
Far Cry - luu
http://ceasarbautista.com/essays/far_cry.html
======
AlphaGeekZulu
I have been to the Sudan a few times in the early Nineties. It was my first
time in Africa and I went through ultimate culture shock. I experienced
military checkpoints, interrogations by security staff, civilians armed with
assault rifles casually walking around and I had an AK47 pointed at my chest
in a scary encounter with unassignable forces in the middle of the desert.

With this precondition, Far Cry 2 completely smashed me. The intro scene, in
which the avatar arrives at the airport, is picked up by a driver and
transferred to the hotel - passing checkpoints on the way and with no way to
do anything else but to look around - is one of the strongest episodes in
computer game history for me. Nothing is happening in that scene, but I had a
full flashback of my experiences in Africa: the disorientation, the
helplessness, the subtle tension. I could smell the air and had sweaty hands
on the controller. This part hit me much more than the remaining game play.

~~~
megakid
I had a similar experience when playing Half Life for the first time. As a
child grown up with Doom, Quake and perhaps Unreal (can’t remember if that
came afterwards or not), it was the first one that really caught my
imagination. That intro level on the monorail still rates as my best immersive
gaming experience I’ve had.

~~~
atomi
My vote would be for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=U3EnVrAquBA](https://youtube.com/watch?v=U3EnVrAquBA)

~~~
fastball
I'm a big fan of the opening in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

~~~
dmos62
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGzGsb_TPtI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGzGsb_TPtI)

I had forgotten how good it is. The whole game was very good. The next one,
World at War was also good, but I didn't enjoy any of the later installments.

------
elliotpage
Far Cry 2 is in some ways an anti-precursor to many systems that are now
standard in games of its type (especially its sequels, which go in a much
safer homogeneous direction). In particular, its systems are realistic and
exact to a fault in a way that often feels antagonistic to the player. While
this is a pain in the butt it also makes the game fascinating to play - you
are an interloper in the space it provides and are not welcome.

For example:

* Checkpoints respawn full of enemies and you never manage to fully exert control or supremacy on the world.

* In world map that you have to look at in the game space and time continues while you do so.

* Vehicle physics are punishing and you cannot press a button to "fix" them. If you crash that jeep, it's done.

* Weapons constantly jam and are generally crap to use.

* Thrown weapons have physics - ie: grenades roll down hills (often back towards you)

* Plotline and factions are hazy and undefined. You have a core mission (hunt down an arms trader) but everything around this feels directionless and punishing.

* The game does not do much or any "fudging" of the systems to increase player enjoyment. Often games will silently assist the player to make the game more exciting (your health is not linear and goes further as you approach death, enemy and your own aiming of weapons is improved or reduced to highten tension, combat arenas will be arranged to be more "fair to the player) and Far Cry 2 ignores this.

I would hesitate to call Far Cry 2 a "fun" game but it is certainly a good
one, and has spawned a lot of good discussion, like this piece and pretty much
the whole of the Idle Thumbs Podcast(now on extended Hiatus, sadly).

(Edits to fix formatting)

~~~
greggman2
I somewhat value realism, the problem is the control interface on PS4/XBox/PC
games is never remotely real and so I need concessions to that fact that.
Something that would be second nature in real life manipulating real objects
with real hands and or actually using my body and head becomes frustrating and
tedious translated to the 18 buttons and 2 analog sticks of a modern
controller. If I had a gun in a holster I'd know exactly where it is at all
times and be able to grab it without really thinking about it where is in
games I've often been killed fighting with the control system to let me select
a weapon.

This is one place where VR accels. When a game's VR control system is well
designed it's so much more intuitive than the non VR counterpart.

The most obvious example is you just look in the direction you want to look.
You don't press and hold the camera stick and wait for the camera to swing
around. Other good examples include actually ducking behind walls and looking
around corners with your body instead of pressing the duck button and the peak
around corner button. A good example of that is Budget Cuts but it exists in
plenty of other VR games.

Yet another can be switching inventory by just grabbing things off your belt
or back or arms.

I haven't tried Far Cry in VR. Usually games not designed for VR don't
translate so well.

~~~
pmjordan
I guess for many of us, the controls have become second nature (mouselook in
my case) so they do not break immersion for me for that kind of game.

Something like Far Cry 2 in VR would be amazingly immersive but also
terrifying. The main other issue I see is that the Far Cry worlds are huge,
and exploring them is a large part of the appeal. And walking around in VR
isn’t a solved problem yet as far as I’m aware. (IMO teleporting breaks
immersion more than mouselook controls ever have but YMMV.)

