Far Cry 2

Written by Jason Cisarano  on October 05, 2007

First Impressions: Get ready for more fun in the sun with guns

Tweet

Comments

It's hard to believe that it's been more than three years since Far Cry first hit the PC. Developer Crytek put players in the shoes of Jack Carver and then threw Carver into a mysterious jungle adventure that involved mercenaries, a woman with a secret, and guns. Lots of guns, big and small. And plenty of mutants, for some reason. Okay, so the endgame left a bit to be desired, what with the mutants and all, but Ubisoft is now doing the development in-house, and they're promising to fix all that and build on what was great about the original. The new game promises some amazing physics modeling, right down to details like the wind and clouds. It also has an innovative take on the storytelling to allow for a whole lot more player freedom. And they're getting rid of all those pesky levels that break up the action.



That's right, the Far Cry 2 is confirmed to be mutant-free. It also leaves hero Jack Carver in the dust and sets the new story in Africa, far from the tropical isles of the original. This time out, the story allows the player to choose from a pool of a dozen or so different characters, though it's not clear yet what practical difference this will make in the game. It looks like the starting point will be the same, no matter which character the player chooses: he'll wake up in an African hut, facing the local warlord who quickly becomes his nemesis. The player's mission will be simple: kill that warlord. How that happens, though, is completely up to the player.

Far Cry 2 is set to blow the doors off what we know of as sandbox gameplay. If the first Far Cry gave the players some freedom as to how they carried out each mission, the new one will make the whole game world one big sandbox without levels or load screens. And in case you haven't heard yet, that world will cover fifty square kilometers of varied African terrain, from mountaintops to seashores. Players will get missions and carry them out in the order they choose and using any means they see fit. And fortunately, there will be vehicles to make covering all that ground just a little easier.

One of the most exciting things about the upcoming game is that it promises to be nonlinear and much less scripted that most games are. Plenty of games have offered mission options that break up the scripted monotony, but most of them just throw in some side quests that try to disguise the fact that the main storyline is just as linear as any novel. You know the feeling: you want to get in as many side quests as you can before you play the main mission quest that will close off the area. Or there's that other feeling you get when you hit enter an area and a cutscene launches, letting you know that you're on the path to Уthe big story.Ф Far Cry 2 is supposed to break this moldЧor at least be a bit better at hiding the seams.

For one thing, its A.I. isn't going to be scripted in the way other games do it. Each NPC will have a set of stats that define its needs and desires. They will also have a set of skills that they will be able to use to satisfy these needs. On a simple level, this means that an NPC will sometimes need to eat and rest and stand guard, and it will know where, when, and how to accomplish these things. More complex tasks will allow the NPCs to choose from a variety of possible solutions to a problem. For instance, if the player opens fire on an NPC, the NPC's current attitude will affect whether it returns fire, runs away, chooses to flank the player, or looks for a bigger gun. All of these A.I. behaviors are built on a system of rules that help the NPC deal with changing situations and player behaviors. As long as the player doesn't interfere, they'll go about their daily lives based on what they need or want to do. But as soon as the player gets involved, things will change. In fact, any of the player's actions can have a direct impact on NPC behavior. If the player is talented at picking off enemy combatants by the dozen, this will affect the morale of the survivors. He'll build a reputation that may terrorize some of the bad guys while enraging others. If the player is particularly cruel, the NPCs will react accordingly. Not all NPCs are bad guys, of course, and the player will be able to build friendships with them as well. By doing favors for them or even saving their lives, the player earns some good karma that may be paid back later on. Unlike in other games that hand the player a pre-existing set of friends, the player of Far Cry 2 won't be able to count on NPCs always coming to his aid. To mis-quote Barbara Billingsley: УChump don't give no help, chump don't get no help.Ф

Story elements will be just as dynamic. Although we don't know much about the story details beyond the warlord stuff already mentioned, the overall theme of this installment is Уredemption.Ф It sounds like it's going to have players making a few interesting choices along the way, since the designers have summed it up in the question Уhow far would you go to do the right thing?Ф They've also promised the usual several endings based around this idea. Along those lines, the player will have the chance to align himself with one or another faction during the game, and missions offered will vary based on these alliances. If the player kills the leader of a sub-group, another will be promoted to take his placeЧbut hopefully this won't just be a cover for a constant stream of respawning bad guys. The free-form plot allows the player to choose how to approach objectives and allows him to define his own play style. If you like stealth play, stay in the shadows and use the dynamic day-night cycle to your advantage. If you prefer the shoot-'em-up, find yourself a big boomstick and go to town. Don't forget, though, that the NPCs will remember how you're behaving yourself along the way.

It pretty much goes without saying that the tech side of Far Cry 2 is set to knock your socks off. The first one was a good-looking game with plenty of eye candy for the high-end systems, and the upcoming release is definitely going to run shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of the next-gen games. Ubisoft is building a brand new game engine that they're calling the Dunia Engine. УDunia,Ф by the way, seems to mean things like Уearth,Ф УkingdomФ and УworldФ in Indonesian, just in case you were wondering. It's fitting, since the Far Cry 2 world will certainly be worthy of the name. First off, there's the more or less obligatory mention of destructible objects. But this time they're saying simply that everything that should be destructible, is. For instance, the trees will react to gunfire, wind, and fire all using real-time physics. That means that trees that get shot will drop branches where they're hit. They'll catch fire when appropriate. And if there's a strong enough wind, they'll lose leaves. This next little detail is a bit over the top, but here goes. Clouds will be dynamically generated based on simulated weather conditions. I'm not sure how that will make for a better game, but it sounds cool nonetheless. All of this will undoubtedly require some system beef for a high-end experience, and the minimum specs haven't been released, but the devs have said that it will support both DX9 and DX10, so all is not lost. We may not have to go out and buy new computers just yet.