Looking Back At Far Cry 2

Gamasutra has an interview with Ubisoft's Patrick Redding about the development of Far Cry 2. He explains his team's reasoning behind some of the decisions they made while trying to innovate in the very well-established first-person shooter genre. Ubisoft is also trying to crowdsource a guide for the game. "We don't want to be necessarily spoon-feed everything to people, because that gets insulting. It's also tiresome if you're constantly interrupting them to remind them things about that system. I like to learn things through trial and error, and I know a lot of players are like that. But accessibility isn't just about it being easy to pick up the controls. It's also making sure that you're supporting a certain kind of readability, giving the player a certain kind of feedback. Maybe the way to put it is that it might be less a function of the kind of low-level mechanics of the game at the control level, and more about how you're using the output of the game as good feedback for the player, so they at least are clear on the causal link between what they're doing and what's happening."

Zomg, 50 sq km!!one!

[Anonymous Coward]

How convenient; just today I whipped up a professional artistic rendering of the much hailed "50 sq km" (which seems to be frequently confused with 50^2 sq km). http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/2576/artistrenderingue2.gif [imageshack.us] Africa is really just one big canyon -- with savannas and jungles side-by-side in its interior -- otherwise surrounded on all sides by desert.. didn't you know that?

Re:"Crowdsource"

[AceofSpades19]

Well from my understanding of it, you get some people from a crowd and shove them through a compiler

Re:"Crowdsource"

[fake_name]

> Well from my understanding of it, you get some people from a crowd and shove them through a compiler

With one slight difference that is exactly my recipie for Crowdsauce!

Re:Far Cry 2 sucks

[PopeRatzo]

Just drive around in a truck and shoot people with the machine gun.

That sounds great to me.

I haven't played Far Cry 2 yet, but Far Cry is one of my favorites. There were times, about 3/4 the way through when, going down the river in the Zodiac, it felt like I was back in 'Nam in 1968, with a necklace of ears, high on Cambodian dope.

In fact, several times I had to turn it off because I was having severe flashbacks. ...of watching Tropic Thunder.

Re:Not as special a game as he thinks it is.

[elrous0]

In all fairness, there are factions--two of them. The first one consists of you. The second one consists of EVERYONE ELSE IN THE FUCKING GAME!

Re:"Crowdsource"

[fbjon]

Soylent C is people!

Re:Innovate and 1st person shooter in same sentenc

[Narishma]

Yeah first person shooters are totally overdone, and third person shooters are starting to. Someone should create a second person shooter for a change.

Re:This. Game. Sucks.

[drsquare]

Don't forget that after more than 4 years have past since the last game, the AI still has binocular x-ray vision, perfect aim and has trouble navigating.

I think they should be "innovating" less and studying more. It seems like every new game repeats past problems and ignores solutions.

But look at the realistic grass!

Re:This. Game. Sucks.

[Kent Recal]

Better yet, smoke some of that realistic grass. Then you'll be writing rave reviews, too.