drones. Modern combat is all about drone warfare, so I’d like to see the cheap african improvised version – RC cars, planes and choppers with bombs strapped to them.
  • Customize weapons;  I want to put scopes, grenade launchers, laser sights, silencers etc. on whatever I like.