Second Take: Far Cry 2 vs Crysis

[bennyblanx]

Ben and Rob compare and contrast the two titles (and expansion Crysis Warhead) that share a common forbearer.

Watch The Video: http://www.tomsgames.com/us/videos/second_take_far_cry_2_vs_crysis.html

What game did you prefer? How does Crysis:Warhead compare on it's own?

-Ben

 

[zethex]

I definitely agree Crysis has an edge over Farcry 2. Personally myself, I liked Crysis Warhead a tiny bit better and especially the multi-player.

And is that the only shirt you have Ben? All i ever see you in hehe!

 

[Luscious]

Interesting discussion. I would agree that Crysis is still the PC benchmark to go by for hardware, but considering that it's been out for sooo long, I find it hard to believe that desktops on sale today still have difficulty running it, much less notebooks.

Case in point - I just got my hands on a fairly high-end Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q708 notebook. It runs Crysis at its native resolution (1680x1050) with all settings on "very high" at a very playable 30 fps minimum. That's pretty respectable for a notebook.

I haven't had the chance to run Far Cry 2 on this machine, but I did play through the original Far Cry again. Even after 4 years, Far Cry still makes me stare in awe at that amazing tropical scenery. It's one game I find impossible to put down.

 

[bluntsky]

Warhead is the game Crysis should have been. I think that gameplay wise, both Crysis and Far Cry 2 are weak sauce. Far Cry 2 actually feels like work. It doesn't matter how pretty the game is if it's not really fun to play.

 

[San Pedro]

^ +1

One note about some statements made in the video about realism of the story of Far Cry 2. It's way off base. I don't think that the story accurately portrays the real situation in any African country. It's just a bunch of guys (no women and children in this stretch of Africa) shooting at anyone that crosses their path, plus your only mission is to take out an arms dealer because he's so bad, yet you spend the whole game looking for blood diamonds to spend on all kinds of weapons. Also, they have all these different playable characters, but almost all of them (it might be all I don't remember) aren't even from Africa, and have no real vested interest other than being a mercenary.

Ah, I could rant about that game all day, so I better stop here.

 

[Maxor127]

I think Far Cry 2 is better than Crysis. I found the game tedious at first until I got to the second act, and then the game really improved with more variety of vehicles and more guns. I completely disagree that Crysis has better weapons. Crysis basically had your basic assault rifle, sniper rifle, shotgun, etc. The gauss rifle wasn't all that great. Sure the nuke was cool, but you never really get to use it. Far Cry 2 has a much better variety of weapons. It has more realistic weapons, and there's a wide range of different weapons for each class. The only thing I liked about Crysis that I miss in Far Cry 2 is customizing your weapon. I hate using iron sights and it was nice changing your scope in Crysis and adding laser aiming and silencers and stuff. And I wish there was a flashlight or night vision in Far Cry 2. The nanosuit kind of ruined Crysis. It's too overpowered.

 

[nicae]

"That's all the time we have for this week"...

THIS WEEK?! Those were 3 whole weeks since the last ST... I feel cheated!! :x

 

[clownbaby]

Crysis, I hate to say it, is in most ways superior to FC2.

1. Graphics: I know that crysis is more demanding, and most people can't play it the highest settings. But, FC2 is EXTREELY buggy, and is hardly worth playing on ati 48xx series cards. With crossfired 4870s, I get better framerates maxed out on warhead, than on FC2. The stuttering problem is is unbearable, and can be mended but not entirely fixed. If you run nvidia cards, you probably don't have this prob, but neither ATI, or the FC2 people seem to be looking to fix this.

2. Open world gameplay. I really really like the idea and world in FC2. I really really hate the crappy driving, and having to blast through the same checkpoints every time I need to go somewhere. I guess I could take the bus, but even mercenaries should be above public transportation. FC2 ruins it's own goodness with this stupid setup.

