Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The notion of open game worlds has always appealed to me, ever since Elite. When there’s even the faintest whiff on a free roaming environment, or virtuality that I can go off an explore, I’m interested. It’s an impulse that leads me to spend endless hours in Stalker, or to expend an entire day driving around Fuel. But whatever game I play, I end up feeling somewhat dissatisfied. It’s kind of dissatisfaction that does not seem to be so common with linear or arena games. I think it’s to do with a specific tension that open world games create: between what the game is about, and what the environment – and its openness – implies.

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We’ve not taken our medicine today, so things might seem a little woozy. Perhaps there’s some drugs behind this latest window?

For the sixth game of Christmas, my true blog gave to me…
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You can download a bunch of new free missions for Far Cry 2 over at Intel Game On. The download apparently adds the new sequence of missions to the open world shooter, where playing through the first six missions unlocks a seventh final scenario. All that adds at least three hours of game. And it’s free.

In other FC2 news check out Tom Chick’s discussion of in-game advertising.

Richard Leadbetter is a man with more patience in one day than I’ll ever have in a lifetime. Somehow he finds it within himself to run comprehensive investigations into which versions of videogames are best for Eurogamer. The latest is Far Cry 2, and I mention it here because the PC dun won it.

“Map-finding issues apart, Far Cry 2 is an excellent release on PC, and the fact that it can run in high definition with all features set to high levels while still providing a reasonably smooth, graphically superb experience is a first-rate achievement.”

We already knew, obv, but just saying.

So, most of the season’s biggest games have landed on our hard drives by now, which means two things will follow in their wake:

1) A torrent of finely-detailed complaints about this, that and the other feature. With maybe the occasional compliment thrown in for good measure.
2) Patches!

There tends to be this weird two-sided coin for PC versions of big games – on the hand they often don’t receive quite as much spit’n'polish as the console versions, which is at least partly because there’s no Microsoft or Sony certification hoops to jump through. On the other, that lack of certification means fixing up minor holes can happen a lot more quickly. Case in point – in the last couple of days, two very recent biggies have already seen their first patches: Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2.
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[With Fallout 3 topping UK charts I should have titled this "sequels unrelated to original games top charts"... Ooh, handbags.]

The Big K posted up this week’s US retail PC chart, and Far Cry 2 is in with a, er, bullet at number one. That does please me, despite the general opinion circus we’re facing with the game. More importantly, Kotaku are making a commendable effort to balance out the brokenness of the NPD chart by also posting the Steam and Direct 2 Drive charts. Of course there are no explicit numbers available, so there’s no way to amalgamate and come up with a realistic overview of PC game sales across all outlets, but it does give a fairer impression of the overall picture than the retail charts and their Sims expansion packs.

NPD top ten after the jump.

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So I’m a few hours into Far Cry 2 and I’m going to just quickly report my impressions of it so far. Firstly, it pains me to have to quit out of the game to blog about it, which is a good sign, but also a bad sign. The bad being: it locks up if I alt-tab. That said, I have ignored the game’s pleas to update both Vista and my Nvidia drivers, so I’m probably partly to blame for technical difficulties. That said, even with my updating laziness, the game runs fantastically on my 8800 with everything maxed. Not quite comparable with Crysis, perhaps, but that really doesn’t matter: it pulls of the dense, jungled African valleys impeccably. The action is smooth, and the world detailed.
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Ubi’s latest trailer for their Far Cry 2 multiplayer map editor shows off some of the more radical possibilities for map creation that the tool offers: with big crazy maps with Eiffel Towers, Pyramids and vast rope-bridge mountain-islands. “Crazy” they’re calling it. Better still, however, is how the headshots and explosions of the trailer are timed to coincide with the “Uhh!” of the human beatbox soundtrack. There’s something wrong about that particular juxtaposition. Or maybe that’s just me.

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See, I didn’t even realise Adult Swim had a music publishing arm. It’s amazing what you find when poking your nose around the internet during the breaks of the baseball game you’ve stayed up until a million o’clock to watch (go Phillies). So to coincide with the release of Far Cry 2, Ubisoft are getting all cross-promotional, sponsoring the free distribution of an album of South African hip-hop, called African Swim.

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Far Cry 2 is almost upon us, and I’m seething with anticipation. PC Gamer’s Tim Edwards telling us that it effectively kills off the entire linear shooter genre doesn’t do anything to ease that. His review in the latest PC Gamer UK is worth reading. If he’s right – and I dearly hope he is – that will stand up as one of the best game reviews of 2008. Of one of the best games.

While Far Cry 2 is very definitely just a shooter, Edwards’ review suggests that Stalker’s “wide corridor” model (that I loved so much) is going to be made to look shabby by this seamless 50km world, as executed by a talented, well-funded studio. I can’t wait to get to grips with the kind of freedom in an FPS that has previously only really manifested itself in GTA games. This latest trailer doesn’t make the longing any better, showing off loads of the open world stuff, including character dialogue, gun-play, speeding vehicles, and the ubiquitous fiery explosions. The dynamic story-telling perhaps doesn’t lend itself well to trailers, but trying reading our previous interview with the lead designer to get your head around that a bit better.
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