Review: Far Cry 2 **Spoilers**

I make a lot of references to 'Far Cry 3' in this review.  To keep this easily readable, FC3 will be in bold (as in bolder and better). 

Though I would consider FC3 to be one of my favorite games.  FC 1 and 2 occupy a different category. 

FC 2 manages to extract every joy from all aspects to the game.  You literally do something because 'someone tells you to'...there is no reason for you to do anything except for money and medication.  You get what is called 'History' with your 'Buddies' (who are, in actual fact, just a bunch of greedy jerks who end up stabbing you in the back) if you want to take 3 times longer doing your regular missions...and do the numerous 'Buddy' missions as well.  There are 5 bus depots in each act of the map (one in each corner and one in the center).  The buses can fast travel between each depot.  The map is GIGANTIC...and everyone that you see outside the 'no fire' zone IS an enemy (you might be working for their boss but you are 'under cover').  The hardest setting makes driving feel like you are traveling around in a big neon lit up bullseye with gas filled jerry cans for armour.  All your buddies want you to do something for them.  In exchange, the designated rescue buddy will save you if you go down.  You walk around the whole game feeling like some ground pounding chump that everyone else uses to do their shit.  There's a bigger story in that there are 2 factions that want to run the country...and the antics that each goes through to sabotage the other.  The guy who armed both sides was the original target you were sent into the country to assassinate. 

At the end of the game...when you are feeling like everything you did was a pointless waste of time ...you end up killing even people you liked because they were going to turn on you ... or had already done so.  You are ambushed by all those 'Buddies' that you did so much for.  The 'original target' guy comes up to you and says that both you and him suck ... and that you both should kill each other after you do one final good thing.  The odd part is that the writing in the dialogue is actually quite good.  Delivered quick and devoid of emotion...like an auctioneer accountant at 3 am, however. 

There was supposed to be a mechanic for notoriety.  This wasn't actually activated that the time of FC2's release...and they never bothered to patch it in.  So doing the buddy missions unlocks upgrades to safe houses.  Between acts, this resets anyways...so there is actually no reason to do anything for a buddy in Act 1.  But this is the game...so you want to play the game?  Then do the buddy missions.  The Story for FC3 compels you onward.  You are inherent to the plot...and have a reason for doing what you do.  In FC2...the plot is external to you.  You are simply a hammer in the communal toolbox.  You are a good hammer...but still just a tool.  The story reminds you of that every chance it gets.  It's like having your grandmother watch you play an FPS just to guilt trip you every time you kill something.  So 'History' and 'Reputation' are useless.  The story makes you want to stop playing.  Weapon upgrades are about the only reason to keep going.  Well how about driving in some rolling hills?  You see a dune buggy...you see rolling hills.  You get into the dune buggy...and hit a rock 20 yards in front of you that the long grass happened to have hid...time and again.  Hell...you even go through the whole game in various stages of sickness from Malaria!  The only thing good about FC2 was it's sequel.  If you pay attention to the NPCs...one of the voices that seem to be more emotionally involved in what they are saying stands out from the rest.  That would be the voice of Julian Casey (He plays 'Buck' in FC3). 

There isn't anything physically wrong with the game mechanics in FC2.  I do enjoy a good story ... and your role in this story is to be another cockroach in an infestation.  You just happen to be a tougher cockroach than all the others.  It's nice to think that your actions will have an instrumental effect on the outcome.  In this game?  You're just the story's bitch.  It doesn't matter WHAT you do.  The effect of all things you do is NOTHING good.  This might be a good revelation if say the story had led you along for most of the game...but you figure this out VERY early in the game.  You're essentially what Jason Brody kills en-masse in the second half of FC3...just another chump doing someone's dirty work for money.  It makes me feel like playing...something else.  You do one extremely unselfish thing to save a lot of people at the very end...and then you are expected to kill yourself for being 'Diseased' (sociopathically selfish).   Yes ... I believe the irony HAD escaped the writer in question.  