3. "realism": Gunjams and malaria. Guns don't jam after 15 minutes of use. I spent 6 years in the Marine corps, much of that time overseas in Iraq. You could bury an ak-47 in the dirt for a year, dig it out, blow the dust off, and be shooting joyously into the air in seconds. Also, what kind of professional doesn't take care of his weapons. It should be assumed that any merc worth a crap would clean his weapons after use. A weapons cleaning interface would probably be less boring than repeating the same weapon dealer quest 20 times.

And do I even need to talk about how stupid the malaria bit is. I've never had malaria, but I don't think the symptoms include being just fine 99% of the time, then losing your mind for 15 seconds.

I suppose I'm peeved, because FC2 could have been a much better game than it is. In fact, it probably was a much better game in development before they added in all of the "realism" effects. There's some really great stuff in FC2, but for me, it's not worth it. You have to put up with too many layers of annoying crap before you realize good gameplay.

Warhead, on the other hand, has far less dramatic highs and lows. It has better vehicle interaction, weapons interface, and better enemy AI (not much better though). The graphics really are great, if you have a system to play it. Its certainly not the greatest game ever, but it's very enjoyable. It's also much easier to come back to if you haven't played in a while.

Anyway, I wish Far Cry 2 was better, but it's not. Forgot to mention the problem with widescreen rendering in FC2; it makes the game look like ****. In my opinion, they swung for the fences, and dribbled one into the infield. I suppose pc gamers should have such high hopes with games now that they are written for consoles as well. Maybe next fall we'll get a winner.

 

[bennyblanx]

One note about some statements made in the video about realism of the story of Far Cry 2. It's way off base. I don't think that the story accurately portrays the real situation in any African country. It's just a bunch of guys (no women and children in this stretch of Africa) shooting at anyone that crosses their path

3. "realism": Gunjams and malaria. Guns don't jam after 15 minutes of use. I spent 6 years in the Marine corps, much of that time overseas in Iraq. You could bury an ak-47 in the dirt for a year, dig it out, blow the dust off, and be shooting joyously into the air in seconds. Also, what kind of professional doesn't take care of his weapons. It should be assumed that any merc worth a crap would clean his weapons after use. A weapons cleaning interface would probably be less boring than repeating the same weapon dealer quest 20 times.

And do I even need to talk about how stupid the malaria bit is. I've never had malaria, but I don't think the symptoms include being just fine 99% of the time, then losing your mind for 15 seconds.

Points well taken about the realism, especially the malaria bit, which I neglected to focus on and was rather corny. But this was a relative discussion mostly, and our point was mostly focused on the African setting versus that of Crysis, which involved among other things, a nanosuit and aliens.

 

[d_kuhn]

rant warning (lots of spoilers too so consider yourself warned)...

I have not played Crysis... but I've got Far Cry 2 (based on the media hype sadly... should have waited for some real gamer reviews) and it's very weak (SP... I burnt out on Online MP 6 or 7 years ago), I'd give it in the 3/10 vicinity and would recommend it as a rent vs buy (or ebay it for 10 bucks, though rent would be best because after a few hours you're going to be sick of it).

The IDEA of the game is excellent, and the graphics are solid but gameplay was REALLY bad... REPETITIVE... REPETITIVE... REPETITIVE. The gun jam thing mentioned above was one of the many annoying aspects... and what makes it worse is IT DIDN'T NEED TO BE THAT WAY. If they'd implemented poor gun performance for drops I would've thought that was cool... but when you buy a new gun and it works great for 5 clips then goes to crap... that's STUPID (and doubly stupid because once you buy the gun all you need to to is stop by a gun shop and pick up a free replacement periodically... that's supposed to be them trying for REALISM?). And did I mention the game was REPETITIVE, REPETITIVE, REPETITIVE?

Then there's the checkpoints that respawn 30 seconds after you clear them out... they COULD have had them realistically reinforced once every couple days, but NOOO... you get to kill the same checkpoint EVERY time you go through it... which is REPETITIVE, REPETITIVE, REPETITIVE. Then there's the fact that no matter what vehicle you have (even the souped up dune buggy)... EVERY bad guy driving a broken down pinto can chase you down INSTANTLY.