------
Apocryphon
One of the most underrated games of the last decade. A brutal, unforgiving
safari into the inhumanity of war amidst a stunningly beautiful landscape.
Surprising that few games since have been set in Lion King country.

Although they’re basically Easter Eggs you have to hunt for to experience, the
Jackal’s audiotapes are some of the best-written, most hauntingly acted
dialogue in video gaming:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCJBOZC7XdQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCJBOZC7XdQ)

Tom Bissell’s Extra Lives also has a great essay about Far Cry 2.

~~~
knolan
It’s a great game that was let down by its rapidly refreshing outposts which
made traversing the world a chore. Fortunately I believe there are mods to fix
this.

The immersion really was great. I loved pulling out my map while driving and
trying to navigate while driving; it was utterly impossible to do both tasks
well at the same time.

The sequels threw out the baby with the bathwater unfortunately but it
inspired great new immersive experiences in games like Metro. Even the
Ghostbusters game did a great job of placing all the game feedback on your
proton pack.

~~~
barrkel
Rapidly refreshing outposts were the primary source of fun to me: the fact
that they respawned meant that there was nothing gained by attacking them, it
was much more rewarding to plot a route on the map and sneak past.

In fact I normally printed out a map and annotated it with patrol positions to
help plan my routes between missions, usually via rivers, quickly fleeing if
spotted.

Most of the game for me was an exercise in navigating the map at night
(sleeping until night if necessary) and getting into a good sniper position
for my next target (being sure to be close enough it wouldn't reset).

I think respawning is justifiable as a mechanic, though it would be better for
infinite reinforcements to arrive on an infinite stream of transports. That
would probably be too harsh for the people who fight their way through the
checkpoints though.

~~~
leetcrew
> I think respawning is justifiable as a mechanic, though it would be better
> for infinite reinforcements to arrive on an infinite stream of transports.
> That would probably be too harsh for the people who fight their way through
> the checkpoints though.

this is one of my major gripes with open world games like far cry. some of my
favorite gameplay is either ambushing patrols or getting surprised and having
to fight your way out. I had a lot of fun with the convoy side missions in far
cry 4. it gets really boring in the late game though when your weapons are so
powerful that it's trivial to dispatch the small groups of enemies you
encounter. if I start picking guys off deep in enemy territory, there should
be some sort of overwhelming response at some point.

my other issue is how the stealth mechanics tend to play out in these games.
if an enemy sees me kill someone at an outpost, the whole place is at full
alarm for sixty seconds trying to find me. but if I just hide behind a tree
and wait out the timer, they give up and act like nothing even happened. it
makes it feel kinda pointless to clear a whole outpost without getting
detected. there's no need to destroy the alarms either when the
"reinforcements" are only a couple more trucks with enemies.

------
Kovah
I can remember Far Cry 2 as one of the most immersing games I've ever played.
It was far beyond other games from that era. Sadly, most players seemed to be
overwhelmed by game, (or frustrated by bugs and some game mechanics) . I
really miss this level of reality in almost all modern games. It feels like
all of them are just meant to be taken as kind of an interactive movie, played
for some hours and then to be forgotten. Games could be so much more.

Does anyone knows other examples for great, immersing games?

~~~
alisonatwork
This is a vague comment. What about Far Cry 2 made it especially "immersing",
to you? What was the part that made it feel like "reality"?

For me i found Far Cry 2 spectacular, probably the best first-person shooter
of all time, because it constantly makes you feel like shit about the fact you
are playing a mass-murderer. That felt confronting and "real" to me. Another
game that does this is Spec Ops: The Line, although that is a much more
tightly-plotted "interactive movie" type game where you are funneled along
certain paths to advance the story.

Another very bleak and depressing shooter is Metro 2033. It is horrendously
difficult. You will never have enough ammo. Your gas mask will always break. I
never finished it because it made me feel too miserable every time i played.
Unlike Far Cry 2 you are forced down corridors, so there is no respite. You
can't just go out in the jungle and watch the sunset for a while.

If you are looking more for "open world" games where you can wander around on
a big map and do your own thing, there are dozens of those. Personally i am
not a fan so i can't give a specific recommendation, but you could check out
any of the other Far Cry games, the Assassin's Creed games, Grand Theft Auto 3
and later, Fallout 3 and later, Red Dead Redemption, Stalker series, Metal
Gear Solid 5 and probably the other ones too, etc.