   

XD

Doom 3 - BFG Edition

I played ID Game's Rage some time ago and got to finding some Easter eggs that related back to Doom and Wolfenstein.  It had me reminiscing fondly about those old games.  Lately, ID Games came out with the Doom 3 BFG edition...which includes old doom.  For $5.50, it was worth it to download from Steam. 

As well as having both Doom 3 and it's expansion RoE (which I owned but were not loaded on my current machine), BFG includes a 2nd expansion.  Also included were all of Doom and Doom 2 (and an expansion for it as well).

I remembered in Doom 2 there was a secret level that was a tribute to Castle Wolfenstein.   It was 15 levels into the basic game.  Getting there, I find that The walls are blank.   No Nazi symbols.  No Nazi soldiers.  Hell...even the dogs were just fucking pinkies.  I don't recall all that much from the original Wolfenstein...but one of the thing that I remembered specifically is that the dogs were NOT wearing Nazi uniforms!  I fought 15 levels into an archaic game to see Castle Wolfenstein and all I got to see were blank walls and bullshit.  Not cool, ID.  What's next?  Hogan's Heroes?  We going to revise all the old 'Call of Duty' making the Nazis all neutral-uniform-of-non-specific-origin in a war of 40's esque theme. - Rant for another time.

So what next?  Well, Playing RoE, there is a place in that game where you have to go through a sewer area.  The place is full of poisonous gas so you have to use a oxygen to get by.   So, on top of having to fight enemies, you have to worry about oxygen.  It's hard...but it's fun.  Well the 'executive' decision was to remove the need to worry about oxygen.  Why!?  Also there was a mini game that was 'Sarges duck hunt' that was removed.  Now all mini games are 'Turkey puncher'.   Why!?  Someone spent money to make changes to a mediocre (at best) game to make it more bland.   BFG!?  Try BFD.  

Simply put, ID games were the creator of the 'first person shooter' with their release of 'Wolfenstein 3D'.  A couple of years later, they came out with 'Doom' which was revolutionary for it's time.  Heretic and Hexen came out soon after and were were fps of the Midieval fantasy genre.  Doom 2 came out very soon after Doom and had only new weapons, monsters and levels.  They used the same engine that was in the first Doom.  There was no mechanic for looking up or down...jumping, crouching.  If something was higher or lower than you, the 'Auto-aim' would adjust your shots accordingly.  Compared to the games of today, it would be considered laughably archaic yet us old time gamers still have a fondness in our heart (and space in our hard drive) for old Doom.  Yet this game is 20 years old!  Leave it alone!  It does not need modifying; it would be like Ford going back to redesign the Model-T after all these years.   A Model-T doesn't go fast.  It's poor with braking and acceleration.  It's terrible on gas.  It's hard to drive.  The only reason to buy a Model-T is because it IS a Model-T...and the idiots at ID Games are taking even THAT away.   So what is going on, ID Games?  Mathew Costello get a promotion from writing and is now making bad decisions in everything?

I picked up Doom BFG for $5.50.  Not a bad deal for old time gamers looking to complete our collection with some retro stuff.  Anyone who does not remember the old Doom may find it to be dry, linear and lacking in story and variation.  Compared to today's games, the AI is predictable which meant also the guns had to be nerfy... and the enemy doesn't seem to be really bothered all that much from getting shot...until they die of terminal lead poisoning.  The SMG in Doom 3 feels like the name 'Airsoft' should be engraved on the side.  Though it seems with light and sounds...they managed to make Doom 3 even more scary than I remembered it.  