Malaria? Another cool idea... they COULD have had you catch it when you went swimming in some of the more stagnant looking pools in-world... and required you to take pills for a week to get rid of it. INSTEAD, you catch it right at the beginning and it's some sort of SUPER-Malaria that you can never get rid of. That means you have to do these "Resistance" missions that are always the same... just like every other mission source that's not main quest. Go assassinate for the mysterious talking cell tower (WTF?), blow up a truck for the gun dude, take revenge on someone who's shorted your buddy, always the same... REPETITIVE, REPETITIVE, REPETITIVE.

They give you the ability to wear camo and use a sniper rifle... but their implementation of stealth is worse than Operation Flashpoint- and that's what ... TEN YEARS old? OFP was a better open world game in virtually EVERY respect than FC2 (graphics being the only exception).

Then there's the ENTIRELY laughable "Oh and by the way, this is an undercover mission so don't expect any friends out there". Which is in game speak for "We were too frikkin LAZY to implement even basic friend/foe code... so EVERYONE is going to shoot at you"

I guess part of the problem here is that the game was very ambitious and I think the developer ran out of time to build content after finishing the engine... as a result the content feels very "cut cornered", things like the friend/foe laziness, lack of mission diversity, and the overall weakness of the gameplay seem to bear that out.

(edit: Did I mention that the game is REALLLLY REPETITIVE!! )

 

[chaohsiangchen]

I guess part of the problem here is that the game was very ambitious and I think the developer ran out of time to build content after finishing the engine... as a result the content feels very "cut cornered", things like the friend/foe laziness, lack of mission diversity, and the overall weakness of the gameplay seem to bear that out.

(edit: Did I mention that the game is REALLLLY REPETITIVE!! )

Very well said. Even though I do like Far Cry 2, the effort Ubisoft put into this game is skewed heavily toward Dunia engine. At least we don't need patch to run the SP game to fix CTD.

So, here is the deal. Instead of me serving my buddies, why not let buddies offer some useful information, such as where to get false documents to allow the player to go through check point without being shot at, after a buddy mission? What's the point to get reputation anyway? Instead of driving myself, why can't the player do something for civilian cab drivers, you know, like the one in the beginning, so that he can offer free ride henceforth? The player can still choose to clear out a check point just to get certain supply, but the most annoying aspect of the game is gone.

I hope that they can put more effort into game play and more interactive NPC (definitely other than shoot-your-ass and press-use-key-to-talk), but they have to release the game and make some money to justify the investment, especially when Ubisoft executives are watching them. Now they have a good engine, so I expect them to make real good game next time.

 

[d_kuhn]

Very well said. Even though I do like Far Cry 2, the effort Ubisoft put into this game is skewed heavily toward Dunia engine. At least we don't need patch to run the SP game to fix CTD.

You know... I wonder if they didn't rush FC2 out so that they could hook in some Dunia sales (to other game makers). There's no doubt that it's a solid engine and I DO expect to see some decent games using dunia... but this ain't it.

 

[chaohsiangchen]

You know... I wonder if they didn't rush FC2 out so that they could hook in some Dunia sales (to other game makers). There's no doubt that it's a solid engine and I DO expect to see some decent games using dunia... but this ain't it.

Let's hope that we will see some good game on Dunia engine.

However, they have to make some moolah before continuing. That is, sadly, the corporate nature of gaming industry. They have to rush it, or the studio will face close down, bring down unfinished title, the engine and existing content with them. Companies like Valve and Blizzard do not have that kind of problem, so they can just sit back and do whatever they want. In the case of Valve, they actually milked their old IP a lot (which a lot were created by modding community first), such as TF, DoD, CS and HL before went on to make Portal and L4D.

Ubisoft is just dwarf EA, and all mechanism behind giant game publishers are the same. If game developing is mostly about art than profit, then we will see Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw making games instead of making Zero Punctuation video. The irony is that he maybe a good game writer, but his lousy video makes more money.