If you are more interested by the sickness and vulnerability aspect, there is
a whole class of games called "survival games" that don't give you a
storyline, they just set up random environments that you have to walk around
and survive in. I imagine the better ones are similar to those times in Far
Cry 2 where you crawl on your belly through the mud and the elephant grass
desperately trying to make your way to the doctor who will refill your meds
before you die of malaria.

It really depends what you are looking for from a computer game. Personally, i
get Far Cry 2 feelings mostly from games that don't follow shooter mechanics -
walking sims, art games and adventures... but those genres are frequently
likened to "interactive movies", so i think it depends a lot on your taste.

~~~
hoorayimhelping
> _For me i found Far Cry 2 spectacular, probably the best first-person
> shooter of all time, because it constantly makes you feel like shit about
> the fact you are playing a mass-murderer. That felt confronting and "real"
> to me._

I hate when games do this. Far Cry 2 and 3 were really bad about it, as well
as Bioshock. The game puts you in a situation where you have to react a
certain way to play the inherently limited game world that was designed by a
person, and the designers think they're like crazy insightful for pointing out
that your character is killing hundreds of people.

It's so tautological and annoying. "Oh my god, you just played this game the
way we designed it and now your character is a mass murderer, how can you live
with yourself?!" Eye roll.

~~~
alisonatwork
I tried to play Bioshock and gave up after about an hour because i found all
the mindless zombies running out to kill me kind of tedious. The story (if
there was one) didn't capture me at all.

Far Cry 2 was a totally different kind of game. Far Cry 2 wasn't leading the
player on some voyage of self-discovery. There is no epic storyline. It is
clear from the very beginning that you are a foreign mercenary coming into a
war-torn country to kill people for money. You are a scumbag from the jump,
and you continue to be a scumbag throughout the entire game. If you don't want
to play that game, you don't have to play it.

The thing i like about Far Cry 2 is that it never tries to shoehorn in some
kind of redemption arc. It never tries to justify the violence. You take money
from both sides. You double-cross everybody. Just like other first-person
shooters, you kill pretty much everyone you meet. But unlike other first-
person shooters, there is no implication that the people you are killing are
"baddies". You are just a killer. The end. I don't think the designers are
sitting around feeling smug about it. That's just the game. I thought it was a
good one.

~~~
baud147258
There's some kind of redemption arc during the ending sequence of Far Cry 2.
But that's it and I agree with you.

------
nonbirithm
I was curious, so I searched for "most realistic video games" and most of the
pages were concerned with "realistic graphics" rather than "realism." Also, I
didn't see FC2 mentioned in any of them.

It feels like the two qualities overlap in some ways but are different in
others. In 2 there was so much detail that you could shoot the blades on a fan
and it would spin. A lot of this detail seems to have been lost in the later
titles. As someone else put it Far Cry 5 "looks realistic" while Far Cry 2 "is
realistic." Maybe they felt that excessive realism didn't contribute to making
the game fun, although the impression I got was people saw FC2 as "superior"
in some sense because of the attention to detail (such as nearly all
vegetation being destructable in 2 but not in 5).

~~~
helipad
I don't play many games but I remember playing the original Ghost Recon and
being impressed/frustrated at the fact you can die with two shots and you have
very little sense of where they came from. The second shot could follow soon
after and still none the wiser.

I'm not sure if other games (indeed, other games in the same series) followed
that pattern, I enjoyed it though.

~~~
bitL
Rainbow Six had that right from the initial game, one bullet - you are dead,
unless your wound is treatable and a medic takes care of you within a minute
or so. That is the pinnacle of realistic combat.

~~~
larnmar
I assume that in the game, though, being treated by the medic means you go
straight back into play, rather than being medivaced and spending months in
hospital followed by years of learning to walk again?

~~~
bitL
I frankly don't remember how it was in the first game, I think you switched
over to other members of your team (you started levels as a team and then got
killed off one by one). Getting a team member dead meant you couldn't have the
same team member again (i.e. you had to use worse people).

------
ThomPete
My old band brother did the soundtrack and sfx for that. Before he went for
the interview in Germany we had a long talk about it. I propsed to him to try
and make the soundtrack more dynamic, so we came up with an approach were
everything was a soundchannel which could be turned off or on. If you went
into area of danger music would intensify without you hearing any fade in fade
out between entire pieces.

He went to do the interview and got the job because of this suggestion. He
later went on to do hitman and Hans Zimmerman took over on FC2

~~~
dmos62
Cool story. This essay is about FC2 though.

~~~
ThomPete
Yeah I know. Just wanted to add some more context.