Rob Ford - The talk that people talk

Well Rob is in it again.  This time there is no proof...only people coming forward to confess what they saw.  This time, allegedly, "Rob offered to give oral sex to a female aid".  Well she could have said it just to besmirch his name...maybe she misheard.  The thing is; sure Rob is not that popular right now...but he is Mayor of Toronto...and he is powerful.  In his world, power is king.  The truth is a tool to that end.  There is no higher ideal than power.  In some ways, he is no different than 9/10ths of all ancient Roman Emperors.  But then again, most ancient Roman Emperors were total creeps.  The point is: why go public with something like that against someone who probably has a highly proficient slime ball lawyer on speed dial...IF IT WASN'T TRUE!?   If I was going to sling mud against someone...I'd rather not pick the someone holding an AK47...unless what they did had pissed me off to the point of not caring.  I had noticed that as far as litigation goes...Rob started it.  In psychological circles, that is called a "Dramatic Defense".  Perhaps the events of the last little while have left him reactionary to detraction.  My money is on it being true...but it's only a 30/70 at best.  Not enough for reasonable doubt in the least.  When it comes down to it...it's her word versus his.  He might be a lying crack head but if you can't prove that he is lying in the instance at hand and you admitted to saying what you did, then it is 'Slander'.  The law is an ass. 

This isn't about it being true or not.  This is about Mayor Ford scaring the little folk into not coming forward with any more "allegations".  I honestly don't have any faith in the Canadian Justice system.   It's failed me damn near every time.  So can a fat, corrupt politician sue someone for 'confessing'?...no shit.  His willingness to do so is a form of manipulation.  It's a power play and...well...we've been there. 
 
Mayor Ford needs to step down and look after his own issues for a while.  He did admit to drinking and driving mocking those who challenged him on that as though it was a bullshit law.   Well it's not.  Most people know someone who has died from a drinking driver.  My own cousin was hit and killed by one.  This guy seems to have the emotional maturity of an angry teenager.  He even dresses like one:

 

I honestly don't wish him any ill will.  To be honest, if this guy is allowed to continue, he might be the greatest Mayor Toronto has ever had...I like to call that the 'Winston Churchill' theory.

...and hell...the more he says...the more I get to laugh at Torontonians about!

Rob Ford: the reason why we should vote for leaders instead of politicians

In Charge of Canada's largest city is the biggest stupid asshole politician this side of Silvio Berlusconi. 

 

There is a video of him smoking crack.  There is a video of him in "one of his drunken stupors" all out raging.  Threatening to tear out 'someone's' eyes and throat...in what appears to be a big boy temper tantrum.  The 'Someone' in question apparently called Rob a "Liar and a thief".  Well we all know that he's half right (at least).  Rob pulled a Clinton and said that he "Doesn't Smoke crack" ...then later retracted it using the words in the past tense ... last year.  He doesn't smoke it...he did...but he doesn't now.  Given the letter of the syntax, I suppose he wasn't smoking crack cocaine at the exact moment that someone had asked him that question...apart from that ... all bets are off.  

This slippery son-of-a-bitch thought he could not be called a liar by getting "Clever" with the syntax...like some fat stupid schoolboy who ate all the cupcakes.  I'd rather that he did lie directly.  The way he did it was not only a lie but an insult as well. 

Here's the rub though:  There is a racist, gay bashing, lying alcoholic crack head in Toronto:  So what?   He's Mayor.   Toronto...not only is the world laughing at you...they are laughing at me for being in the same country as you.   Clearly...politics isn't serving us very well to have this loser, and losers like him, in a position of power.  We can't make educated guesses on who a politician is based on "How they look" and "What they say".  We should have learned that from the 'Ray gun' administration (peering over the border).  I want to see a fucking resume!   There needs to be a more complete process here.

He looks the part...and he says things that voters want to hear.  Though, in his tapes, he reportedly bashes gays and minorities pretty severely.   With all the mud HE HAS HIMSELF dragged his own name through.  With all the HUMILIATING crap this guy is proven to have done...HE WON'T STEP DOWN.   Well...judgement doesn't seem to be his main strength. 