The industry can't move itself forward without critics, so keep up the good work of grilling them.

 

[impar]

Greetings!

Although both games have Securom, Farcry2 has limited intallations, Crysis doesnt.

 

[hellcat]

I'm playing FC2 now and its ok, it has its ups and downs. I have most of the same gripes that I've read on here and a few more. The guns that jam are a little annoying, they had it in Americas Army but it didn't happen that often. I do think they should have had you clean your gun instead. I did like the visual of your gun backfiring though, that was kinda cool but I still would have rather had a gun cleaning kit that you buy and when your gun gets dirty or wet you can clean it. Also with guns I didn't like that you couldn't carry what guns you wanted together. I wanted to carry a silenced machine gun and a sniper riffle so badly but couldn't. They should have made it more of a weight thing, so you can't carry say the SAW and a RPG at the same time because of weight. But a machine gun and sniper rifle I had to actually wait till the second act and carry an Uzi and sniper rifle.

I also thought you should be able to go prone, I liked that you can run and slide that was cool but going prone is something I like in most games....especially ones like this.

I liked the main story but going through the same check points and having them respawn that quickly does get bothersome. I mean in reality unless someone hears the gunfire or happens to come across the checkpoint with bodies and wreckage all over it, or if someone calls to check on the checkpoint and no one answers no one will know and they couldn't come that fast. I do kind of understand why they did it, I mean if you drove around and had no one to shoot because all the checkpoints were already cleared out it would get dull too. I do like the idea of a cab driving your around or having one of your buddies drive you, but then again it wouldn't have really made it an open world game, and more linear.

I think they should have put more stealth and better stealth in it. I would sneak up on someone and slash them with my machete and people would still come from all around even if the person was the only one around at the time. Their were some missions I really wanted to do stealth but couldn't. Also I think they should have made ledge climbing part of the game. Kind of like with Splinter Cell where you can jump up and pull yourself up on a ledge. Their were many times I wanted to do this to get around and wished I could.

The game was a little repetitive, I did like the main missions though, they were better than most other games I've played. The main missions were pretty well thought out, I think they should have had more dynamic side missions too. The buddy missions should have been missions you help your buddy out, you go together and do the missions. Near the end when you blew up the bridge that was close but you never really did a full mission with your buddy. I also thought it would be cool to have CO-OP in this game, it would have been a perfect setting, you and a friend playing though the game together.

All in all I think it is an ok game. I got it free with my video card so I'm not complaining. I haven't quite finished it, I'm at like 75% so I haven't tried the multiplayer yet. I do like the weather effects and the change from day to night. I think they should have had thunder and lighting, especially random lightning strikes would have been cool. For an open world game I think I'll play Fallout 3 next.

 

[Maxor127]

AM I the only one who liked Far Cry 2? I think it's a fun game and it gets better and better the more I play and the farther I get. I think people are complaining too much about gun jams and checkpoints. I have no problem flying through checkpoints or driving around them. Sometimes you have to fight your way through, but it's better than uneventful driving. I've never had one of my guns jam unless it was one that I picked up off the ground, and even then, what else do you expect from a rusted piece of ****? Yeah, it works fine for the enemy and yeah it's a bit unrealistic, but it makes sure you rely on your own weapons for the long term and enemy weapons are a last resort. At least you automatically pick up ammo. I hate wandering around the jungle in Crysis trying to find a gun on the ground so I can get the ammo. The malaria wasn't that big of a deal either. It makes your vision blur for a few seconds and then you're fine. I let it blur for like 4 straight times with nothing happening before I decided to finally use my meds. And meds seemed to be in good supply. In fact, I've only run out of meds once and since Act 2, I rarely get sick.

In short, I think Far Cry 2 is vastly superior to Crysis. Crysis has better graphics, but Far Cry 2 is more atmospheric and more fun to play. The only complaint I'd give Far Cry 2 is that the buddy system could be improved and have more depth and I think it would benefit from more character interaction and dialog trees.