~~~
dmos62
Oh I didn't mean it like that. I genuinely enjoyed the story. Your last
sentence made me think that your friend worked on FC1, since you named the
composer for FC2, that's why I pointed out that while the essay is called Far
Cry, actually it's about Far Cry 2. But then I googled around that Hans
Zimmerman wasn't the composer for FC2, so now I'm just confused.

~~~
ThomPete
You are right FC3 it was.

------
marc_io
James Joyce, in his “A portrait of the artist as a young man” makes a
statement — through the voice of Stephen Daedalus, his alter ego — that a work
of art that is really tragic must necessarily provoke in us both feelings of
terror and pity, and go beyond pleasure and disgust. Here's the exact book
passage:

“—Aristotle has not defined pity and terror. I have. I say...

Lynch halted and said bluntly:

—Stop! I won't listen! I am sick. I was out last night on a yellow drunk with
Horan and Goggins.

Stephen went on:

—Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is
grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer.
Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is
grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the “secret cause”.

—Repeat, said Lynch.

Stephen repeated the definitions slowly.

—A girl got into a hansom a few days ago, he went on, in London. She was on
her way to meet her mother whom she had not seen for many years. At the corner
of a street the shaft of a lorry shivered the window of the hansom in the
shape of a star. A long fine needle of the shivered glass pierced her heart.
She died on the instant. The reporter called it a tragic death. It is not. It
is remote from terror and pity according to the terms of my definitions.

—The tragic emotion, in fact, is a face looking two ways, towards terror and
towards pity, both of which are phases of it. You see I use the word “arrest”.
I mean that the tragic emotion is static. Or rather the dramatic emotion is.
The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire
urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go
from something. These are kinetic emotions. The arts which excite them,
pornographical or didactic, are therefore improper arts. The esthetic emotion
(I use the general term) is therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised
above desire and loathing”.

------
x3haloed
Time to dig it out and give it another try. When the game came out, I remember
just feeling so "bleh" about it. Sure there was realism to it, but I remember
it feeling so pointless. Drive here, drive there. Sure it's beautiful, and the
mechanics were neat, but it just felt like a chore. I suspect a lot of people
felt the same way, and maybe that's a reason why they backtracked on that
concept, and swung back to Far Cry's linear roots. This article has given me
something to look for in the game, so I'm excited to give it another shot.
Funny how sometimes with art, you need a little hint about what to look for to
enjoy it.

~~~
bitL
It's the only Far Cry game I couldn't force myself to finish and I finished
all the others (including Blood Dragon); the most surprising was Far Cry 5
where it started completely meh (I left it alone for a month after the initial
gameplay) and then ended up as my favorite; maybe 2 is similar.

~~~
shantly
The most disappointing thing about Far Cry 5, for me, was the lack of a
sanitized version of the map without creepy death cult murder sites and such,
that you could drive trucks around, hike, and hunt & fish as you please. My
(much too young to play Far Cry) son would have loved that, and it's _almost_
there in the post-game sandbox mode.

~~~
kbenson
There are often mods to do stuff like this, at least for PC. If that works for
you, might be worth a look.

------
Marazan
I had great fun in Far Cry 2 for about 30 mins. Then I realised everything
respawned as soon as I turned my back, then I got run over by a jeep that
spawned out of thin air.

And then I never played it again.

~~~
someguyorother
The two rules of game AI:

1\. Cheat.

2\. Never let the player catch you cheating.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Just reading your comment I thought: hmm I wonder if you could have the AI
match the player, so whatever your own accuracy is, then the AI accuracy
matches ... then thought, no you'd have to have the AI lag ... then thought,
well there most be thousands of algorithms used to provide challenging AIs
that adjust to players?

So anyone link me a blogpost on popular AI skill adjustment tactics when
programming games?

~~~
pmjordan
I read about this sort of thing years ago, and I seem to remember the
consensus being that while it's entirely possible to build skill-adaptive AI,
it tends to frustrate players no end. I don't know if there's been any
movement on that, and whether anyone has made it work well.

The issue you raise is however entirely orthogonal to the respawning outposts
in FC2. If you crank the difficulty up, the confrontations get very difficult
very quickly - when you're on near equal footing with each AI NPC, being
outnumbered is very, very dangerous. I think the outpost behaviour is just an
obvious flaw they couldn't fix before shipping.[1]

Personally, I could live with it - you just avoid the outposts altogether and
get on with things. You're supposed to be engaging in guerrilla warfare,
right? Don't waltz into an outpost. Certainly, neither they nor the various
other rough edges in the game ruined the experience for me. It's one of my top
games of all time - I recently replayed the first part of it on the highest
"Infamous" difficulty.