Well I'm not going to let Toronto off the hook for this.  I don't want a guy like this IN my city...never mind RUNNING IT!   From now until the end of my days, if any Torontonian comes around telling me that their city is the best in Canada...I will look them square in the eyes and say "Rob Ford". 

Review: Far Cry 3

Well looking at my last post complaining of how bad Heroes 6 was and the theory about Ubisoft pooching the product like all big companies;  Far Cry 3 presented those words on a platter and asked if I would like salt with my dinner.  Ubisoft's kick ass organic sandbox game, though not without it's quirks, is a solid good fun game with excellent PC development.  The main NPC's in cut scenes are VERY well done.  The body language...the voice inflections...the personality...it is like they are real people.  To say it is well done is actually an understatement.  I'd say it is genius.  Normally I wouldn't even mention it...but it is so good that, in this case, I had to.

After the intro missions, in the wilderness, it is a fight for your life.  Shoot a gun and 20 pirates drop out of the trees knowing that a rebel (namely you) had fired a gun and exactly where the location of the gun shot.  News flash guys; an AK 47 fired by a pirate sounds exactly like one that is fired by a rebel.  This makes hunting in the beginning quite hard.  You need a bigger ammo bag to carry ammo.  You need better holsters so you can carry more than one weapon (not all firearms).  Specific pelts are used to create specific levels of containers for each category and you can't skip any (oddly enough) but it does make for a decent game mechanic despite the flaw in logic.  Despite the difficulty, it is very fun and rewarding starting with nothing and working your way up.  All my favorite games have that aspect. 

If you hang glide, be sure to look straight down.  Some trees are three dimensional...others are one sided that pivot to whichever side you are to them.  You can't see this so well from the ground but from the air it's pretty apparent.  Hang gliding, Off roading with a variety of vehicles, Seado'ing, parachuting; this sandbox is full of cool toys to get around with.  If you happen to use the hang - glider in a certain area...don't worry...there is a tribe of stealthy island Oompa Loompas that will have it set up again when you come back. 

Some of the skills are fairly suspect.  There is one skill that allows you to melee kill two guys who are standing next to a climbable ledge if you are below them...it might be cool if it actually ever happened:  That two guys happened to be standing next to each other on
                  what happened to be a climbable ledge
                  and you happened to be below them...
                  and it happened to be in your best interest to do that. 

In other words it's a useless skill.  There are 3 trees to branch out into but you must play the main mission to unlock the next batch of skills to put points into.  Personally, I would prefer that all skills are unlocked in the beginning which allows for more versatility of allocation...changing the experience and adding to the replay value.

Logical story cohesiveness was a little flawed.  In the night club you are calling your brother 'Vince' but 'Vince' was later given to a guy who was in the night club partying with you...who was later written out of the story.  The written dialogue said:
                            
                          "No no...he didn't say 'Vince, I'm not buying'...
                                         he said 'Bitch, I'm not buying'"

No.   That doesn't work.  Nice try though.  You don't call your tougher older brother that looks out for you and you respect 'Bitch'...even jokingly that's not kosher.

Yet I think 'Vince', The pal with a bag for a hat, was somehow there at the end.  Maybe the Island Oompa Loompas rescued him.

Another bug is when you are rescued by Denis, you are taken to Amanki village.  Now you have to understand that the rebels have been at 'war' with the pirates and have been on the losing end of said war.  The pirates control everything except for this village and a stronghold to the South.  In fact, you need to look both ways before crossing the street outside the village, or you are likely to be run over by a gang of pirates in a technical. 

So this village has got to be lined with machine guns, traps, mines and bunkers, right? 

Well...would you believe about 200 patio lanterns, no visible guns at all, pretty women in sexy clothes.  They are dancing, having casual conversation and a barbeque.   Their last ditch defense is a fucking LUAU!  The pirates know where the village is (as said in a radio conversation) ...there is also 2 roads 30 feet outside the village that the pirates use on a regular basis.  This does not compute.