And no, it's for the most part not _fun_ , in the same way that a thriller
isn't _fun_ but you can still feel positively about the experience - as the
article tries to explain; I'm not sure the morality aspect is the full
explanation though. Personally, the immersion itself seems to be a large part
of the appeal. The simulated world is just so incredibly well done. Beautiful
and haunting and terrifying.

[1] On the one hand, I'd love to see a "definitive edition" of the game where
this sort of stuff is fixed and replaced with mechanics the designers
originally had in mind. A (to me) obvious solution would have been to play up
the 2 factions in this regard, in that each outpost is owned by either the
UFLL or the APR at any given time, and that the player taking an outpost
eventually causes shifts in the occupation map. On the other hand, there's a
pretty good chance the game could be ruined by making it too much like a game
with mechanics and goals like that.

The less disruptive fix would be for the ever-present patrol vehicles to
simply re-populate the outpost when they find it empty, and radio in for
further reinforcements. (Outposts typically have 4 NPCs defending, the patrols
are 1 or 2 NPCs.)

------
unnouinceput
I played FarCry, FC 3 / 4 / 5 / New Dawn - I am yet to play FC 2. Why? Every
time I start it I found myself bored by it after 30 minutes. I even had my kid
play like 1 hour, maybe it will delve better into storyline, then picked from
there, all to no avail.

So when I've read this article Immersion section a small smirk started on my
face. You want immersion in a game? Play Gothic 1/2.

~~~
dmos62
This is such a subjective thing. It surprises me time and time again. I can
say the exact opposite for my experience of what you said. I found all those
other FCs unengaging in the least, though some of them had fun mechanics that
kept me playing, but never immersed. Gothic 2, haven't tried 1, I found
horrid. Stories unengaging, world unrealistic, mechanics uncomfortable. The
only thing that kept me playing Gothic 2 for more than 30 minutes was that
combat was hard and supposedly required skill. Once that got old, there was
hardly anything left.

I don't want to deride those who enjoyed Gothic. Like I started out saying,
this is such a subjective thing. I didn't enjoy ~90% of popular RPGs either.
Best exceptions: Planescape Torment, some of the GTA games, kind of, and
Crusader Kings 2.

~~~
luxuryballs
I think Gothic 1 is far better, and there also might be an element of “you had
to be there” as in be the right age when you discover the freedom and bigness
of the game compared to other games at the time.

The realism of the world is still unmatched by many titles in the way all the
NPCs of the world had a routine that followed the day night cycles, and you
could do whatever you want, make allegiance with whoever you want, and all be
progressing the game in what was the first or best anti-linear game for many
people.

Much of the bigness was attributed to straying too far into the wilderness
being absolutely dangerous.

------
Havoc
I can see the points he discusses. There was a lot of quality in that game.
e.g. The enemy dialog in Afrikaans was an interesting choice.

...but the gameplay mechanics itself were horrendous. After doing the same
thing 10 times. (Drive through open space full of checkpoints full of baddies
that keep respawning)

------
moomin
So my “moral choice” was that I found it grim and unfun, lost interest and
played something else.

Which I guess constitutes its own answer to the question posed.

(Also, consider there are plenty of engaging narratives that don’t attempt
anything like this level of immersion.)

------
strangecasts
I'm reminded of this story[1] about the game's fire propagation:

 _There 's a funny anecdote about that. A few months after Dominic told me I
had to propagate fire to everything, I had it working in my test environment,
and I decided to give it a try in the game._

 _I launched the game and decided to attack a small camp with five or six
guards. There was an explosive barrel there, so I shot a single round into it.
The barrel exploded and sets fire to the grass underneath, and the fire spread
to the camp and set fire to the hut._

 _The hut set fire to the trees nearby, and the flames reached a propane tank,
which went flying in every direction, setting fire to everything in its path._

 _One of the guards then caught fire and, in his panic, set more things on
fire. Within two minutes, as far as I could see, literally miles of terrain
were on fire. Every single tree, every hut, everything. The result was that I
had killed every guard by shooting a single round and that my PC was now
reduced to a crawling speed._

[1]
[https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/111851/Interview_How_Far...](https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/111851/Interview_How_Far_Cry_2s_Fire_Fuels_Spreads.php)

------
poisonborz
I think the author is not familiar with modern gaming. He takes a single
example (a modern sandbox fps game) and ignores sandbox games in general -
which would have yielded way more interesting observations. The only other
titles there are either way older or totally different in genre. I know this
type of argument-building is traditional in academic writing (elaborate
analysis of a single barilla pasta ad from the 50s comes to my mind) but it
always struck me as a low effort.

------
dmos62
To me immersion is the most important thing I seek from a game, and Far Cry 2
bumped up my expectations a lot. The atmosphere, realism, freedom. It is still
#1 narrative-heavy first-person game for me, which is impressive and sad.

The series went downhill. I presume that the success brought on the ever-
clueless money men. Later installments are arcades as opposed to experiences.
Then again, maybe the objective with the later series is just to make money
and art is just a side-show.

Does anyone know of comparable games?

For me, the other most significant experience was playing a heavily-modded
ARMA 2 in an online community called United Operations (that was some ~5 years
ago maybe). It was a community dedicated to realism and simulation of military
engagements. They simulated various eras and conflicts, from Vietnam to the
invasion of Iraq (99% of content we used was community made).

They used ACRE, which is by far the most sophisticated in-game voip system I'm
aware of: you can talk, you can whisper, you can shout, and there's a dozen of
different real radios that simulate everything from range to interference. You
could even hook up one radio (like squad radio) to one ear, and a platoon
radio (if you're a squad lead) to your other ear. You could run a radio from a
HMMW's speaker. ACRE was responsible for at least 70% of the immersion,
realistic comms are that effective in multiplayer.

There are some things I experienced playing ARMA 2 that I still remember so
vividly as if it happened just now. I remember experiencing mild shock because
of the tension build up.

One of those memories is a night mission. Our side is Taliban and we're
preparing an ambush. The opposing side, US forces, have to escort a VIP
through our valley. Taliban's objective was to capture the VIP _alive_. We
know US will be equipped with night-vision devices, while we'll have to rely
on natural sight. It was overcast fullish-moon, so our visibility I'd say was
around 5-10 meters, maybe less. We had trucks, so we parked them in crucial
spots and turned on the headlights. Later, during the engagement, I didn't
hear our trucks being repositioned, so I presume that either it was too
dangerous or they weren't that effective, or their lights were simply shot
out.

Anyway, the valley was narrow, less than 100 meters probably, and we setup in
a small village that covers the whole width of the floor of the valley. I
don't remember if we were 100% certain that they'd come through here, there
might have been a parallel ambush site higher on the valley wall. They came
through this village.

US forces were mounted, but didn't have any type of support (no air, no arty,
no armor, nothing larger that .50 cal). The way villages were built in this
region was wall-to-wall buildings with occasional gaps in between where
vehicles can't pass or risk getting stuck while zig-zagging through the
irregular arrangement of buildings. Only one road ran through the village. US
forces could approach from the valley walls or from the valley floor while
dismounted, but they would likely try to get their light vehicles through the
village as well to get fast transport through and out of the valley.

We, the Taliban, had a normal platoon style hierarchy, but it was of minimal
use and we were mostly lone gun-men, because we couldn't coordinate. The
capacity of this game to simulate and immerse in coordination is huge. We
couldn't coordinate, because A) we practically couldn't see each-other (or
often the enemy), because of the dark and because we were spread thin, B) we
couldn't shout, because we couldn't afford to give away our position, C) we
didn't have individual radios, like for example US spec-ops would.

I was a ligt machine gunner. We tried to spread ourselves evenly as possible.
My position was relatively deep in the village, near the main road. At first I
was covering any incursion from the valley wall, later after the initial gun-
fights died down I moved to a nearby road-side house. I lay prone in that
house, watching the road at a near 90 degree angle through an open door-way. I
could see and fire upon a stretch of about 5 meters of road, depending on how
close the target passed to the building.

90 degree angle wasn't convenient fire-power wise, ideal angle being 0
degrees, i.e. facing the traffic full-on. However, since those who I lay in
ambush of had night-vision, if I had used a shallower angle they might have
seen me before I saw them. With a 90 degree angle, I would have a very narrow
time-window to engage, but it would be at a distance where night-vision
advantage was negated and I was unlikely to be spotted before I opened fire.

The main thing about this experience was the atmosphere of what I can only
call the loudest silence. Since we had such a severe sight disadvantage, we
didn't maneuver. Well some of us did probably, to some extent, but I
practically stayed put, changing positions only once in maybe 30-40 minutes to
watch over the road, until the firefight that is.

All this time, you watched the dark, where you weren't even sure you could
make out a human figure if there was one. You listened to shots and ricochets
somewhere on the outskirts of the village, a flare (probably hip fired) was
popped a few times. You tried to make out faint sounds around you: foot steps?
Is someone slowly stalking? Imagination was as much a problem as the night
blindness. You could never relax: you had to control the sounds you made, the
movements, you had to listen to the sounds behind you, making sure you don't
get shot in the back while lying on the ground. You had to move as little as
possible, because even with NVG a still prone figure can be hard to make out.
All this contributed to a strong sense of tension that was gradually growing.