The feel of the game is great in the beginning.  You've got this great shopping list of skins you need to get and pirates and animals seem to be chasing you all around the jungle...encouraging creative solutions.  Later on, at it's worst, it feels like grinding.  More bases...more towers...more relics... blah blah blah.  The boss fights are more like quick time events (push a button now when the computer tells you and succeed...otherwise die).   The 'Bosses' had more dimension to their personalities than in most games:

            Vaas is a troubled guy in desperate need of therapy.  He wants to be part of the group but also resents the group.  Feeling like an outsider all his life, he joined Hoyt to make a break for himself.  He needs a captive audience when he talks...and nothing has his attention more than someone tied up in a cage...with their fate at his disposal.  Remember that there are 2 acorns that fell from the tree he came from!

             Buck is a sexual predator.  He is the very definition of how personality can blind you to someone's actual character.  The main protagonist (Jason) seems to have 20/20 on him the whole time.  Most of the time you are doing jobs for Buck, you wonder if he is just joking about keith...and that Jason is mistaken about him.  Buck is, IMHO, the best played character in the game.  This guy creeps you right out...despite his great personality.  Brilliant!

              Hoyt is an aggressive capitalist.  Fear and terror keep his people under control but it's kind of lonely at the top.  As far as he is concerned; Slave trading is a business.  He has commodified people to be nothing more than product.  His mercenaries are like his pets that he trains to do his bidding.  Because he has the power over others, he feels that he is worth more than them.  In some ways he is the ultimate warrior of power politics.   Trading, killing, and torturing has become a way of life for this guy.   The scary part?  People like this are out there in the world right now.
              
These 'Bosses' make sense.  Lesser games would have the 'Bosses' be so rude to the player so that when it comes time to kill them...the player feels compelled to reload after and kill them in exciting, new and creative ways. 

There are a ton of mini-games; Racing, Supply delivery, knife throwing, shooting... there is a combat challenge with different variable each one.  There is hunting with specific weapons that can be really interesting.

I bought this game on sale for $23.  It is worth many times that in entertainment value.  9/10

Review: Heroes of Might and Magic VI

For $10 on Steam, I decided to pick up number 6 in the series.  Steam is a Valve product and they have always treated us gamers with fairness.  Yet this game is a UBIsoft product and they have their own DRM.  So, though comfortable within the walls of our Steam, we are ejected into the unfamiliar territory of UPlay.  On installing and setting up an account, one "Needs" a brand new DRM to play this game.  'Well it had better be worth it', you say grudgingly as it takes you through the hoops to get validated. 

For everything you knew about Heroes 5...get ready for a brand new (and much less intuitive) set of rules.  They needlessly changed EVERYTHING and made it MUCH WORSE than EVER BEFORE!  Do you want to look like a knight and be called a wizard?  Learn spells and not know until much later how terribly you have POOCHED your character?  You get NO tutorial for ANYTHING.  They dropped you off like a babe in the woods with some of the worst voice acting you have ever heard blathering on about some pointless shit.   It looks to me like the design team had A TON OF IDEAS...and not too many of them any good!  They swept all these ideas up and shoved them into the HEROES 6 receptacle of product...along with a few apple cores and banana peels.  When it came time to actually sort and select...some community college project manager said "Oh hell...it's all good enough".   This is ALWAYS what happens when a big company absorbs an excellent product.  Microsoft did it with the MechWarrior series. 

New World Computing was the founding company for this franchise.  They were absorbed by 3DO and eventually the series was passed to UBIsoft.  I hadn't realized Ubisoft was so large.  All I remember them doing were those Tom Clancy type games where you either shot first or had to reload.  I figure if you are going to want to shoot a firearm and have realistic results...and the results coming back at you were to be realistic as well...a reload is better than a funeral. 

Heroes of Might and Magic 6 is an insult to the series and a testament to how badly a big company can pooch a product.  Give it a miss.  3/10