As the time passed, I could hear less and less firefights, and, more
importantly, fewer and fewer signs of friendly activity. It was increasingly
hard to tell if there's still 20-30 of us left, or just me. This hiked up the
tension even more.

By now I was in the road-side building, watching the road. In the distance I
heard a motor, faint. Then the sound started growing louder. There was a light
vehicle in the village and it was revving.

My hands were already moist, but now my heart was climbing my throat. I could
hear the car approaching fast, accelerating hard out of the turns. Was it a
friendly car? Or, was it enemy? Will I be able to hit a car going 70km/h at an
agle of 90 degrees from a distance of maybe 5 meters? Do I reposition? I have
only seconds to decide.

The road was already down-sight. When the car's engine became so loud I
couldn't possibly imagine it getting any louder, I pulled the trigger pressing
it to the guard and I kept it there.

My gun released a deafening and blinding spew of white fire. After a moment,
the car passed through my fire at a very high speed. I saw it for a split
second. Headlights were not on.

As soon as it passed, I released the trigger. In retrospect, my eyes were
probably adjusting to the again dark scene, and my ears were probably ringing,
because I didn't have ear protection, but I didn't notice any of it. My heart
was about to jump out of my chest.

I jumped up off the ground and I ran outside, hoping to pepper the car from
behind as it sped away. As I left the house I heard a crash. This was one of
the last buildings in the village, and the car, after passing me, went off-
road and hit a tree dead-on and that's where I saw it.

It was one of our trucks. 4 person AWD. I was sure that it was hostile, but in
retrospect I couldn't have been 100% sure.

I started sprinting towards it, lugging my unergonomic gun. When I got within
about 15-20 meters of it, standing squarely behind it, panting, I put the gun
to my shoulder and sprayed long bursts at the passanger compartment aiming at
the back window.

The game abruptly ends. We lost. The VIP was on that truck. My first burst
incapacitated the driver, so the truck crashed. My second and last set of
bursts killed the VIP. I came within seconds of delivering victory and instead
I forfeited the game. Best gaming experience ever.

This very long recitation of something I did years ago hunched up at my
computer is in its own way a testiment of how immersive a good game can be.

~~~
marapuru
Wow. I read this in awe. I admire your writing style, you kept me in the
storyline and now all I want is to play this game. GG :-)

~~~
dmos62
Thanks! I'm very pleasantly surprised that some people read all of it.

------
justin66
Harvey Smith (lead designer of Dishonored, etc. etc.) wrote an article about
his love of Far Cry 2 a while back:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140622234515/http://penny-
arca...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140622234515/http://penny-
arcade.com:80/report/article/dishonoreds-harvey-smith-explains-the-genius-of-
far-cry-2)

------
hyperpallium
> Other times, an enemy will leave his post to stalk and kill an animal
> himself.

I still play FC2, but have never seen this. Always more to find!

The immersion appeals to me, especially the vegetation, sunsets/rises and
sound design in nature. It would be great to have an actual, non-cartoon
sequel. (not necessarily in Africa, but the approach to immersion).

~~~
pmjordan
Yeah, this isn’t something I’ve seen either, and given the limited wildlife
behaviour (tiny bit of damage to them and they fall over like a wooden prop)
I’m wondering if this might be a case of Chinese whispers.

And yes, I too would love a sequel in spirit.

~~~
hyperpallium
So, an enemy might have just walked into an animal?

But TBH I have never monitored an enemy outside a outpost in an area with
animals.

~~~
pmjordan
_So, an enemy might have just walked into an animal?_

Possibly! They normally take flight when they notice a human nearby[1] but as
the player you can certainly bump into them if you sneak up. And I _think_
they just fall over and die if you do that.

The other claim in the article that's clearly untrue is the one about not
hearing a line of dialogue twice. The idle dialog between NPCs definitely
repeats fairly soon, sometimes within a minute or so. So I get the impression
the author isn't particularly familiar with games and is quite happy to parrot
some of the publisher's claims or perhaps they found some pre-release
interviews where some of this was mentioned.

[1] As they should! Contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of wild
mammals and birds in Africa, including predators, will be on alert it if they
spot a human nearby and leg it if they get close. Safaris are only a thing
because cars/safari trucks haven't been hunting or retaliating against
predators for 99.9% of the last 100000+ years, and most animals can't
distinguish the human figures/faces inside vehicles. This is another thing Far
Cry 2 got right versus the subsequent Far Cry games, which are just crawling
with highly aggressive predators and where the herbivores are essentially
tame.

~~~
hyperpallium
I was wrong: walking into an animal doesn't harm them (you can even jump on
them). But just touching them with a vehicle kills them.

I agree it repeats, though the dialog is pretty rich and there are even
several accents. I can imagine in a direct play through there wouldn't be much
repetition. I mean, I muck around a lot.

BTW There's also many different enemy idle animations, some only in one
location, like fishing, eating a meal, exercises.

You're likely right that the author is more interested in analyzing the game,
rather than being a die hard fan.

~~~
pmjordan
Thanks for checking! :-)

Oh, I’m not _complaining_ about the voice acting. The fast-talking mission
briefings are a little odd at first, but they work. And yeah, they put a lot
of effort into idle animations and chatter; putting more effort in just yields
diminishing returns. Plus, real people repeat themselves too, particularly
when bored…

I just brought up the matter-or-fact remark about never repeating a line
because it suggested something to me about the author.

~~~
hyperpallium
I didn't think you were complaining; I meant maybe it's possible the author
played through and did not encounter (or not notice) dialog repetition.

------
mysticmode
This is one novel presence of a topic. I just had a phone call with my friend
talking about "Improving our craft and the mechanisms in detail". Well we
discussed it in software perspective as we both work in this sector.

After having the call, I read this and firstly I thoroughly enjoyed how the
author of the post had spelt his words about the game in such detail and
comparing it with the philosophy. And how the creators of the game crafted the
bits and pieces as though they think that they are bringing something new that
the world had never seen before. Indeed, the article denotes that they did it
pretty well.

This will really be my bookmarked reading again and again to put myself in an
optimistic position.

------
CodeArtisan
Had to force myself to finish this game; While being impressed by the game
engine, the armed outposts quickly became tedious to pass by. Malaria was a
pain in the ass. The gunfights were boring. I also recall that the ending was
bad but can't remember precisely why (Last played 12 Jan 2015. 21 Hours total
play time).

~~~
luxuryballs
Oh but the driving!

------
johnchristopher
Bummer. There was a Ubisoft sale on gog yesterday and I missed FC2 :(.

------
mdip
People's reactions to art, especially complex art[0] is going to be highly
subjective.

What I wonder most when reading this article is "Will I enjoy a game that
successfully evokes those emotions in me?" That's my go-to. But as I read on,
the author changed my mind a bit. I may want to actually experience the game,
regardless of whether or _not_ I'm willing to continue playing after a short
bit of experimentation.

I think that crossed an important line, for me. I wasn't a snob that believed
"video games would never be considered a truly complex art, only a form of
(mindless) entertainment[1]". In fact, I believe video games have so many
things about them that are superior to what we generally consider art (film,
and even in some ways, the written word). And I put my money where my mouth is
-- at home, I am strict about consumption of "mindless entertainment" (read:
almost all things TV), but I will let my kids play many "social" and creative
video games with very little/no limits[2].

The difficult place I see game companies in, these days, is that to create
this form of immersive environment is _really expensive_ (though getting
cheaper every day). And the more risky moves they make (i.e. punishing the
player to evoke sensations of guilt for "Doing the Right Thing(tm)" as is so
true in real-life), the more likely the game is going to be solidly rejected
by mainstream audiences and that cost will not be recouped. Perhaps this is a
future cause of "all great art fails to be recognized in its time"

I, personally, haven't been a gamer for a long time. I mostly play with my
kids, and while I can hold my own, I can't handle a game that I can't
meaningfully play without getting destroyed seconds in, and I've found that
the games that fall into these categories tend to have that level of
difficulty around them. Now that my kids are getting older and starting to
play some of the more teen-oriented games, I'm finding myself wading into
those waters again. I haven't been terribly impressed, if I'm being honest.
Other than the graphics being dramatically better -- but, lets face it, I work
in this industry ... that wasn't a surprise and the novelty wares off,
quickly, when the gameplay starts and you discover that the physics hasn't
come as far, as fast.

[0,1] Quick: Define art. Define entertainment.

[2] Only to say, I don't consider them an activity to be avoided in favor of
other, more meaningful/educational-oriented activities, but to be balanced
_with_ other healthy activities like "exploring/playing outside/making things
with non-virtual things". I never got the whole "Quit building that entire
universe in Minecraft and go sit at the dinner table and play Sorry! with your
sister"

